[Intro (Nas talking)]
Yo, it's like waking up from a bad dream (Americaaa)
just to figure out you wasn't dreaming in the first place (Nooo...)


[Verse 1]
If all I saw was gangsters

Coming up as a youngster
#~!!@ and money the only language I clung to
Claim to, unrolled myself up to become one

Ain't ya happy I chose rap? I'm amongst the
Streets deceiving
Can't believe my achievements

Cultural strata
Persona's that of a non-needer
Because I don't need nada except for Prada beaver

For cold winters, tattoos got my summer's sleeveless
To my G's on the flee from the coppers (coppers)
Stiff bodies on freeze in funeral parlors (parlors)

From the slums I come up a phoenix
Caked up, tryin' to take what I'm eating
Came up a dismissive kid (kid)

You lucky if you allowed to witness this
Savvy mouth
While hardly a man's man

Who woulda knew the beach houses and wild parties
Jezebel's and Stella McCartney's?
For years, all that

How could I not be dead?
This old German
Said I was a thug with a knotty head

Looked at my Benz and called that a !#@$ sled
With a face like he wonder where I got my bread
Probably all these stones he see

From my shows overseas
From crime to rhyme
My story is I'm from the home of the thieves


[Chorus 1]
America (America), pay attention

Wake up (America)
This is not what you think it is
America (America), pay attention

Wake up (America)
This is not what you think it is


[Verse 2:]
Blessed
The lord is a G, he gotta be

Who's the God of suckers and snitches?
The economy
Lipstick from Marilyn Monroe

Blew a death kiss to Fidel Castro
He'd want me to spit this
Only the strong survive

Nas bear witness
The hypocrisy is all I can see
White cop acquitted for murder

Black cop cop a plea
That type of %#@! make me stop and think
We in chronic need of a second look of the law books

And the whole race dichotomy
Too many rappers, athletes, and actors
But not enough ^!$$%s in NASA

Who give you the latest dances, trends, and fashion?
But when it comes to residuals, they look past us
Woven into the fabric, they can't stand us

Even in white tee's, blue jeans, and red bandannas

[Chorus 2]

America (America) pay attention
Wake up (America)
This is not what you think it is

America (America)
Pay attention (America)
This is not what you think it is

America (America)
(This is not what you think it is)

[Verse 3:]
Assassinations

Diplomatic relations
Killed indigenous people
Built a new nation
Involuntary labor
Took a knife split a woman naval

Took her premature baby
Let her man see you rape her
If I could travel to the 1700's
I'd push a wheelbarrow full of dynamite
Through your covenant

Love to sit in on the Senate
And tell the whole government
Y'all don't treat women fair
She read about herself in the bible
Believing she the reason sin is here

You played her, with an apron
Like, "Bring me my dinner, dear."
She the !@$@ here
Ain't we in the free world?
Death penalty in Texas kill young boys and girls
Barbarity, I'm in the double-R casualty

Bugging how I made it out the hood, dazzle me
How far we really from third world savagery
When the empire fall, imagine how crazy that'll be

[Chorus 3]
America (America, America)
America (America)

(This is not what you think it is)
America (America ohhh)
This is not what you think it is
America