[Intro] One, two y'all One, two y'all One, two y'all Old school y'all One, two y'all One, two y'all One, two y'all New school y'all [Verse 1] Allow me if you will to indulge my verbal sk** into a scene About the feeble minded schemes of a teen I tried to stay alive and I strived Sometimes I even cried, I was only ten years plus five Nevertheless, the streets gave me stress My addiction to cess led to my first conviction and arrest Yes, yes The East New York style was like the wild wild west 'cuz if you had to impress when you dressed in fresh gear "Hey yo, we only rockin' Bally's over here!" This year if you ain't got it you still could be down but play the rear You come to the section that I'm from Try to rock your fresh apparel You'll be starin' down the barrel of a gun Remember '83 and '84 in high school Come December, the j**el was the Brooklyn rule The restrooms was off limits to the herbs Cuz we was shootin' celo from the palms to the curbs Lady luck be with me, daddy need a new pair of shoes But daddy hates to lose so somebody gots to get abused You think you jettin' with my dough, hell no n***a, you don't know my steelo We 'bout to take a vote on your sheepskin coat And your phat gold rope chain You had to be insane to even get into the game It's me you need to thank that you're only gettin' ganked point blank My homeboy Tank got the shank [Hook x4] That's how it was, so this is how it is You got to keep it real when you deal with them Brooklyn kids [Verse 2] The Zulus dropped j**els on a school called ? Now it's graphics, the gods had crazy mathematics
Chicks Uptown wore Louis Vuitton and Fendi Wasn't friendly but for lunch at **** Y'all could get it on A new mob culture deep like Bob Marley The brothas that was large was Black Eyes and Eric Charley At Riverside they gave dough to any ho that might want it If he had the loot, you know that he would flaunt it In those days nobody pledged allegiance to a crew If it came to you or them, best believe it would be you In two short years Brooklyn flipped sh**, switched A lot of brothas caught the blade 'cuz they snitched Like the b**h a** n***as that they was because The Brooklyn brothas always keep an eye on what other brothas does Security became an impurity, they tried to keep us quiet Everytime they try it we would riot We made the front page when we took it to the stage In a rage on the ma**es We all left our cla**es, broke fool in the school Everybody lost their cool, no more shanks We had graduated to the tool [Hook x4] [Verse 3] Now everybody talkin' bout the west coast, yeah They real with the sk** but we was packin' toast In the days long gone, living wrong Living trife, no life And the Decepticons rollin' through the night You betta take flight when you see 'em preparing for battle They roll a hundred deep in the street like cattle The only thing that slowed 'em down was **** And the **** gave 'em knowledge A third caught city jobs, the others went to college The last third simply got worse schooling all the young boys That came behind the ones who came first [Hook x4]