Surviving

The press and the media make you think that a black man arming himself is illegal or criminal

Or they even wanna arm themselves to rob a liquor store or something

You know what I'm sayin'?

That is for me to defend myself and it should always be

That's just about surviving, you know?

And we have to be honest about the tools that we use to survive

And why is a black life any—

Any more recoupable than a white life?

You know what I'm saying?

We know that they don't put the same security in them ghettos

That they do in the whites - in the white neighborhoods

So therefore, for me to be out here sayin'

"Don't," you know, "put your guns down" and "no violence"

That's hypocritical

And if I didn't talk about the violence

Everybody would act like the violence wasn't there

We as rappers bought that violence

We bought the violence that we seen on the streets

We put it in our records

Put it in our records for years

And after three, four years, people finally startin' to see it

Because of all the statistics that's going on in the streets

If we stopped talking about it

Then they wouldn't take statistics

And when they stop taking statistics

Then we'd be killing each other in the streets

And these white people wouldn't care no more

Only reason they care is 'cause, you know

'Cause there's been some strays and

We done slipped over in the white neighborhoods

And there's kids in Iowa that wanna be like us

You know what I'm saying?

There's kids in Indiana that's trying to be like us

'Cause they can relate too

You know what I'm saying?

And in two years, I've had a gun pulled on me

By my limo driver, by police, by everybody

You know what I'm saying?

And I better be, I better be

You know what I'm saying?

I've been attacked

You ain't read the papers about these skinheads

Trying to blow up black churches, why?

They see me as the enemy just like y'all do

You know what I'm saying?

They can come to my house and sit outside my house

Just like anybody else can

A skinhead

And once my life is gone, it's gone

Can't nobody give it back to me

Not the judge, not the president, not the governor

Not Calvin Butts, not Jesse Jackson

They can't do nothing but come to my funeral

And talk pretty about how black people suffer

You understand?