[Verse: Malik Yusef]

This the city of Chicago

The state of confusion

The style I'm using is free

Or probably, it would be if my mind was

Peep, I'm behind 'cause

I didn't handle my functions while in high school

Although I was cool

The hood I live in ain't that proper

'Cause a cop'll stop ya

And have you at a hundred and eleventh before you can say not guilty

I'm not filthy nor am I rich

Ain't that a bitch

Like life is, not your wife is

See that your better half

Do your math

And peep that two halves make a whole

And all I have to hold is my self pride

So these streets I strive

Like a Black Panther asking can the

Situation get much worst

All I do is try to appeal to the masses

As the phrase "keep it real" passes

The teeth of too many phoney individuals

Snakes, that smooth like criminals

They create chemicals that the Earth hate

Doing they damndest to decrease my birth rate

I'd settle for lesser knowing that I'm worth wait

Or at least my weight in precious gems

So I'm steadily steadly steadly

Trying to lose my religion, like R.E.M

Created in His own image so am I him?

And in the middle of this crisis

Shit I wonder where Christ is

Well, he damn sure not in K town or the wild hundreds

Where they broadcast G.D. till the world blow-up

And Stone run it

Hunted by police for display in state vile cages

Come out to make receive minimum wages

Plus, with disease that are contagious

It is fucking outrages

The amounts of Black and Brown they lock up

But the Most High encourages me to put the Glock up

And stock up on do for self knowledge

A brother couldn't afford to go to collage

So I went to learn form the school of hard knocks

On the hard blocks of the Chi

Even I think about moving out to River Oaks

As my liver soaks in mad Hennesy

Cause I got a bad tendency

To do a lot of drinking

But now I do a lot of thinking

Blinking, was your third eye

When you heard I

Was one of the chosen

Industry doors keep closing

Watch the closing doors

Niggas want a record deal

But can they deal with a record?

Cause once they get rich

They tend to switch like a sissy

Please miss me with all that bullshit you popping

This science I'm gonna keep on dropping

And me, I won't be stopping

Even if you had one of them red octagon

Motherfuckers say, "Malik, how you make your living?"

I say by breathing oxygen