Lyrics
(Sound of a voicemail tone, then a hesitant breath)
Uh... Yo. It's Adama. I know the time. Just clocked out the night shift.
Got this ringing in my ears, not the tinnitus, something different, from the before-life.
It's the key in the top lock at the Canarsie spot, six-oh-one on the dot, every morning.
The metal scrape, the tumbler's cough, that was my father's only warning.
A whole language in the groan of the brass, a future he was building that I couldn't inhabit.
Heard it through the sheetrock, a ghost in the fabric,
Just a kid pretending to be asleep, tracing the pattern on the ceiling plaster.
He was weaving a safety net, and I was just trying to un-master it.
[Chorus]
It ain't the words you said, it's the sound I kept.
Just the deadbolt turning while the whole block slept.
That was the whole sermon, that was the only testament.
Just the deadbolt turning, and the silence that was left.
[Verse 2]
Now my whole life is beeps—price scanner, microwave, the low-fuel light.
Little digital chirps in the fluorescent white.
Nothing has the same weight, the same damn grit in the gears.
Been trying to un-hear that dialect for years.
Remember you told me, "An engineer builds things that last, things with right angles."
All my lines are crooked, a knot of weird tangles.
This ain't a complaint, Pop. I know the thread you gave me was the strongest gold.
But I had to fray the edges, break the goddamn hold.
[Bridge]
(The beat thins out, replaced by a rhythmic, layered CROWD OF WHISPERS, like percussive shakers)
(Whisper 1: Adama…)
(Whisper 2: …build something…)
(Whisper 3: …the foundation…)
(Whisper 4: …make us proud…)
(Whisper 5: …don't forget the mask…)
(Whisper 6: …engineer… engineer…)
[Chorus]
It ain't the words you said, it's the sound I kept.
Just the deadbolt turning while the whole block slept.
That was the whole sermon, that was the only testament.
Just the deadbolt turning, and the silence that was left.
[Outro]
(Beat cuts. Sound of a sigh, then a quiet hang-up CLICK.)
Anyway. I’m good. Call me.
About GRIOT GHOST
Born Adama Koné to Ivorian immigrants, GRIOT GHOST was raised between the rich aromas of his mother's kitchen in Canarsie and the hard-edged reality of the Brooklyn streets. He was translating bills for his parents by age nine, but hiding his rhyme books from a father who dreamed of him becoming an engineer. Now, he funds his studio time by stocking supermarket shelves overnight, turning the…
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