Talib Kweli - Knockturnal lyrics

[Intro] It’s all good Do or die, man I hear ya Before I come out to go to work and whatnot I hear a shoot-out and whatnot You know, what you hear, pop po-pop pop And I’m like, yo… My moms ‘ould be like, “Yo You ain’t going out in that” Brother gotta make a living Do what you gotta do [Chorus] The vampires make you fear the night That kind of talk give them evil spirits life She on the track like she waiting for her tears to dry Listen real close you can hear the city cry You hear it right? Its like every night the city die We the blood, we give the city life Living the city life [Verse 1] The city get restless when the sun goes down The words get heated and the guns go *pow* I used to joke and smile, now everyone’s so foul He grab the heat before he leave up out the front door now Check the weather, what’s the forecast Tryna make it rain, lookin’ for more cash Little man, ain’t got no parents, who you gon’ follow When your role models send you to the store for a cold bottle And you come back and see ’em in cuffs will be enoug To hate police, and define manhood as being tough Sneakers scuffed and them toes turnt up This sh** is aggravating It’s hard to put holes in denim, this ain’t a fashion statement Yelling out “thats my car” So fascinated by material gain, it’s already ours in our imagination The [?] of supremacy is masturbation The master race should make you want to mash your face and run Right up in somebody gates But where the f** the safe Small, quiet dude in the back like ” I know just the place” He flash a toothy grin the jakes love to hate And then he flashed the gun he had tucked in his waist The conversations, son, I’m hearing are overbearing Ain’t no preparing for how much the hood be oversharing (Word) The night time, always the right time When your blood is what’s flowing through the school-to-prison pipeline [Chorus] The vampires make you fear the night That kind of talk give them evil spirits life She on the track like she waiting for her tears to dry Listen real close you can hear the city cry You hear it right? Its like every night the city die We the blood, we give the city life Living the city life [Verse 2] When you ain’t got a pot to piss Everybody on the block is your competition Police all in your pocket, you’re forced to forfeit When your espionage is corporate, that means you got an office Instead arrested for the petty theft Expected to apologise for every breath A warrior stood in the face of many d**hs But since they colonized us are there any left He in the streets like he ain’t got a home Writing a poem to the beat of the sobs and moans Ran into Joan, skin chocolate as a Toblerone Clickety-clack of stilettos on wet cobblestones Streetlights illuminate how truly dark it is The block is a college, you got a degree in marketing A doctorate in swallowing, this pimping paid her scholarships She poppin’ out her tits, ‘cos they pay her to be provocative Broke n***as tryna holla tho (holla tho) But they ain’t got no dollars though It sound like, Imma hit a lick anyday So f** you b**h, she don’t look that good anyway (you don’t even look good anyway) Since when is pettiness a virtue? Cops circle the block, they went from stop and frisk to stop and merc you Smoking dark purple in a crop circle Fast life [?] [Chorus] The vampires make you fear the night That kind of talk give them evil spirits life She on the track like she waiting for her tears to dry Listen real close you can hear the city cry You hear it right? Its like every night the city die We the blood, we give the city life Living the city life