[Verse 1]
We live on the edge like mountain climbers and we worship clothes designers
If I changed my name to Ralph Lauren
I really would shine
In the streets we compete
For who tag our name the best
But we blow our paychecks
Stickin' Tommy on our chest
Since the death of dashiki
We made our women freaky
They blind like Stevie
Thinkin' that life is TV
Believe me, in the streets we be bangin' it out
Content to let Uncle Sam be the man in our house
We waste money and call it cheese
Smoke plants and call 'em trees
While subsidized daycare workers
Raise our seeds
We swap body fluids with who's ever with it
And think marriage is a big commitment
So we want the sex and not the kids
We want the check and not the job
But most of all we want the blessings
But don't answer to God
Got a closet full of clothes and empty bank accounts
If you got your hand out we ain't got nothin' we bounce
Amounts are too costly for us to go to college
But we pay them high interest bail bonds when they lock us
This soap opera life got us all hopped up
And we don't touch the scriptures 'til we get locked up
[Refrain x2]
So we do whatever
Eat whatever
Smoke whatever
---- whoever
Wear whatever
Shake whatever
Sell whatever
It's now or never

[Verse 2]
Ayo if grandma and grandpa saw how we behave
They would probably spin around like Yo-Yos in their grave
Whether is projects or trailer parks, we're all in the dark
There's no connectedness, our families falling apart
And White suburbanites think they're fleeing the games
But then their kids go to school and shoot 'em up like Jesse James
The projects are just a carbon copy of the prisons
So when we get locked we're just gettin' more original
A 6-year-old at the park could probably curse
Do the streets make us crazy or is it the vice-versa?
We might hurt you if you talk bad about our wife
But at night, we beat her within an inch of her life
We kill our unborn kids, and no one blows the whistle
If you want it it's a baby
If you don't it's only tissue
We only miss you and cry for you if you die
But we ain't got time for that ---- when you're alive
We don't apologize, and do get caught with red fingers
We don't read newspapers, we watch Jerry Springer
Our so-called leaders whine for legislation
When the biggest problem we have is our decision-making
[Refrain x2]

[Verse 3]
Ayo we shake our ---es and life skates past us
We love welfare and hate taxes
So we pour money in the lotto, dice games and the numbers
And think it's too risky to invest in one another
We call our mothers fleas
But what could that mean?
Cuz to stack green would turn em' into crack fiends

We act mean, we act sharp like razor blades
We act like animals but we say we hate the cage
I said this soap opera life got us all hopped up
And we don't touch the scriptures 'til we get locked up
Our so-called leaders they whine for legislation
When the biggest problem we have is our decision-making

[Refrain x2]