featuring R. Kelly



(Nas)



Low profile rap style

slick as new now

give the crew pounds

every time we cover them grounds

still surviving but there's a few down

back in the essence

I'm asking questions on the phone

with jail adolescence

crying confession the system's supplying the pressure

my mind is guessing

Is living and dying a lesson

but not to be obliged with the mirage

of cars taking you off track

from with the gods focus on hard

Laid up smoking cigars

motioning maids to bring me toast and eggs

kosher, Ice chokers and wolves to smoke ya

my wisdom culture lives in ultra madness

devoted coach bag bitch

broke the average nigga's hopes to get mad rich

But what's the purpose

only the gods can watch the Earth twist

I'm physically trapped down on the surface

with all the crack merchants

snakes and serpents

foul jakes the searches

clowns with four pounds this ain't a circus.



Chorus (R. Kelly)



Street dreamer

Oh mercy mercy me

Ain't nothing I got for ya

Situations get heavy

Heavy, heavy

Trying to be a gangster.



(Nas)



The black clouds over the hood

I'm on the corner with the thugs

late night under the moon

as they assume I'm slanging drugs

cause I'm hooded up

thought a G a night wasn't good enough

pushed my luck

yo they had a brother put in cuffs

Luckily, made it out of court comfortably

judge said I need a job ain't nothing coming free

could've got a one to three

I try to school these shorties under me

but they can't see

From life to death

so know we back to where we never left the ghetto

It's a damn shame

knowing it's a man's game

shorty thinks it's time to make ya plans change

all that running round trying to chase

what's already here - been there

it's going no where

pops told me knuckle up - no fear

I wish some of these killings

they could be prevented

whatever happens it was written

meaning God meant it

but during ya life you put ya heart in it

even though it seems we being targeted

let that brother R hit it



Chorus (extended)



(Nas)



Sort of wild, since a child

hope was all we had

drip the bust out past

complaning the mental straining

how many in my crew is into gaining

subtract the weak links about the chaining

rise it start raining

Blasphemy using Nas name in vain

some plain supreme being

yet they lied in his name

I tried to learn the game

and the only thing I found incredible

everything I tried to learn

see, I already knew

And it's embedded in my heart now

so I can sit back, count a stack

and play my part now

I saw my life flash in front of my eyes

he wore disguise

put a gun to me hungry he

went on to chastize

That's Nas ain't it

made it rich from entertainment

fresh wally's painted

as he told the kid he came with

my first thought was how the game flip

Yo perhaps it was somebody I smacked

drunk in a party on yak

or was I marked for a contract

for some foul act

a little while back or beyond that

you got me laying face flat

saying my grace black

woke up in a cold sweat

Yo, I hate that

My air like I lost in the battlefield

that's why I hit the mic with mad appeal

grab ya shield and meet ya maker

Queens niggas die for paper

these the things the street dreams will take ya.



Chorus