At times I don’t know who I be
And when I look in the mirror its like I don’t know who I see
Am I even moving at all?
Cuz I swear I can’t tell if my life is improving at all
Every time I got a pen in my hand
I forget every time before that one has been in my hand
And I write for the moment, get it tight how I want it
Get the right lawyer on it cuz I might wanna own it
I tussle and I fight, I hustle and I write
I struggle every night with every muscle in my mic
I’m in this rap race trying to eat the cheese
But y’all don’t know my name like Alicia Keys
My face ain’t familiar, neither is my music
If shit don’t soon change I be the one to lose it
I drink a little liquor tryin’ to heal my nerves
Cuz y’all don’t listen here and feel my words
But something’s wrong with y’all, ain’t nuttin’ wrong with me
And happy in my life is what I long to be
And happy in my life is what I’m gonna be
What you see in me is what I was born to be
From the day that my moms first birthed a child
She didn’t need the world to make it worth the while
So I don’t need no magazine to reach the pinnacle
Screw a review and you can eat the interview
Cuz that’s what y’all seem to tend to do
Them cats you cover all seem identical
Through it all I weave like the park was here
And shine underground cuz it’s darkest there

Now I’m up to three keys, pounds of weed and sellin bundles
Distributin all three, to get all the fundzoes
The word around town is I’m the new Nino Brown
Twenty years old, I like the way it’s goin down
I got money to burn — dropped out of school
cause they couldn’t teach me what I needed to learn
on how to earn big money, big money
I got the fortune, and a crib where it’s sunny
But like a dummy, I started gettin careless
Talkin on the phone, so DEA could hear this
Date transaction the time and the spot
My world crashed on me, when I got caught
Now I’m locked, with the niggaz that are trife
No more money no more women for the rest of my life
Be in a cell, goin through hell
Just because you sell, they make sure I fell, oh well
Now I’m fitting, with fifty to go
And I never see the streets of the ghetto no mo’

I’m about to take this beat, and teach you ’bout the agony of defeat
in this football game in the street
And no it ain’t two hand touch, it’s rough tackle
When niggas ball on your block, and they buss at you
The fields’ fill of players, and they all tryin’ to score
The whole team sits on the bench in the down pour
‘Cause no matter the weather, the game don’t stop
Competin with other teams, that reign on top
Your offense gotta be cats with no conscious
No nonsense niggas, with no options
That know how to carry that rock
make the hand-off, and run off the block
It’s hard to get first down, when your new in this rough town
You sell a pound its a TOUCHDOWN!
And niggas see the pigskin? They blast cops
Some federal agents dressed as mascots
Niggas hold weight, but it’s not for liftin’
The only white lines is the ones niggas sniffin’
I know it sounds a bit different, the only quarter is a quarter key
if that ain’t a penalty, it oughta be
And the concession stand is so sick
Servin’ you the cat, rat and dog on a stick
But if you ask why somebody got slain
Yo, it’s just an unfriendly game

If the suns still hot, then my guns still hot
You number one wit a bullet, wit just one shot
ass-backwards, I’m a dog spelled backwards
Who puff backwards wit tan timbs and black hoods
You gangsta, but testifying for immunity
Write your eulogy, time to close your window of opportunity
Ya career is over for major damages
Cheap labels, whack records, weak managers
Amateurs, pros get paid a fee
Niggas love the game so much they play for free
Talk shit behind my back but won’t say it to me
Rasco and Reks, now which asshole is next
Ed O.G. is Boston bound
You lost ya skills and lost ya sound, now they at the lost and found
We so hot we take cold shower
get it on for hours, compare your shit to ours…c’mon

As we spring back to the past, it was all happening fast
We glorified coke and smoking crack in a glass
When b-boys danced to the latest jam
You could say this man was the greatest fan
When shoelaces were fat, and all the rapper’s faces were black
And light-brown, a box with the right sound was all you needed
When it blast…they must move
You just proved you’re hard like L in Krush Groove
And songs started to drop – Ain’t nobody start at the top
Before Preme (DJ Premier) learned the art of the chop
This is way before SP’s…and MPC’s
And long before CD’s and MP3’s
The game started to bloom and blossom
And masters ready for the cermony, like a groom in costume
Growth from the rain of the previous years
I took notes from what I heard through these devious ears

