STREET LIVIN'

Street livin', caught in a trap

Guns or books, sell crack or rap

Be like kings or be like pawns

They called us coons, now they call us cons

Street ****** be packing pistols

Terrorists be blasting missles

Crips and bloods and retail thugs

CIA planes bring Columbian drugs

Don't push me cause I'm close to hell

The teachers in my neighborhood can hardly spell

And compare to them,

Prison guards get payed well

Ten years no bail is 4 years at Yale

So, forget about the statue of General Lee

Because the status of blacks are generally

Are gonna end up in some penitentiary

Systematically,

That's how they made it to be

Listen, they derailed the soul train

And put a nightmare

Into every Martin Luther King

And privatize prisons are owned by the same

Slave masters that owned the slave trade game

And racists no longer have to be racist

Cause ****** kill more ****** than the KKK did

Now, every time I hear a new def jam

****** killing ****** like they Ku Klux Klan

I understand what's a ***** to choose?

Be the killer or be the dead dude in the news

I get it, what's a ***** to do?

No education in the hood, got a ***** confused

Street livin', tough conditions

Brainwashed by the television

We lost in the war we live in

Double cross love lost no religion

Street livin', oh my gosh

Another brother got shot by the searg'

Another cop got off with no charge

If you black in the hood, you at large

You're guilty until we prove you're innocent

If you're ivory, they treat you different

If you're ebony, they assume you're temperament

Well, be vigilant, and they call you militant

You'll get shot, and they'll say the incident

Is because you're beligerent

What a coincidence?

If you ain't dead, you can see imprisonment

It's more ****** in the prisons

than there ever slaves cotton picking

There's more ****** that's rotting in the prisons

than there ever slaves cotton picking

So, how we gon' get out the trap?

Guns or books, sell crack or rap

Street livin', hustle or hoops

Guns or books, get shot or shoot

Street livin', ain't no rules

Break the law, make or break the news

The life you choose could be the life you lose

****** getting stuck for the Nike shoes

Street livin', ain't no joke

It's a cold world, better bring your coat

Revoke cause the streets are broke

Now, they wanna take away our dreams and hopes

Street livin', no economics

No way out of the Reaganomics

Infected by the black plague, new bubonic

No comprende, we speak ebonics

Street livin', what's your position?

You can take action or take a ****

Listen, you can get ****ed by the system

Or you can say **** the system