What's making it?

"What's making it?" was the first song I wrote for my album 'Gone Is The Illusion'. Ironically enough it ended up being the very last song on the album. The idea of making it has changed over time, especially due to the changing landscape of the music industry and personal experiences I've had. Take for example what I wrote in this older post in my blog about my experience of being on national television.
http://www.8thrankrecords.com/2015/01/there-is-no-spoon-there-is-no-manual.html

I went from badly wanting to be on MTV and BET and
wanting to be signed to a lucrative deal with whatever label was the most popular at the time. To wanting and eventually starting my own record label and learning how artists actually get paid for their art. Things I would've never thought capable years ago. Crazy how perspectives change with time spent in the game......

What's making it?

Verse 1

Dreams and goals I don’t play with it

like a vampires chest put a stake in it

somewhere along lines you’ve heard this shit

You ain’t good enough to be making it

Words spoken by an antagonist

Whose viewpoint is lower than average

but it seem so many people carry it

like pepper salt shakers in a cabinet

I thought making it was celebrating with peers

But I realized they had other ideas

The makings of a man change year to year

in this western civilized part of the sphere

The unknown of making it is part of the fear

and the he said she said from ear to ear

I know artists who made it near the pinnacle

started out a optimist and came back cynical

Music videos don’t change how you live

Rappers on mtv still live in they mama crib

more ironic than the cia wearing coke boy t-shirts dock of the bay

Your favorite artist might work in the day

saving up for big time radio play

when he hands the money over to the DJ

who never intended to play his songs anyway

Making it is not as simple as you thought it was

Like a ziploc bag minus all of your drugs

all that hard work and you ain’t got a ounce of buzz

Thats more than ouch when you get snubbed

Nothings perfect about making it

In fact there’s more of a pain to it

More of a paint to it the interior is cracked and the frame is chipped

Hook

So what they can’t grasp, your need for it

They don’t wake up in the morning and eat with it

Your obsession and why you feel complete with it

So why the fuck should I care how they see or feel for it

Is making it making other people happy

Or being rich out your ass and lonely

Whats making it? Who the fuck knows!

All I know is there’s a point where I determine it

Verse 2

Amidst my Grandma’s picture collection

I’m a vampire, yes I have no reflection

I look at my cousins graduation

Pictures of so much admiration

about me they have no expectations

Proud of his and all her contributions

I guess I always been kinda losing

My path not there’s one I been choosing

He ain’t like us it’s so confusing

The work you do has not been proving

a answer of a financial solution

only the hours of you coming and going

change but no progress is showing

your birth was only the sign of a omen

He’ll never have his own just stuck in our home then

not sitting in a benz with chrome on both ends

How come you couldn’t be like all your old friends?

Jared and Richard why don’t you call them?

Frankensteins monster without the bolts in

Chances slimmer than signs of a vulcan

Sitting here day & night

all my good friends have moved on in life

Mini van with kids with a house and wife

Suburban area so quiet at night

I know I couldn’t do it with my internal fight

I’d peel my skin off and disappear in the night

Like how my uncle my was explaining it

this art music thing you ain’t making it

Then his left knee he started banging it

Angry because the drums he stopped playing it

He went and got married kids the end of it

if thats life then I don’t need this shit

Hook

So what they can’t grasp, your need for it

They don’t wake up in the morning and eat with it

Your obsession and why you feel complete with it

So why the fuck should I care how they see or feel for it

Is making it making other people happy

Or being rich out your ass and lonely

Whats making it? Who the fuck knows!

All I know is there’s a point where I determine it

Verse 3

My station in life am I ashamed of it?

Funny how everyone perceives whats making it

But I did more than my co workers at Bally’s

and proved wrong friends who said they were family

I’ve looked for moments I could validate

every single waking moment that I create

My lifes not worthy of being snubbed

I’m really not the loser that you thought I was

but the seeds of jealousy started it cause

You look at me as if I was addicted to drugs

Your kindness was always a sense of false love

When you have a metal fist inside of kit gloves

Proving myself I used to slave on that ship

Til I realize nothing really came of it

Its like an elephant explaining life to an ant

his position in spite he can’t fit in his pants

I’m self possessed like an evil spirit

jumping in its own chest and the screams you hear it

I’m sorry grandma for not listening

I didn’t become a baptized christian then

but I’m so much comfortable  in my skin

more than I ever was way back then

Sorry Granddad I didn’t roll in a Benz

I ain’t never been to good at saving my ends

But this music thing keeps on pulling

I’m so obsessed with it like its a trend

I’m better at expressing myself with a pen

I’m sorry ma for all the schools I never got in

It’s my life after all I have to look in

determine my life and the state that its in

See I ain’t happy with just making it

Paradise lost I’m escaping it

Hook

So what they can’t grasp, your need for it

They don’t wake up in the morning and eat with it

Your obsession and why you feel complete with it

So why the fuck should I care how they see or feel for it

Is making it making other people happy

Or being rich out your ass and lonely

Whats making it? Who the fuck knows!

All I know is there’s a point where I determine it