Yo, stop talkin bullshit like pastors in religion
No vision, I live and die by my decision
Confess to killin MC’s by my own admission
Ghetto niggas pay a high price for a low cost of livin
Thug rappers been to jail, ain’t never been to prison
If it’s money or gettin bloody, then my hand and my trigger finger itchin
I’ma spit to this shit
You can’t improvise with actin hard, stick to the script
Edo.G bang with the best, even corny-ass crews
With the same chain and piece that hang from they chest
I know most niggas on a first name basis
A tropical oasis, runnin from old cases
Y’all can’t put all the names with the faces
Depends on the game if the king’s higher than the aces
Takin shots, no chasers
You’re past your prime, bow out gracious
Before you have to face it

Yeah, this is brand new Uptown still in the box
This is the Yankees, 10-nothin’, killin’ the Sox
This ain’t huggin’ the block wit’ a gat in ya hand
This is ??? on the Catamaran (that’s right)
With the sun beamin’ down while you sat in the sand
I feel like I’m more than a cat wit’ a plan
This feels like it’s more than a flash in the pan
This is milk in the cup and cash in ya hand
This is a warm coat on the coldest night
That’s why I stole this mic, y’all don’t hold this right (nope)
First in a class of many
This is a bottle of Jack and a glass of Henny (that’s right)
Now drink it up ’til there ain’t nothin’ left in it
I’m reppin’ it, BK, that’s a definite
There’s more of these amazing rhymes
A song like this in these days and times is beautiful

I saw ya the day before your death before you took your last breath
How many of my real niggaz are still left?
A lot got killed and filled a wooden box
and went out like ?docks?
I can picture when you went down just like a ?becks?
Here one day and gone the next
We all make mistakes and these are the breaks
but I’m sick and tired of goin to wakes
and seein an end, to my friend
So we kicked it to the L to get some brew and gin
Nobody said nothin everyone was pissed
as we got drunk and reminisced
At your funeral, your head we kissed
Didn’t go to the burial, but you’ll be missed
That’s if you didn’t know, from your true friends and not your foes
Cause love comes and goes

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4
3, 2, 1 reasons you’ll never be this raw
My crew is representing for BK, don’t play
Or you might have to get Crime Watch around your way
Cause Brooklyn keep on taking it, still from way back
Say black, trying to get that fortune like Sajak
There must be at least twenty reasons you can’t win and
In this rap game you’re hopeless, here’s a top ten:
10’s very simple and plain, it’s petty crime
It’s only ‘94 when you wrote your first rhyme
And now you think you got more Skil than power tools
But never could your feet fit up in our shoes
You only got one delivery
One-dimetional rappers is dead as chivalry
Don’t get your spot blown up, block sewn up
I lift MC’s to tone up, rip your zone up
I got more flavors than women’s douche
Make ends with Mexicans and rock dreads in Flatbush
9, you can’t see mine, can’t find mine
Can’t do mine, step to mine, when my crew find
A fronting-ass nigga, we get in this
You don’t want to get beat and boxed like Biz
You ain’t wild cause you run with wild kids
Now the chorus is gonna tell you what 8 and 7 is

“At 8 you’re a sucker, at 7 a motherfucker”

I’m askin Bush about restitution
Till then we execute the execution
With pressing and distribution
Throw the fist for revolution
With revolution producin
I evolved in your evolution
And I’m involved in your forever losin
A problem with no solution
In a critical state, my state is critical
We live as a team or we die as individuals
A lot unoriginal, analog or digital
Get it done in the physical, everyday ritual
With food for thought that’ll get you full
For hip-hop habitual
Surrounded by criminals
At different times and different intervals
The fake ones I hate ones
Yo, I validate sum when they allocate funds
Roll legit with your legalized guns like they do
Ice your charms, you got the right to bear arms

