"No Contact": Here's a sneak peek from the upcoming album by Hollow G (Teddy), produced by local Christian producer Loc Saint (complete lyrics below).
For the last five years, Chris Hoke has gone with Bob Ekblad to the Skagit County Jail in northwest WA where they read the Bible and pray with men of all races and criminal levels. Inmates, especially the young Chicano gang members, have been vocal about how much they appreciate Chris' singing and guitar playing before the dialogical Bible studies. One particular young gang member would sing all the new raps and rhymes he'd write in his solitary confinement cell to Chris when they would have one on one visitations. "One day, Chris," he'd exclaim, "we're gonna record together. You and your white boy guitar with my gangster raps!"
That day has come. Only the song, "No Contact," laments that the original homie who had the idea is still locked up in prison, along with most of the young men Chris has ministered to in the jail and gangs. The vision came to fulfillment with another young survivor of the gang life--who goes by Hollow G--who has grown alongside Chris, the Tierra Nueva community, and the Holy Spirit bringing G into God's family. Hollow G is working on a full album about the life of an American alien growing up into the gang life, "Raised By the Streets."
The album will be coming in 2011, but this preview track combines the perspectives of a jail chaplain and a fellow comrade of the streets, naming the forces that separate us--on both the systemic and spiritual level.
Here are the lyrics:
NO CONTACT
This is for the homies who’re locked up in there
Your faces hang on our walls
Your names they hang in our prayers
CHORUS
There’s no contact
(for my G’s…for my homies…for my family)
Missin’ my homies cuz we go way back
They’re now in the pen and there’s no contact
Cuz they’re stuck to the system and they can’t get unattached
And I’m wishin’ we could just all kick back
Like back in the day when we all had a blast
Chasin’ some rucas or makin’ some cash
Or getting’ laid in the back (where we’d laugh,
With some girls) of the parties that we’d just crashed
Can’t even count all the guns we stashed
But, as they say, That’s all the past
Cuz I’m tryin’ to live my life right
For my kids and my future wife
And I want you right there by my side
Even though it’s gonna be a struggle to walk a straight line
Even though it’s gonna be a struggle, just know your homie is thinkin’ about you
Like all the time
We used to embrace when we’d meet in the jail
Now we gotta wait until someone posts bail
The guards only allow handshakes
Or a pat on the back, touchin’ the ink of your namesakes
No contact—even out on the streets
With grudges between old friends and family
They’re thicker than prison walls of concrete
CHORUS
This goes out to all my gente:
Big Neaners, Travieso, Pelon and Muerte
I love you and miss you hasta la muerte
And praying to God for all my ese’s
For the ones that are straight stressin’
From trials, phone calls and visitations
They get out but go back in due to all them bad temptations
Walkin’ back and forth, impatient
Tryin’ to figure out their next destination
And reminisce about when we were chamacos
But don’t trip out cuz I’ll see you arratos
Writin’ you letters, doin’ whatever
To keep in contact with all my pinteros
I see you wavin’ to me through the glass
Like the funeral’s already passed
But the light in your eyes makes me a believer
Like the sound in your voice, the quick “I love you” before you blow in the receiver
I wish you could hear the songs he sang to me in a visiting cell
How he flowed and made the room hum just like a bell
But I’m the only one our here now who’s livin’ to tell
When there’s no contact…
CHORUS
No contact, they say you feel forgotten and dead
Well Jesus he said even the dead
In their graves will hear My voice
Well do ya?
Do you feel that love?
Do you feel that touch?
Are you seein’ the people He’s bringing back into touch?
(Even when) There’s no pardon—that’s the tragic order
Of this world of pain and separation
It’s like Satan’s the warden
But we’re fightin’ back with some love in this chorus
Packin’ forgiveness
Like a flashlight when you’re lost in a forest
It shows
the way
out
CHORUS
Great beginning. I look forward to hearing more of your work in the future guys! Keep digging deep.
Posted by: Adria | November 22, 2010 at 01:40 AM
I found you guys!! Sounds great, Hollow-G !! Yeahhh, Love goes out to all my people dealing with struggles and being inprisoned. I aint heard from you guys in a minute like always there tons going on..Love you guys, LOC SAINT
www.myspace.com/locsaint
Posted by: Loc Saint | November 07, 2010 at 06:07 PM