N.Y. State of Mind (feat. National Symphony Orchestra) - Live

Twenty years in the making

What was I thinking?

1992, wow

I was just tryna get into the rap game

The incredible rap game

It's all a dream

It's time, and when that time came

I took it

Yeah

Rappers, I monkey flip them, with the funky rhythm I be kicking

Musician, inflicting composition of pain

Scarface sniffing cocaine

Holding an M16, with the pen I'm extreme

Now, bullet holes left in my peepholes

Suited up with street clothes, hand me a nine and I'll defeat foes

Y'all know my steelo, with or without the airplay

Keep some E&J, sitting bent up on the stairway

Or either on the corner betting Grants with the cee-lo champs

Laughing at base-heads, tryna sell some broken amps

G-packs get off quick, forever niggas talk

Reminiscing about the last time the task force flipped

Yo, they be running through the block shooting

Time to start a revolution, catch a body, head for Houston

They caught us off-guard, MAC-10 was in the grass and

Ran like a cheetah, with thoughts of an assassin

Picked the MAC up, told brothers, "Back up!" the MAC spit

Lead was hitting niggas, one ran, I made him backflip

Heard a few chicks scream, my arm shook, couldn't look

Gave another squeeze, heard it click, "Yo, my shit is stuck!"

It wouldn't shoot, now I'm in danger

Pulled my shit back had three bullets caught up in the chamber

Now I'm running through the building lobby

It was full of children probably, couldn't see as high as I be

(So what you saying son?) The game ain't the same

Got young niggas pulling the triggers, bringing fame to their name

Claim some corners, crews without guns are goners

Broad daylight, stick-up kids, they run up on us

.45's and gauges, MAC's in fact

Same niggas will catch you back-to-back, snatching your cracks

In black, it's a snitch on the block getting niggas knocked

So hold your stash 'til the coke price drop

I know this crackhead, said she got to smoke nice rock

If it's good, she'll bring you customers and measuring pots

But yo, you gotta slide on a vacation

Inside information, large niggas erasing, their wives basing

It drops deep as it does in my breath

I never sleep 'cause sleep is the cousin of death

I lay puzzled as I backtrack to earlier times

Nothing's equivalent to the New York state of mind

New York state of mind

New York state of mind

Where I live (New York state of mind)

Where I'm at (New York state of mind)

Be having dreams I'm a gangster

Drinking Moëts, holding TEC's

Making sure the cash came correct, then I stepped

Investments in stocks, sewing up the blocks to sell rocks

Winning gunfights with mega-cops

But just a nigga walking with his finger on the trigger

Make enough figures 'til my pockets get bigger

I ain't the type of brother made for you to start testing

Give me a Smith & Wesson, I'll have brothers undressing

Thinking of cash flow, Buddha, shelter

And get frustrated, I hijack Delta

In the PJ's, my blend tape plays, bullets are strays

Young bitches, hoodrats, it's like a maze

Full of black rats trapped plus the Island is packed

From what I hear in all the stories when my peoples come back

Black, I'm living where the nights is jet-black

The fiends fight to get crack, I just max, I dream I can sit back

And lamp like Capone, with drug scripts sewn

Or the legal luxury life, rings flooded with stones

I got so many rhymes, I don't think I'm too sane

Is parallel to Hell, but I must maintain

And be prosperous, though we live dangerous

Cops could just arrest me, blaming us, we're held like hostages

It's only right that I was born to use mics

And the stuff that I write, even tougher than dykes

I've taken rappers to a new plateau

Through rap slow, my rhyming is the vitamin held without a capsule

The smooth criminal on beat breaks

Never put me in your box if your shit eats tapes

The city never sleeps, full of villains and creeps

Where I learned to do my hustle, had to scuffle with freaks

I'm an addict for sneakers, 20's of Buddha, bitches with beepers

In the streets I can greet ya, about blunts, I teach ya

Inhale deep like the words of my breath

I never sleep because sleep is the cousin of death

I lay puzzle as I backtrack to earlier times

Nothing's equivalent to the New York state of mind

New York state of mind

New York state of mind

Where I live (New York state of mind)

Where I'm at (New York state of mind)

But tonight, tonight

In the D.C state of mind

Yeah, yeah

Nasty Nas, come on

Nasty Nas, what

Nasty Nas, uh

Thank you

20 years ago, I was writing that rhyme in a small apartment

In a small room, inside that small apartment

Just living in a world that I knew

Talking about the things that I see and live man, you know, teenagers' mind is wild

That's just was going on, man