Yeah, this is how we live
This how we survive
And this is how we do
This is how we do
Verse 1:
I call home where my living room window's facing the vandals
Front row seat to the scandals
I was never thrown a pitch I can't handle
My boots is ragged, but I ain't reached the point to trade 'em for sandals
Gazing at the mandarin skies, realized
That my hearts still thumping for reasons beyond my eyes
Composer of theses unflawed rhymes, it's a tall climb
So like a hot headed killer, reaching at all times
Keep pursuing, best to move or you'll get left around
In the gutter where they slumber with their chest to ground
Stalk the alleys where the junkies and the pest are found
And shorties greet ya with the heater, pull ya necklace down
So like Bump say, "Move Around"
Or you can sink in the water if you choose to drown
The streets is a trade, listen to that tool sound
They working overtime hours like a fool now
Chorus 2x
Verse 2:
I'm from the city where they filmed Cooley High
L trains be screaming when they move through the sky
Some wonder why it's hard to see the stars at night
But it's easy to see former hoop stars kissing the pipe
Former lives – they snatched quarters off backboards
Now they're reduced to begging for quarters in front of stores
Headed for Armageddon, thugs are semi-religious
Crosses tatted on bodies while they hustle relentless
My defense is the music, untainted in this septic tank
My methods ain't the best for coping but I guess it ain't
Worse than fiends paying twice to inject the pain
Or pistols held to the temple to push death in the brain
We got Arabs at the corner, Koreans at the strip malls
Africans on the court playing basketball
Indians that ain't native running the gas stations
And Irish men with walkie talkies on the block hatin'
Colorful portraits when I step on my doorstep
Survival and poverty got me knowing why the Lord wept
They say the ends is justified if it means eating
We be repenting so long until our knees bleeding