Masta Ace, Problemaddicts.
It hurts me to see the game in such chaos
If rap can’t find it’s way it’s gon’ stay lost
Radio dj’s wait around for the payoff
Play this song on they day off, it’s so funny
That’s the reason my car-radio stay off
My career’s now in the playoffs, I must win!
It hurts me to watch the BET Awards
I don’t understand the applause, what you clappin for?
And then I ask myself what you rappin’ for?
As soon as I figure it out I’ll get back to ya’ll
It hurts to know after all this time
I can still write a flawless rhyme but it don’t matter
You gon’ hear me on that 9 ta 1 spot
Spittin’ raps sweet like gumdrops
I rap about crack sales & gunshots
so all of ya’ll cumquats get ya sunblock – the sun’s hot

Alcohol and weed is my vices
to see my daughter smile is priceless
I leave the nicest lifeless
Return like Christ in a crisis
Take this +American Pie+, and distribute out slices
Like enterprisers, who take it to the wire
And shine so bright, niggas need a sun visor
MC’s search the seven seas and wind up fishin
There’s little to no competition
when I appear like an abberition
Your repitition, kept you in the same tradition, same position
Same ol’ rapper, same ol’ mission, the game won’t listen
We got two thousand new ways, to shine and glisten
Ed O.G. is to rap, what Pedro is to pitchin
Nowadays if you dissin, you could wind up missin
But if you ain’t under God, you goin under hard
And we gon’ be the main event and y’all are undercard
The very thing, is a ‘Bury thing
Either everything is workin, or you workin for everything

People in the audience, Masta Ace the name
I write rhymes and insert them inside your vein
They run through your bloodstream, get inside your brain
Cause I first put my name up inside the train
My mic control has been unprecendented
And you wrong if you thought you was was the best that did it
See I just started messing with it, I been married to the game since ‘88
You just commited
The entire fate of the whole Empire States
into hands of a man that’s here to inspire hate
Heed for the state of the music
and all these other cats looking for another way to abuse it
I wake you up like a gun in the face
I’m just here to let you know who’s like running the place
And everywhere that I preform and do a show
As long as you know

You challenge me I’ll challenge you, off balance fool
I’m a show you rap niggas what real talent do
Never shook up, doing with skills not book up
Four-course-meal is what I cook up
Put your notebook up
Niggas swear they’re down cuz’ they look up
Rip them rhymes up, hook them hooks up
You need a mic check I’m a push them rooks’ up
Your crooks suck, I make a deal off of blood money
Make an album off the drug money
Take the label money and launder it under the table money
And open businesses
It don’t matter who’s the first or who’s the first one that finishes
I’m out of nowhere just like Kurt Warner
Did it to the head without a nigga in my corner
The solo performer, who tell the “Truth” like Sojourner
“EDO” keep it hot like a bullet from a burner

Yeah, I wish the President would stop lyin’
Black babies would stop cryin’
And you brothers would stop dyin’
I wish the police would stop killin’
Politicans stop stealin’ and actin’ like they not dealin’
When they know they got bricks on the street
At the country club, fixin’ to eat
I can see ‘em now
I wish we’d get this shit figured out
And stop goin’ the trigger route
And actin’ all niggered out
On the block with the nine cocked
I wish we try and stop, stop pushin’ for the prime box
I wish we wasn’t so obsessed with death
Tell me is it cuz we blessed with less?
I don’t know really
I wish the world was safer, I’m scared to travel abroad
That’s why I travel with the Lord
I wish a cab would stop for me in the rain
I know you wanna call me insane
I’m a dreamerYeah, I wish the President would stop lyin’
Black babies would stop cryin’
And you brothers would stop dyin’
I wish the police would stop killin’
Politicans stop stealin’ and actin’ like they not dealin’
When they know they got bricks on the street
At the country club, fixin’ to eat
I can see ‘em now
I wish we’d get this shit figured out
And stop goin’ the trigger route
And actin’ all niggered out
On the block with the nine cocked
I wish we try and stop, stop pushin’ for the prime box
I wish we wasn’t so obsessed with death
Tell me is it cuz we blessed with less?
I don’t know really
I wish the world was safer, I’m scared to travel abroad
That’s why I travel with the Lord
I wish a cab would stop for me in the rain
I know you wanna call me insane
I’m a dreame

