[Intro]

They felt like they were laying tracks, for the generation to come. I think my mother knew that freedom wouldn't come in her lifetime, just like I know it won't come in mine. It's a matter of, either we stay like this or somebody sacrifice, somebody laying tracks, so we can stay in a 360 degree. Deadly circle, somebody used to break out and risk, you know losing everything and being poor and getting deep down. Cause someone has to do something, had I had a father, had I had some of these opportunities. I would be able to handle my mother more

[Verse 1: Punch]

I was taught never trust a nigga, far as you can see him

Teach a nigga how to fish, as apposed to try'na feed him

Look a man in the eyes, that's the best way to read him

Cause faces they change, but point of views remain

I got a strange feeling, that I'm a lil bit different

Beyond the customs and tradition of a project living

My Korean war vet, grandfather's affliction

Was stress and I inherited his heart condition

And Van Arthur's addiction, was heroin needles

Petty hustling, d'evils, that street men lust

So I'm mixed with that lethal combination but trust

I've only scratched the surface, what's underneath this verse is

The feeling of a young boy lost, without a purpose

Still waters run deep in the street we were submerged in

Police lurking, try'na catch a nigga serving

He ain't going back to jail, so he bust a verse

[Hook: Kendrick Lamar]

This is for my everyday young nigga

It don't really matter where you from niggas

Before you leave the house, kiss your moms nigga

Cause you don't know when that day'll come nigga

Cause only Lord knows that I know how you feel

What we gotta do just to live

Is try not to get our cap peeled, try not to get your cap peeled

[Verse 2: Punch]

It's hard to get to know me, unless you hear between bars

Tortured soul self contained on my childhood scars

I was involved from a far, affected by the street laws

Concrete walls, not even earthquakes could shake them brick walls

Nickerson garden projects this is me y'all

Where Dope dealers have it all and then freefall

Caine numbs the pain up and down the ghetto seesaw

The voice of the youth, they hear me and they see y'all

They don't see a diamond in the rough, they see flaws

They should see how we was raised and they would be in awe

Against all it gets hard not to kill niggas

It's like a full-time job not to grab the semi-auti

And go kamikaze on somebody who plotting

Probably on my body laying lifeless, ungodly sacrifices

To the streets, this is the trinity

Money malice and murder the hood's deity

[Hook]

[Verse 3]

They say the average black man only lives to 25

Well I made it past that and a nigga still alive

Which means I'm in the red, I'm indebted to death

That's the wages that sin pay, I'm still tracing my steps

Leaving my footprints in the sand, the concrete rose

That grew on infertile land and blossomed to a grown man

My only fear is pops holding moms hand

Dripping tears on my casket, I refuse to let it happen

By any means avoiding the city traffic

Shooters got the green light, they blocking your right of passage

A young kid turned savage, city madness

A picture painted on the street's canvas, excuse my brashness

I'm trying to live to see past this

Staring at the world and my rear view past tense

In no particular fashion, I'm on borrowed time I'mma grind with a passion

[Hook]

[Outro]

Generation to generation to come

They won't come in mind

Sacrifices, sacrifices, sacrifices

Deadly circle, deadly circle