[INTRO:]
Seems like yesterday, we was all here, you know? Money was good, good times. Standing around, drinks in our hands, money in our pockets. Nice cars. A lot of people are gone now, and for them, I wrote this here:
[Verse 1:]
What if they told you you were worthless, born for no apparent purpose?
Would you believe 'em, and spend your whole life getting even?
See, I'm the product of a lack of logic
Brought up by alcoholics right outside the projects
Addicts and narcotics feed families; others have to starve
No question there's a problem, but it's one I cannot solve
Got involved selling dope, what them folks gonna do?
Send me back to jail so I can be with the crew?
Defenseless against the coldest world, homes
I thought of growing up but never growing old
Heard myths of a place where the streets were paved in gold
My grandaddy took me to church, but they just never saved my soul
[HOOK:]
(Life with no crime on my mind)
Life with no crime on my mind feels funny. [X4]
[Verse 2:]
I want you to imagine rehabilitated criminals still making money
Life with no crime on my mind feels funny
"Cunning," "cold": words used to describe
The way I live, the way I've stayed alive
85-95, that's a decade-plus
Something's better than nothing when you ain't working with much
Discussion with a touch of million dollar conversation
We'll supply the products, push them all across the nation
Distribution's a solution, music can be confusin'
Conclusions are illusions accused and bruised by new friends
When true friends who thick-and-thin think in statistics say
I will day any day if I continue to live this way
Devoted to turning menaces to businessmen
Nothing's popping in the pen, like to see you make a man
Make a bank to break a rubber band
So do what you gonna do and stop, ain't no career in selling rocks
Just sit and watch life pa** you by, stay mad at the world till you die
Instead I get it together, got up out the game
Because I done did my work and I done made my name
Never did get paid like I thought I would
I don't think there's a million to be made in my neighborhood
I never did get paid like I thought I would
I don't think there's a million to be made in my neighborhood
[HOOK]
[Verse 3:]
It seems like lately, I can't find no peace of mind
Mama said, "Baby, that's the way it's gonna be sometimes."
I need some time to get away, get everything straight
But I'm on paper, and that prohibits me from leaving the state
Only had I known how it is once you get convicted
Privacy invaded, rights restricted
I wouldn't have accepted that plea bargain, I would have fought it all the way
Caught my case in '93, partner, they're still f**ing with me today!
Trying to lock me up for the weed that I possessed
(They found it in your pocket?) No, in my piss!
House arrest, drug tests get popped on me randomly
Like a fool, I'm still smoking with them watching me
But that don't matter, they expect me to f** up again
So they can add me to the general population of the state pen
And I can lay there, thinking about my daughter and my boo
I guess they're the reason why I live life like I do. I live.
[HOOK]