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Streets Is Watching
Jay-Z
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Look, if I shoot you, I'm brainless
But if you shoot me, then you're famous, what's a nigga to do?
When the, streets is watching, blocks keep clocking
Waiting for you to break, make your first mistake
Can't ignore it, that's the fastest way to get extorted
But my time is money, and twenty-five, I can't afford it
Beef is sorted like Godiva, chocolates
Niggas you bought it, I pull the slide back and cock it
Plan aborted, you and your mans get a pass
This rhyme, you're operating on bitch time
Y'all niggas ain't worth my shells, all y'all niggas
Tryin to do is hurt my sales, and stop trips to John McNale
The type to start a beef then, run to the cops
When I see you in the street got, one in the drop
When I'd rather be on tour getting a hundred a pop
Or taking pictures with some bitches, in front of the drop
The streets is watching
When the, streets is watching
Blocks keep clocking
Waiting for you to break, make your first mistake
Can't ignore it
Man, it's hard not to kill niggas
It's like a full time job not to kill niggas, can't chill
The streets is watching you, when you froze your arms
Niggas wanna test you and your gun goes warm
Can't get caught with your feet up, gotta keep your heat up
Sweet niggas running 'round swearing shit is sweeter
Once you're tagged lame the game is follow the leader
Everybody want a piece of your scrilla, so you gotta keep it realer
Kidnap niggas wanna steal ya
Broke niggas want no cash, they just wanna kill ya
For the name, niggas don't know the rules
Disrespectin the game, want you to blow your cool
Force your hand, of course that man's plottin
Smarten up, the streets is watching, it's on
Instrumental
When the, streets is watching
Blocks keep clocking
Waiting for you to break, make your first mistake
Can't ignore it
Instrumental
My street mentality flip bricks forever, know me and money
We like armed co-defendants, nigga we stick together
Shit whatever for this cheddar ran my game into the ground
Hustle harder to see if indictment time came around
Now you can look up and down the streets and I can't be found
Put in twenty-four hour shifts but, that ain't me now
Got a face too easy to trace, smiles got slow leaks
Had to hide between my workers, couldn't play those streets
Stay outta space like Mercury you jerkin me? Hectic
Had to call upon my wolves to send, niggas the message
I said this: 'Let's play fair and we can stay here
I'm trying to transform you Boyz II Men like daycare'
Hey there's money to be made and, niggas got the picture
Stopped playing with my paper and, we got richer
Then hard times fell upon us, half of my staff
Had warrants, the other half, in the casket lay dormant
I felt like life was cheating me, for the first time
In my life I was getting money but it was like my conscience was eating me
Was this a lesson God teaching me? Was he saying that?
I'm playing the game straight from hell from which few came back
Like bad coke, pimp or die, was my mindframe bad
Was niggas was thinkin simplify was turnin cocaine crack
Ain't a whole lot of brain to that, just trying to maintain a stack
And not collide like two trains that's on the same track
'Fore I get my life together like the oars I bring back
In the bottom of the pot where no, water gets hot
Got my transporter take it 'cross the border then stop
Set up shop with a quarter of rock, here's the plan
For three straight weeks, niggas slaughtered the block
But you know the game is 'lluted, that fucked up me and my dues
One drop can wipe a nigga out, faster than the cops
And this unstable way of living just, had to stop
Half of my niggas got time, we done real things
By ninety-four became the subject of half of y'all niggas rhymes
Public apoligies to the families of those caught up in my shit
But that's the life for us lost souls brought up in the shit
The life and times of a nigga mind, excited with crime
And the lavish luxuries that just excited my mind
I figured, 'Shit why risk myself I just write it in rhymes
And let you feel me, and if you don't like it then fine'
The mindstate, of a nigga who boosted the crime rate
So high in one city they send National Guards to get me