Always Shine

## Song by Robert Glasper featuring Bilal and Lupe Fiasco

"**Always Shine**" is a song by Robert Glasper, released as the fourth track from his album *Black Radio* (2012). It features guest vocals from Bilal on the hook and Lupe Fiasco on all three verses. The three performed it on the *Late Show with David Letterman* in March 2012, with the other members of the Robert Glasper Experiment—Casey Benjamin (synths and vocoder), Derrick Hodge (bass), and Mark Colenburg (drums).

According to *Los Angeles Times*, Glasper had scheduled five days to record in Los Angeles, where Fiasco wrote his second verse on the spot.

## Personnel

* Bilal Oliver — vocals
* Casey Benjamin — synthesizer, sound effects
* Chris Athens — mastering engineer
* Chris Dave — drum
* Derrick Hodge — bass vocals
* Keith "Qmillion" Lewis — recording engineer, mixing engineer
* Robert Glasper — writer, producer, piano, keyboards
* Todd Bergman — assistant recording engineer
* Wasalu "Lupe Fiasco" Jaco — vocals, writer

## Critical reception

*Jazz Line* observed of Fiasco's "powerful" lyrical verses and "The interplay of Lupe's verses and the chorus almost form a call and response as they fade into each other." *PopMatters* described it as a "straight hip-hop track that works as smart contemporary music."

## Lyrics

**Lyrics**
[Hook: Bilal]

Your inner heart, your inner mind

You're the star that will always shine

Forever you'll be with me

[Verse 1: Lupe Fiasco]

Uh, it go like

You ever see the inner depths of a man's soul?

Or ninja turtles pouring out of manholes?

This is balance

Between a comic and a conscious, that's the challenge

Between the solitary and the conference that I examines

That I imagine was a figure

Would be the start of world peace and the transformation of n\*\*\*as

Like the transubstantiation of liquor

But that's just turnin' them into blood

And we'll be right back where we was

Not a peace-sign, but a fascination with scissors

So I can cut

Myself off from the calculations of empress, empires, and the sinners

For advancement of human suffering

And other things trying to impede my publishing and editorials

That's gon' bring it back to us again

A boomerang minus Halle Barry and Eddie and everybody fucking and huh'

[Hook: Bilal]

Your inner heart, your inner mind

You're the star that will always shine

Forever you'll be with me

[Verse 2: Lupe Fiasco]

Shotgun

Even though independent cars ain't got one

I got some and more to spare

No more despair

My motor-ware don't match my motivate to mate

Also I drive to stay alive and ride this over there

My momma so mad, so no alcohol in here

I'm Aries Spears on my Jay-Z shit

Affion on the Drake skit

Now how many more can I make with just one voice

They might call it fake shit

This some deep shit

It's my me impersonatin' we shit

Vicariously in every rap I speak with

I hope you're speakin' for me, if I'm ever speechless

'Cause I'mma be you

Even though you're not here to be with

I hope I see these gangsters actin' like teachers

Wake up out they sleep, dare to dream

In a world so Martin Luther King-less

[Hook: Bilal]

Your inner heart, your inner mind

You're the star that will always shine

Forever you'll be with me

[Outro: Lupe Fiasco]

And to my hero Heron, Gil Scott

In a discourse with Baldwin

On a jet plane with no fear for fallin'

But wishin' it never lands

Reminiscent of the dream time

Presently en route to the rise of the machine time

Magazine times

With coffee more sugar and milk than coffee

Aborted rhymes, rotten beats, and failed hooks

Roads as bumpy as braille books

Fail cools, bad French, and mad push at the door

Gourmet food at the starving soiree

A choice of one easy woman at a time

I'll take three the hard way

Trying to be as abstract as possible

And vulgar, the more shocking the more profitable

A baby fed molten gold

And sat upon a pedestal promote getting called 24 carat souls

How to describe this

Insightful remarks such as the best thing I've ever heard is silence

Some more technically impressive

In a faux Spanish romantic hues of a Marxist dialectic

Pleasing to the critics, but pointless is the common passerby

Might as well not even exist, not even a bit

In the event of my demise give everything I prize to the poor

And to the oppressors, I leave a war

And so on and so forth

## References

1. ↑ Jarenwattananon, Patrick (March 1, 2012). "Robert Glasper Experiment on Letterman". *NPR*.
2. ↑ Barton, Chris (March 22, 2012). "Robert Glasper's 'Black Radio': Is all that jazz?". *Los Angeles Times*.
3. ↑ La Rosa, David (December 6, 2011). "Robert Glasper, ‘Black Radio' – Track-By-Track Review". *Jazz Line*.
4. ↑ Layman, Will (February 28, 2012). "Robert Glasper Experiment: Black Radio". *PopMatters*.