(feat. R. Kelly)

[Nas]

Low profile, rap style, slick as Nu Nile
Give the crew pounds everytime we cover new grounds
Still surviving but there's a few down, back in the essence

I'm asking questions on the phone, with jail adolescents
Quiet confession, the system's applying 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 (*##$
broke the average ^!$$%'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 gettin 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 $$#ume 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 nowhere
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 claim 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 (that's right)
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
I did a 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
Nightmares, feeling real, word to Will
My A-Alike I lost in the battlefield
That's why I hit the mic with mad appeal

Grab ya shield and meet ya maker
Queens ^!$$%z die for paper
These the things the street dreams will take ya

[Chorus: repeat to the end]