Verse 1 - Mos Def
Beef is not what Jay said to Nas
Beef is when the working folk can't find jobs

Instead they try to find ^!$$%s to rob
Try to find them some guns so they can finish the job
Beef is when crack babies can't find moms

Cause they in a pine box, or locked behind bars
Beef ain't the summer jam for Hot 9-7
Beef is the cocaine and AIDS epidemic

Beef don't come with a radio edit
Beef is when the judge is callin' you defendant
Beef: It comes with a long jail sentence

Handed down to you in a few short minutes
Beef is when your girl come through for a visit
To tell you how she pregnant, by some other ^!$$%

Beef is high blood pressure and bad credit
Need a loan for your home but you're too broke to get it
And all your little kids is doin is gettin bigger

You're trying not to raise 'em around these wild ^!$$%ss
Beef is when a gold digger go your seed in her
A manicure handout like pay me ^!$$%'

Or im telling your wife
Startin up a foul rumor that'll ruin your life
Beef is when a gangsta ain't doin it right

And other gangstas is decidin' what to do with his life
Beef is not what these famous ^!$$%s do on the mic
Beef is what George Bush would do in a fight

Beef is not what Ja said to 50
But beef is all my homies not bein here with me
When a soldier ends his life with his own gun

Beef is tryin' to figure out what to tell his son
Beef is oil prices and geopolitics
Beef is Iraq, the West Bank and Gaza Strip

Some Beef is big and some beef is small
But what Ya'll call beef is not beef at all
This is real life happenin' every day

And it's realer than those songs you gave to Kayslay
This has been a real ^!$$%s P.S.A
From Mos Def pretty flocko

Black Dante
And the Black Star Embassy B to the K!


Hook - Pretty Lights

Oh, sometimes I get a good feeling, yeah

Get a feeling that I never, never, never, never had before. Oh, no.
I get a good feeling, yeah


Just want to tell ya right now
I really do feel it


Verse 2 - B.I.G.

I know how it feels to wake up $#&@ed up

Pockets broke as hell, another rock to sell
People look at you like you're the user
Selling drugs to all the losers mad Buddha abuser

But they don't know about the stress-filled day
Baby on the way mad bills to pay
That's why you drink Tanqueray

So you can reminisce and wish
You wasn't living so devilish s-%#@!
I remember I was just like you

Smoking blunts with my crew
Flipping oldies 62's
'Cause G-E-D was it B-I-G, I got P-A-I-D

That's why my mom hates me
She was forced to kick me out, no doubt
Then I figured out Nick's went for twenty down south

Packed up my tools for my raw power move
Glock nineteen for casket and flower moves
Four drunks trying to stop my flow

And what they don't know will show on the autopsy
Went to see papi, to cop me a brick
Asked for some consignment and he wasn't trying to hear it

Smoking mad Newports 'cause I'm doing court for an $$#ault
That I caught in Bridge Port, New York
Catch me if you can like the ginger bread man
You better have your gat in hand
'Cause man.


Hook

Verse 3 - Nas
Yo, all I need is one mic, one beat, one stage

One ^!$$% front, my face on the front page
Only if I had one gun, one girl and one crib
One God to show me how to do things his son did
Pure, like a cup of virgin blood; mixed with
151, one sip'll make a ^!$$% flip

Writin names on my hollow tips, plottin %#@!
Mad violence who I'm gon' body, this hood politics
Ackowledge it, leave bodies chopped in garbages
Seeds watch us, grow up and try to follow us
Police watch us {*siren*} roll up and try knockin us

One knee I ducked, could it be my time is up
But my luck, I got up, the cop shot again
Bus stop glass bursts, a fiend drops his Heineken
Richochetin between the spots that I'm hidin in
Blackin out as I shoot back, $#&@ gettin hit! [more sirens]
This is my hood I'ma rep, to the death of it

'til everybody come home, little ^!$$%z is grown
Hoodrats, don't abortion your womb, we need more warriors soon
Sip from the star sun and the moon
In this life of police chases street sweepers and coppers
Stick-up kids with no conscience, leavin victims with doctors
IF YOU REALLY THINK YOU READY TO DIE, WITH NINES OUT
THIS IS WHAT NAS IS BOUT, !#$% THE TIME IS NOW!