[Verse 1: will.i.am]

Street livin', caught in a trap

Guns or books, sell crack or rap

Be like kings or be like pawns

They called us coons, now they call us cons

Street niggas be packing pistols

Terrorists be blasting missles

Crips and bloods and retail thugs

CIA planes bring Columbian drugs

Don't push me cause I'm close to hell

And compare to them, prison guards get payed well

Ten years no bail is 4 years at Yale

So, forget about the statue of General Lee

Because the status of blacks are generally

Are gonna end up in some penitentiary

Systematically, that's how they made it to be

Listen, they derailed the soul train

And put a nightmare into every Martin Luther kING

And private complexes are owned by the same

Slave masters that owned the slave trade game

And racists no longer have to be racist

Cause niggas kill more niggas than the KKK did

Now, every time I hear a new def jam

Niggas killing niggas like they Ku Klux Klan

I understand what's a nigga to choose?

Be the killer or be the dead dude in the news

I get it, what's a nigga to do?

No education in the hood, got a nigga confused



[Verse 2: Taboo]

Street livin', tough conditions

Brainwashed by the television

We lost in the war we live in

Double cross love lost no religion

Street livin', oh my gosh

Another brother got shot by the searg'

Another cop got off with no charge

If you black in the hood, you at large

You're guilty until we prove you're innocent

If you're ivory, they treat you different

If you're ebony, they assume your temperment

Well, be vigilant, and they call you militant

You'll get shot, and they'll say the incident

Is because you're beligerent

What a coincidence?

If you ain't dead, you can see imprisonment



[Verse 3: apl.de.ap]

It's more niggas in the prisons than there ever slaves cotton picking

There's more niggas in the prisons than there ever slaves cotton picking

So, how we gon' get out the trap?

Guns or books, sell crack or rap

Street livin', hustle or hoops

Guns or books, get shot or shoot

Street livin', ain't no rules

Revoke cause the streets are broke

Now, they wanna take away our dreams and hopes

Street livin', no economics

No way out of the Reaganomics

Infected by the black plague, bubonic

No comprende, we speak ebonics

Street livin', what's your position?

Here to take action or take a dick

Listen, you can get f*cked by the system

Or you can say f*ck the system