[ti:That Power]
[ar:Childish Gambino]
[al:CAMP]
[offset:0]
[00:00.39]That Power - Childish Gambino
[00:01.83]All these haters
[00:03.53]
[00:04.34]See you later
[00:06.17]
[00:07.23]All that I could do
[00:09.64]But you dont even feel me though
[00:11.22]I know you know I know you got that power
[00:14.90]
[00:16.90]That power
[00:17.96]
[00:19.89]Oh, oh oh
[00:22.39]
[00:22.95]So CG but a nigga stay real
[00:25.40]Though I'm fly I'm ill I'm running shit
[00:27.15]3-points, field goal
[00:28.39]Rappers used to laugh like I tripped and fell
[00:30.89]Cause I don't stunt a gold cross like I Christian bail
[00:33.70]Yeah, they starin' at me jealous cause I do shows bigger
[00:36.57]But your looks don't help, like an old gold digger
[00:39.38]Uncool, but lyrically I'm a stone cold killer
[00:42.12]So it's 400 blows to these Truffaut niggas
[00:44.67]
[00:45.99]Yeah, now that's the line of the century
[00:48.11]Niggas missed it, too busy
[00:49.35]They lyin' 'bout penitentiary
[00:50.98]Man, you ain't been there
[00:52.41]Nigga you been scared
[00:54.03]And I'm still living single like Synclaire
[00:56.65]Lovin' white dudes who call me white and then try to hate
[00:59.72]When I wasn't white enough to use your pool when I was 8
[01:02.71]Stone Mountain you raised me well
[01:04.70]I'm stared at by Confederates but hard as hell
[01:07.65]Tight jeans penny loafers, but I still drink a Bodine
[01:10.46]Staying on my me shit, but hated on by both sides
[01:13.58]I'm just a kid who blowing up with my father's name
[01:16.51]And every black "you're not black enough"
[01:18.14]Is a white "you're all the same"
[01:19.57]Mm Food like Rapp Snitch Knishes
[01:21.77]Cuz its oreos, twinkies, coconuts, delicious
[01:24.57]
[01:25.14]How many gold plaques you want inside your dining room?
[01:27.70]I said I want a full house
[01:29.14]They said, "You got it dude!"
[01:30.60]
[01:32.03]All these haters
[01:33.53]
[01:34.71]See you later
[01:36.34]
[01:37.52]All that I could do
[01:38.89]
[01:39.71]But you dont even feel me though
[01:41.51]I know you know I know you got that power
[01:44.95]
[01:47.13]That power
[01:48.01]
[01:50.13]Oh, oh oh
[01:52.56]Holla, holla, holla, holla at yo boy
[01:54.50]Like yo dad when he's pissed off
[01:56.00]Got flow, I could make a cripple crip walk
[01:58.86]Niggas' breath stank, all they do is shit talk
[02:01.61]People want a real man, I made 'em wait this long
[02:04.61]Maybe if he bombs, he'll quit and keep actin'
[02:07.16]And save paper like your aunt does with McDonald napkins
[02:09.98]How'd it happen? Honesty did it
[02:12.55]See all of my competition at the bodies exhibit
[02:15.23]Yeah I bodied the limits and I get at them fakers
[02:18.11]Motherfuck if you hate it, cremated them haters
[02:20.94]So, my studio be a funeral
[02:23.85]Yeah, this is our year, oh you didn't know?
[02:27.15]Uh, yeah I'm killin' you, step inside the lion's den
[02:29.83]Man I'm hov if the 'O' was an 'I' instead
[02:32.90]On stage with my family in front of me
[02:35.53]I am what I am: everything I wanna be
[02:37.94]
[02:39.75]All these haters
[02:41.31]
[02:42.31]See you later
[02:44.18]
[02:45.36]All that I could do
[02:46.80]
[02:47.49]But you dont even feel me though
[02:49.30]I know you know I know you got that power
[02:52.92]
[02:54.86]That power
[02:55.67]
[03:13.01]This is on a bus back from camp.
[03:15.03]
[03:16.28]I'm thirteen and so are you.
[03:17.29]
[03:18.53]Before I left for camp I imagined it would be me and three or four other dudes I hadn't met yet, running around all summer,
[03:23.10]getting into trouble.
[03:23.53]
[03:25.65]It turned out it would be me and just one girl.
[03:27.40]
[03:28.02]That's you.
[03:28.33]
[03:29.52]And we're still at camp
[03:30.58]as long as we're on the bus
[03:31.66]and not at the pickup point
[03:32.78]where our parents would be waiting for us.
[03:34.22]
[03:34.97]We're still wearing our orange camp t-shirts.
[03:36.23]
[03:37.23]We still smell like pineneedles.
[03:38.03]
[03:39.35]I like you and you like me and I more-than-like you,
[03:42.21]but I don't know if you do or don't more-than-like me.
[03:45.15]You've never said, so I haven't been saying anything all summer,
[03:48.20]content to enjoy the small miracle of a girl
[03:50.26]choosing to talk to me and choosing to do so again
[03:52.74]the next day and so on.
