[Intro - Fat Joe - Lamajic talks & harmonizes in background]

Yeah, it's time baby

It's time to speak the truth, maturity

Huh, niggas gotta evolve to let niggas know the real

Ya call yourself real, ya gotta start speakin about the real

This is Joe Crack The Don, and this is what I'm bringin to you



[Fat Joe]

Uh, yo, nowadays, I'm flirtin with uncertain death

Lord I gotta be dyin, cause after all this cryin, how much more hurtin's left?

When will the pain stop?

This depression and anxiety, is gonna make me show another side of me

My niggas ride with me cause I'm the truth

There's benefits to rollin with this clique, don't nobody fuck with you

Still they label me a tyrant and a backstabber

But study the facts of crack, the shit don't add up

I'm bringin opportunity to my community

Probably the only rapper that cares, but still you out to ruin me

Who you foolin B? I'm for unity, latins and blacks

Could you fathom the strength, we have of the two it attach

Born together, voted alike

These uncle charm politicians ain't holdin us right

How could the same nigga be 20 years in office

When it's clear the only thing that's risin is unemployment

Abortion, little kids havin kids

The school system is failing us, now ain't that some shit

While the rich keep gettin richer, the poor keep dyin young

I can't hide no more, the time has come



[Chorus - Lajamic - w/ ad libs]

I was born in the ghetto

Tremblin, tryin' a stay alive

Cause when you're born in the ghetto

No one seems to hear your cry



[Fat Joe]

Brown skin, you know I love my bra-ha-own skin



Everyday I'm confronted with racism

These motherfuckin coppers, wanna bag us and have us shackled up in state prisons

After all the taxes I pay

You would think when they stop us, they would have something nicer to say

Than "get the fuck out the car, where the drugs at?

all the jewelry you wearin, where the fuckin guns at?"

Once they search the car clean and find nothin

The same crooked cops try to act like they know us or somethin

Laughin, tellin jokes by the thousands

Two seconds ago they tried to send us to the mountains

Leave my son without a father, my wife without a husband

The more I think about it, man it's just disgusting

Still we live amongst 'em, everybody wants out

That's why we rap like we got silver spoons in our mouths

Like we ain't grow up on welfare

Nigga don't even go there, you probably wore Pro Players

We need to educate the youth, tell our seeds the truth

Too much to share, the bare minimum will exceed the proof



[Chorus]



[Lajamic - singing until fade]

Oh, yeah, so much pain

Tryin hard to stay alive, stay alive

Out in these streets, oooh [harmonizing]

Man sometimes in can get so tough

Oh yeah, yes it can

Yes it can, yeah

It can get so hard, so hard, so hard