Rhymes Equal Actual Life  In The Youth

 "These are the streets!
 Shit is real out here!
 This ain't no fuckin joke!"

 I lived in a spot called Millbrooke Projects
 The original Criminal Minded rap topic
 With twenty cents in my pocket I saw the light
 If you're young gifted and black  you got no rights
 Your only true right  is a right to a fight
 and not a fair fight  I wake up wonderin who died last night
 Everyone and everything is at war
 Makin my poetic expression hardcore
 I ain't afraid to say it, and many can't get with it
 At times in my life, I was a welfare recipient
 I ate the free cheese, while the church said believe
 and went to school everyday, like a god damn fool
 Well anyway, here I am, chillin at the party
 Brothers lookin at me like they wanna kill somebody
 A cypher manifested in the center of the jam
 I got to show these wack rappers really who I am
 It's me against them, so I clear the phlegm
 and wage the war, hardcore to the end
 For someone lookin inside, yeah from the out
 it seems like disrespect is what rap is all about
 But hip-hop as a culture, is really what we give it
 But sometimes the culture contradicts how we live it
 Cause every black kid lives two and three lives
 The city's a jungle, only the strong will survive

 Reality, ain't always the truth
 Rhymes Equal Actual Life, In The Youth
 Reality, ain't always the truth
 Rhymes Equal Actual Life, In The Youth

 Every single day I hear lie after lie
 Like "Black people don't die, we multiply"
 So when I kick a rhyme I represent how I feel
 The sacred street art of keepin it real
 Why I gotta listen, to somebody else?
 How they got wealth, let me talk about myself
 But all I really got is hip-hop and a glock
 The results are obvious, if I'm confined to my block
 Occasionally, in the city I'm released
 to meet other beasts, lookin for the feast
 We grunt and growl, on the prowl, as the air gets thinner
 "Yo yo there he go, him," there's the dinner
 White meat, carryin a bag of some sort
 Life is short, white meat is quickly caught
 A scuffle a muffle yet none of us hesitated
 Like Mother Africa, white meat is violated
 We quickly dissapear, like Santa's little elves
 And go into a area to fight amongst ourselves
 We say, "peace/piece" cause that's what we really want
 A piece of the pie that America flaunts

 Reality, ain't always the truth
 Rhymes Equal Actual Life, In The Youth
 Reality, ain't always the truth
 Rhymes Equal Actual Life, In The Youth

 "Oh shit!"

 The truth is that police must serve and protect
 REALITY is black youth is shown no respect
 The truth is government has a war against drugs
 REALITY is government is ruled by thugs
 With all this technology, above and under
 Humanity still hunts down one another
 Rappers display artistic cannibalism
 through lyricism, we fight each other over rhythm
 Through basic animal instincts, we think
 So the battle for mental territory is glory, end of story

 Reality, ain't always the truth
 Rhymes Equal Actual Life, In The Youth
 Reality, ain't always the truth
 Rhymes Equal Actual Life, In The Youth
 Yeah

 "These are the streets!
 Shit is real out here!
 This ain't no fuckin joke