Decoded Series
"I said 'Democracy is too fuckin' slow'
If I'm givin' y'all this hard-earned bread, I wanna know
Better yet, let me decide, bitch, it's 2018
Let me pick the things I'm funding from an app on my screen
Better that than letting wack congressman I've never seen
Dictate where my money go, straight into the palms of some Money-hungry company that make guns that circulate the country And then wind up in my hood, making bloody clothes
Stray bullet hit a young boy with a snotty nose
From the concrete, he was prolly rose
Now his body froze and nobody knows what to tell his mother
On the morning of the funeral, just as she's walking out
Wiping tears away, grabbing her keys and sunglasses
She remember that she gotta file her taxes, damn"-Jermaine Lemarr Cole
Initially when hearing J Cole and any rich person bitch about what they pay in taxes, my thought is woe is me fuck nigga, how do you think most people feel making a fraction of what you make?
Cole is smart enough to relate that to most people by asking where does all this money we give to taxes go? Something we have all questioned at some point. Cardi B had a similar “rant” on this matter. Cole's idea of us having an cell phone app to allocate our taxes is so simple yet so genius.
W/e all know tax money has been abused by the government, local, state, and federal for a long time. It is usually some misappropriations of funds somewhere and what is worst is we do not have the ability to track exactly where each dollar is going. It just shows the genius of Cole, he never comes off preachy because he is always analyzing and critiquing himself as well.
Rich people problems are real, when you get rich your problems do not go away, the normal person is just less sympathetic to it because the assumption well at least you are rich. Money should resolve all stress right? Jim Carrey once said “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it's not the answer.”
J Cole is able to vent through art without coming off spoiled or ungrateful, he is still smart enough to put it in a context to relate to all.
The next half of the lyrics speculates on how our tax money is spent, and the evil that comes with money, detailing a story of a boy dying from a stray bullet that was purchased from a money hungry gun company...I wonder who? (I say sarcastically). Cole comes full circle explaining how the grieving mother on the day of her son’s funeral remembers she still has to file her taxes.