[03:53.80]
[03:54.99]A girl who's smart and funny and who,
[03:58.00]if I say something dumb for a laugh,
[04:00.12]is willing to say something two or three times
[04:01.81]as dumb to make me laugh,
[04:02.93]
[04:03.68]but who also gets weird and wise sometimes in a way I could never be.
[04:07.18]A girl who reads books that no one's assigned to her,
[04:10.37]whose curly brown hair has a line running through it from
[04:12.99]
[04:13.49]where she put a tie to hold it up while it was still wet
[04:15.43]
[04:16.55]Back in the real world we don't go to the same school,
[04:19.30]
[04:20.17]and unless one of our families moves to a dramatically different neighborhood,
[04:23.23]we won't go to the same high school.
[04:24.60]
[04:25.35]So, this is kind of it for us. Unless I say something.
[04:28.81]
[04:29.93]And it might especially be it for us if I actually do say something.
[04:32.55]
[04:34.44]The sun's gone down and the bus is quiet.
[04:36.06]
[04:37.00]A lot of kids are asleep.
[04:37.93]
[04:38.74]We're talking in whispers about a tree we saw at a rest stop that looks like a kid we know.
[04:42.80]
[04:43.49]And then I'm like, "Can I tell you something?"
[04:46.53]
[04:47.65]And all of a sudden I'm telling you.
[04:49.40]And I keep telling you and it all comes out of me
[04:52.29]and it keeps coming and your face is there and gone
[04:54.53]and there and gone as we pass underneath the orange lamps
[04:56.58]that line the sides of the highway.
[04:57.90]
[04:58.58]And there's no expression on it.
[04:59.77]
[05:00.40]And I think just after a point
[05:01.95]I'm just talking to lengthen the time
[05:03.83]where we live in a world where you haven't said "yes" or "no" yet.
[05:07.95]And regrettably I end up using the word "destiny." I
[05:13.31]don't remember in what context.
[05:14.31]
[05:15.49]Doesn't really matter.
[05:16.12]
[05:17.68]Before long I'm out of stuff to say
[05:19.49]
[05:20.11]and you smile and say, "okay."
[05:21.50]
[05:23.06]I don't know exactly what you mean by it,
[05:24.93]but it seems vaguely positive and I would leave in order not to spoil the moment,
[05:28.67]but there's nowhere to go because we're are on a bus.
[05:31.17]So I pretend like I'm asleep and before long, I really am
[05:34.44]
[05:37.23]I wake up, the bus isn't moving anymore.
[05:39.48]
[05:40.66]The domed lights that line the center aisle are all on.
[05:43.28]I turn and you're not there.
[05:44.92]
[05:45.86]Then again a lot of kids aren't in their seats anymore.
[05:47.86]
[05:48.72]We're parked at the pick-up point,
[05:50.47]which is in the parking lot of a Methodist church.
[05:52.35]
[05:53.36]The bus is half empty.
[05:54.73]You might be in your dad's car by now,
[05:56.76]your bags and things piled high in the trunk.
[05:58.26]
[05:59.45]The girls in the back of the bus are shrieking
[06:01.07]and laughing and taking their sweet time disembarking
[06:02.67]as I swing my legs out into the aisle to get up off the bus,
[06:06.11]just as one of them reaches my row.
[06:07.97]
[06:08.78]It used to be our row, on our way off.
[06:11.78]It's Michelle,
[06:13.53]a girl who got suspended from third grade for a week
[06:17.03]after throwing rocks at my head.
[06:18.15]
[06:19.33]Adolescence is doing her a ton of favors body-wise.
[06:21.51]
[06:22.45]She stops and looks down at me.
[06:24.07]
[06:24.82]And her head is blasted from behind by the dome light,
[06:26.94]so I can't really see her face, but I can see her smile.
[06:30.00]
[06:30.68]And she says one word: "destiny."
[06:33.81]
[06:35.86]Then her and the girls clogging the aisles behind her
[06:37.80]all laugh and then she turns and leads them off the bus.
[06:40.00]
[06:42.62]I didn't know you were friends with them
[06:44.19]
[06:46.99]I find my dad in the parking lot.
[06:48.30]
[06:49.17]He drives me back to our house and camp is over.
[06:50.99]
[06:52.23]So is summer, even though there's two weeks until school starts.
[06:55.54]
[06:57.47]This isn't a story about how girls are evil or how love is bad,
[07:00.72]
[07:01.34]this is a story about how I learned something
[07:03.71]and I'm not saying this thing is true or not,
[07:05.40]I'm just saying it's what I learned.
[07:06.45]
[07:07.39]I told you something.
[07:08.02]
[07:09.01]It was just for you and you told everybody.
[07:11.33]
[07:12.01]So I learned cut out the middle man,
[07:13.46]make it all for everybody, always.
[07:15.09]Everybody can't turn around and tell everybody,
[07:17.08]everybody already knows, I told them.
[07:18.64]But this means there isn't a place in my life for you or someone like you
[07:22.50]. Is it sad? Sure. But it's a sadness I chose.
[07:25.49]
[07:27.05]I wish I could say this was a story about how I got on the bus a boy and got off a man more cynical, hardened, and mature and shit.
[07:32.99]But that's not true.
[07:34.24]
[07:35.24]The truth is I got on bus a the boy. And I never got off the bus.
[07:38.74]I still haven't.