I Was Zero - Sage Francis

If it wasn’t for the bass, I wouldn’t need these hearing aids

If it wasn’t for mistakes, I probably wouldn’t be here today

10 years ago I was 22

20 years ago I was 12

30 years ago I was 2

But when I came out my momma I was zero

When I came out my momma I was zero.

(x3)

I was zero when I came out my momma, and now everybody knows

In the before life, I was undead

I was home schooled, there were no rules

But I gave it all up, just for the chance to go public

A celestial scarecrow dancing with the puppets

A tug in my gut, I’m carrying the world in my stomach

I’m a surrogate mother-fucker the girls love it

Birth the suffix and cut the visible string

Control’s much more than a physical thing

I was born into it, and before I knew it

I saw the students of poor gettin' hauled off to war

The law of Judas in the land of the king’s tax

Partaking the Eucharist, then demand your kick-backs

Spiritual wrist slap, please pass the sacrament

Ask if big bad black Jesus was African

Selling a click track, call it a soul-clap

It’s all in how you package it

The power of a magic trick

Immaculate concepts, lost in the land of the cross

I’m standing off with a man of the cloth

He knows the ins and out’s and all I wants the outs

Hes selling real estate for some place in the clouds

But I’m not investing in intellectual property

Inventing gender-bending technology

Because maybe everybody needs to just become a sexual oddity

Leaving birth to the test tubes and death to the lottery

There’s no one stopping me, I’ve gotta be self-regulating

Wealth is escalating, but my poverty was entertaining

I’m debating, the value of a caste system

I’m cash backed for wars and wars funded by my tax income

I find my part of the problem in part of me

There’s always been a difference between what I am and what I wanna be

It’s either Jihadist freak or Jesus scenester

I heard god is cumming and shes a screamer

I couldn’t understand what she was telling me

Why everyone thinks that they’re their own worst enemy

I followed the manual and I swallowed the skeleton key

And it unlocked the hell in me

(So this is my gift to god!) Rippin' at my dick like a tourniquet, syphilis!

(This is my gift to god!) I’m jumpin' out the cake, naked with a shank

(This is my gift to god!) Unwrap the package confetti made of maggots

(This is my gift) You call that talent?

here’s your image back, you can have it

10 years ago I was 22

20 years ago I was 12

30 years ago I was 2

When I came out my momma I was zero.

(x4)

I was zero when I came out my momma, and now everybody knows.

(x2)

If it wasn’t for the bass, I wouldn’t need these hearing aids

If it wasn’t for mistakes, I probably wouldn’t be here today.

(x2)