I wish my pops didn’t die when I was seven years old
If there’s life after death, is Heaven this cold?
I wish I could wipe the tears of all the cryin’ mothers
Wish New York niggas didn’t start flyin’ colors
I wish my people stop avoidin’ the truth
BET stop poisonin’ youth
We need changes for teenagers as they go through phases
More than just a concrete jungle, the world got green acres
I wish I’d been more diligent
Smart cats rhyme militant
The fresh rhyme ignorant
I wish the world didn’t give us funny looks
Think we all just dummies and crooks
Athletes and entertainers singin’ hooks
We need more black babies that’s in the books (read on)
I wish God could take away the pain
I know you wanna call me insane
I’m a dreamer

Yo, yeah I heard of the Boogiemann when I was a youth, scary
And I found out that he was as fake as a tooth-fairy
Since my last mission this nigga’s been ass-kissing
I took a minute, I gave your single a fast listen
Tell me this, no pot to piss in? How you dissin’
You group holmes are about to report that you missing
And I don’t know who was worse, the track or the verse
I’ma get to your producer, but I’m smacking you first
See I couldn’t even find one nigga that heard of you
I did find a few cats that wanted to murder you
But I told ‘em “Chill”, I let ‘em know you was my son
And I promise I can pay support to you twenty-one
Consider me the clothes on your back and a warm meal
Who knows, this might just get you a deal
And the day that your album go on sale for the first hour
Just remember like Nas nigga, +I Gave You Power+
I figured I give ya some help, cause you need lots
I make your producer change his name to Speed Nottz
Tell him I say “Fuck him!” for doing the tracks
Matter of fact, fuck Fat Beats, for doing the wax
I’ma diss you via e-mail and then through a fax
I’ma diss you by two-way, I ain’t gon’ never relax
I’ma diss you over fast, slow track or no track
If your shit wasn’t so wack, I dissed you to yo’ track
You that little fish that I catch and I throw back
And by the way, give 50 Cent his flow back
You that cat in the club that get hit with a bottle
Fuckin’ with me? You better off trying to hit lotto
And don’t answer back, this is hard shit to follow
And you can’t spit nigga, so you obviously must swollow, motherfucker..

Everything I write is a masterpiece
You’re gettin raped by your label like catholic priests
On a whole it’s only half the beast
Repeatin on my words like Freaky Tah did after Cheeks
If you don’t like me you don’t have to speak
I’m killin niggas with one eye open and half asleep
You uninspired, in MA and tired
What you doin I did a year before the LA riots
Made the city unbiased, now it’s shows and flyers
I claim home but play out of state like the New York Giants
Refuse to spread violence like tyrants
In third world countries, stay with trees like monkeys
Don’t be fooled by the Boston accents
We talk with wordss and we talk with actions
Not New York, Dirty South, West Coast or Midwest
Cause Boston’s where the kid rest

Just like the water in a river flows, I’m fluid
And as I do it, I deliver blows
So mcs, you better keep your left up
Try to fight and you might just get f’d up
Cuz I’ll terminate, as you learn a great lesson
Don’t ever try messin’ or you’ll earn a fate
Worse than death cuz I’m here to give it to ya
You got a life, but don’t know how to live it do ya?
I live on a day-to-day basis
Doin’ my shows in all kinds of places
You sit home with a frowned-up grill
Talkin’ ’bout who ya gonna kill
Well listen up psychopath
Put down the uzi, stop tryin’ to play shaft
Cuz life ain’t a tv screen
Bullets can puncture the skin, rupture the spleen
And the stuff that flows out your veins ain’t ketchup
Sit back, relax as I sketch up
The scene on a brooklyn street on a late night
It was a great fight to me
I was just an innocent bystander
Let me try and, uh, explain why I’d hand a
Brother a big fat stick
Well it was that, or get his black ass kicked
See, it was five against one
But this brother was too proud to run
So he stood in like a trooper
Fightin’ against all odds against a group of
Brothers that looked the same way he looked, friend
It was a battle in brooklyn.