Struggle & the hood: Page 3

Wanna make records but I'm fuckin' it up (Why?)

I'm slippin', I'm fallin', I can't get up (Uh-uh)

I guess some things will never change

Locked in the cycle, tryna break the chains

Handcuffs so tight, nearly slit my veins

This what tough love feels like, feel my pain, uh

Check it, I grew up a fuckin' screw-up

Got introduced to the game, got a ounce and fuckin' blew up

It's clear we livin' in hell, the life of a black male

The streets, the cops, the system, harassment (Uh-huh)

The options, get shot, go to jail, or getcha ass kicked (Aight)

The lawyers, the part they are of the puzzle (Uh-huh)

The release, the warning, "Try not to get in trouble" (Damn)

Why did crack have to hit so hard?

'Cause both black and white are smokin' crack tonight

Sometimes I just feel like quittin', I still might

Why do I put up this fight? Why do I still write?

Sometimes it's hard enough just dealin' with real life

And at Death Row, I hear you gettin' treated like bootcamp

These ain't fair races, they just let the fear erase us

Adopted by the slums, son of guns, this is how they raised us

And ain't nobody gave us nothin', so we drug dealin'

When we were 25-year-olds, we had to have the minds of 50-year-olds! We grew up a lot more quickly, because of all the bad things that we saw.

Hmmm, of course we all have times when we're weak

Where you can not find the version of yourself you seek

You should dig deep

If I could take a whole fucking hood that’s used to being on some old $60 sneaker shit and make them want to get jobs and buy shit and look decent and have the latest fashions, why am I wrong?

Where we at? Do you value your life as much as your possessions?

Don't be a stupid nigga, learn a lesson

I'm gon' get you either way, and it's better to live

Let me get what's between your sock 'cause it's better to give

My back was to the wall, risked it all, after all, all I had was me

Just tenacity, some Olde E with a swisha sweets

I don't know much about Holy Bibles

But I grew up in the Bible Belt (Ah)

I put my love for a woman on idle

Because I got beat with my mama's belt

Think MJG said it best; "Man, will I ever know

Who my friends through thick and thin, 'cause so called friends will turn to foes"

You ball, might come with a charge

Your kids don't know you no more

Your girl's draws stay on the floor

Because the president never sent

One damn dime to my residence

I'm goin' crazy like 1980

I need my ends, fuck you, pay me

I'm an addict and I can't even hide it

Half a million dollars on a ring, I'm taking Percocets

Down five Xanax and I pray I wake up and forget

They declared a war on drugs, like a war on terror

But what it really did was let the police terrorize whoever

But mostly black boys, but they would call us "niggas"

And lay us on our belly, while they fingers on they triggers

Struggle with who I am and who I wanna be

Got the streets and these beats right in front of me

We all young ghetto boys

That's why we act this way

Tryin' to see a million dollars

Hopin' these niggas don't blast today

I videotaped it all in my mind and turned it into art.

The story I tell is so incomplete

Five kids in the house, no food to eat

Bitch, keep talking that shit from your Honda

Hoes love to act, but they ain't wit' the drama

Want my spot? Gotta fight like Wakanda

Bitch, run up and get hit wit' the one-done

"With all the cards against him, he used them to his advantage!"

Six in the morning, police at my door

Fresh Adidas squeak across the bathroom floor

Yo, where I'm from it ain't cookies and cream

There's a lot of peer pressure growin' up as a young teen

You never know when you gonna get wet

'Cause mad clowns be catchin' wreck with a TEC just to get a rep

Starvin' made me thin, it ain't no mercy in this game we in

Odds stacked against us, had to play to win

Brown boys are dying and none of 'em were for business

And all of em' love they momma and all of they mommas miss 'em

We was crooks, tryna cop more rides than Great Adventure

They got me trapped, can barely walk the city streets

Without a cop harasskin' me, searching me, then askin' my identity

Hands up, throw me up against the wall, didn't do a thing at all

All my young black kings rise up, man, this is our year (Our year)

And my young black queens right there (Right there)

It's been a long time coming, I swear

Calls from the dark

I got hope in my eyes

No help in sight

I'ma swim in the light

Well, I got 25 days to do it

If a wall in the way, just watch me go through it

'Cause I gotta do what I gotta do

PE number one, gets the job done

What a pretty lady in the valley of the shadows

I'm thinking she lost a battle

I'm thinking she found the bottle

They thought I only rapped about murder and pistols (21)

I'm tryna feed my family, I ain't being political (Fuck)

Why they ain't give us a cure for AIDS?

Eviction notices all on the door

Take out trash for some school clothes

I'm the one that the streets chose

It wasn't about anything other than, I want you to know who I am, what the streets taste like, feel like, smell like, what crackheads do. I wanted you to smell it, feel it.

Only thing they ever did wrong (Yes, yes!)

Was bein' born black (No doubt!), in this white man's world

Had dreams of retiring and burying the money

Back when I was young with more experience than money

Hustle on the block, who gon' save the children?

Man it's all a plot and I'm just revealin'

The media just tryna make a villain

All I know is pain, all I feel is rain

How can I maintain with that shit on my brain?

'Cause dreams ain't what it seem

When it's just the ghetto thang

Little shorties take walks to the schoolyard

Tryna solve the puzzles to why is life so hard

You see the clout, you don't see the real me

If I was sick, you niggas wouldn't heal me

Therefore I'm healin' myself, gettin' in tune with my God

Slowly revealin' myself, buildin' my wealth

Shit, cops and robbers, niggas be bound to get them dollars and cents

They get in a slump, like baseball players, when they short on they rent

Bums warm their weary souls over open flames

Junkie can't find God, watch him find his vein

Preacher walk right by like he ain't seen a thang

And I'm not sure why I'm infatuated with death

My imagination is surely an aggravation of threats

That can come about, 'cause the tongue is mighty powerful

This for my people, tryna stay alive and just stay peaceful

So hard to survive a world so lethal

Who will take a stand and be our hero, of my people, yeah?

My man BoBo just lost his baby in a house fire (Oh yeah)

And when I got on my knees that night to pray, I asked God

"Why You let these killers live and take my homeboy's son away?"

All we had was records.

I feel the Aryan in my blood, it's scarier than a Blood

Been looking for holy water, now I’m praying for a flood

So just peep the game and don't call it crap

'Cause to me, life is one hard rap

I wrote these words for everyone

Who struggles in their youth

Who won't accept deception in

Instead of what is truth

Third surgery, they couldn't stop the bleeding for real

Then he died, God himself will say, "You fuckin' failed," you ain't try