Nas - Y'all My Ni**as lyrics

We use the word everyday Now, if we dont know the capacity of this word Are we having a conflict or not? Yes sir Because we did not break down the capacity Of the same, what? The same word Brothers and sisters this is why We hung up in our consciousness We been talking wrong Find a room to lock yourself in and close the door Its some heavy concepts that we gotta explore We gotta strip the word down, rugged and raw The rhetoric of Martin King just aint around no more Du Bois aint here, James Baldwin either, they all were leaders But they aint help me get this Porsche two-seater A lawyer left the hood, he never looked back To be a Fortune 500 CEO, it took rap So what if my pants sag with my hat turned back The same swag got our merchandise flying off the rack Marketing companies is hiring blacks Fresh hip-hop lingo for your campaign ads The controversy surrounds who could say it and win Some n***as are full time, some play and pretend So f** that, no apologies on the issue if it offends you Its meant to, its that simple Tryin to erase me from y'all memory Too late, Im engraved in history, Im here, my n***as Speak my name and breathe life in me Make sure y'all never forget me, y'all give me life Cause y'all use my name so reckless Whether to be accepted or disrespected and I love it And I love it, especially when y'all do it in public And Im the subject cause y'all my n***as Yo, I was thinking a little bit What would it take to authenticate my n***aness? Ball ridiculous, twenty six inches when I call up the dealership? Aw, that's some n***a sh** We only out for our own benefit? We havin too many kids? Were claudines, welfare recipients The infamous free clinics is the sickest sh** Make me think what the hell they clean their syringes with Everybody bleeding, the cops and the demons Courtrooms full of goons, jail-busters leaning Handcuffs squeezed too tight on you flight If you fight they just give in, people used to do sit ins They got Nigeria and Niger two different countries Somehow Niger turned to n******g and sh** got ugly The problem is we started thinking like the colonists To know the [Incomprehensible] started dropping their consciousness Tryin to erase me from y'all memory Too late, Im engraved in history, Im here, my n***as Speak my name and breathe life in me Make sure y'all never forget me, y'all give me life Cause y'all use my name so reckless Whether to be accepted or disrespected and I love it And I love it, especially when y'all do it in public And Im the subject cause y'all my n***as My father was not a banker neither was my neighbor When it came to getting paper, who the hell was gonna train us? A pressure couldn't escape us through the ages We changed the basis of derogatory phrases And I say its quite amazing The use of ghetto terms, developed our own language No matter where it came from Its celebrated, now, people are mad if they ain't one Every word we use, it has a capacity And if you dont understand the word youre using And understand the capacity of it You are using words that is creating a destiny for you That you dont even know or are even conscious of Tryin to erase me from y'all memory Too late, Im engraved in history, Im here, my n***as Speak my name and breathe life in me Make sure y'all never forget me, y'all give me life Cause y'all use my name so reckless Whether to be accepted or disrespected and I love it And I love it, especially when y'all do it in public And Im the subject Tryin to erase me from y'all memory Too late, Im engraved in history Speak my name and breathe life in me Make sure y'all never forget me Cause y'all use my name so reckless Whether to be accepted or disrespected And I love it, especially when y'all do it in public And Im the subject cause y'all my n***as