[Verse 1: Black Thought]
Yo, if you're coming here to keep you a gat close
Ain't a lot of tolerance for people that lactose
You can get your back broke, stumped out, choked
Or slashed throat or poked in a cloud of black smoke
Old heads tell you 'bout the trouble with black folk
Coke heads tell you 'bout the difference in crack smoke
Chicken heads doing the back stroke, lot of sleep n***as that act woke
People cashed in on their last hope, in the city of brotherly thuggery
Stitches in hospital recovery, they get at you suddenly
That love don't exist, when glove's on your fist
Brothers be literally shit with snuffs on they hip
With a package out of their strip and dubs on their whip
It's madness, you say is it bad, yes
You see a whole lot of death threats and bad checks
You the place, your money or your life, or bad best sonny, you're in the...

[Hook]
Ghetto (and don't think...)
Ghetto (everything I did since I came)
Ghetto (God let this fortune spell)
Ghetto (everybody let that... for me)

[Verse 2: Rakim]
Yeah, welcome to the concrete city, everybody carry metal when
It's impossible to settle in, you can hear the seven sins
Blowing through the ghetto wind, my eyes seen the evil
That'll make the devil grin, paying in misery's heroin
It gets depressing when the bad news never end
Pops shot and killed, robbing the bodega, I was eleven and
Moms was a shot of booze away from shooting heroine
Too true, my element, my future's irrelevant, it's evident
Then I'mma either end up dead or in the pen
Drug using and selling it, thug shooting and killing it
A desert land, trying to bring dinero's in
Crime free, I ain't losing better bet again
I'm trying to find heaven in this hell I'm in
I'm more clever then I've ever been
I'm too thorough when the attitude is better win, when you living in a...
[Hook]
Ghetto (and don't think...)
Ghetto (everything I did since I came)
Ghetto (God let this fortune spell)
Ghetto (everybody let that... for me)
Ghetto (nobody smiling)
Ghetto (nobody smiling)
Ghetto (nobody smiling)

[Outro: John Legend]
Talk about the ghetto, ay ay, ay
The ghetto, dub, dub, du-dub dub
The ghetto, talk about the ghetto, nobody smiling
The ghetto, nobody smiling
Talk about the ghetto, yeah
The ghetto, hey yeah, nobody smiling
Talk about the ghetto, nobody smiling...