young money

Pride…
Goeth before the fall.
It clangs ahead us all
In one or another uncareful way.
Let it, instead, be for the truly tall:
The ones whose ass daily chooses
Sweat and bully-bruises, Dre,
Over West Coast dreams and house-of-cards class,
Brass balls over Swarovskian glass,
Cracked-book-on-IHOP-coffee cramming
Over what gleams and dinner cruises on the Bay.
Such minds press and grind even when rejected
Or dejected by mind-doors slamming;
You know this.
And USC isn’t a pedigree you shoulda
Neglected with an ‘I sewed this up for you
Six years ago, baby.’
A seventy-million-dollar think-ahead
Maybe ain’t hay you’d wanna lay in,
Unless that’s the loudest say
Atop a pre-picked grave
You’d be swift to have engraved in stone.
I don’t know;
I’m proud of her, too.
But hubris always has an opportunity cost;
You can’t delete it once it’s known,
Nor can you raise more than once who’s grown—
Maybe on those dim-lit Compton streets
You could claw to uncover again,
Even if in tatters,
What shoulda never been sold out
To begin with:
That so-tenacious gift that praised you
Up and away from what mostly matters.