[Intro (Nas talking)]

Yo, it's like waking up from a bad dream (Americaaa)

just to figure out you wasn't dreaming in the first place (Nooo...)



[Verse 1]

If all I saw was gangsters

Coming up as a youngster

Pussy and money the only language I clung to

Claim to, unrolled myself up to become one

Ain't ya happy I chose rap?  I'm amongst the

Streets deceiving

Can't believe my achievements

Cultural strata

Persona's that of a non-needer

Because I don't need nada except for Prada beaver

For cold winters, tattoos got my summer's sleeveless

To my G's on the flee from the coppers (coppers)

Stiff bodies on freeze in funeral parlors (parlors)

From the slums I come up a phoenix

Caked up, tryin' to take what I'm eating

Came up a dismissive kid (kid)

You lucky if you allowed to witness this

Savvy mouth

While hardly a man's man

Who woulda knew the beach houses and wild parties

Jezebel's and Stella McCartney's?

For years, all that

How could I not be dead?

This old German

Said I was a thug with a knotty head

Looked at my Benz and called that a Nazi sled

With a face like he wonder where I got my bread

Probably all these stones he see

From my shows overseas

From crime to rhyme

My story is I'm from the home of the thieves



[Chorus 1]

America (America), pay attention

Wake up (America)

This is not what you think it is

America (America), pay attention

Wake up (America)

This is not what you think it is



[Verse 2:]

Blessed

The lord is a G, he gotta be

Who's the God of suckers and snitches?

The economy

Lipstick from Marilyn Monroe

Blew a death kiss to Fidel Castro

He'd want me to spit this

Only the strong survive

Nas bear witness

The hypocrisy is all I can see

White cop acquitted for murder

Black cop cop a plea

That type of shit make me stop and think

We in chronic need of a second look of the law books

And the whole race dichotomy

Too many rappers, athletes, and actors

But not enough niggas in NASA

Who give you the latest dances, trends, and fashion?

But when it comes to residuals, they look past us

Woven into the fabric, they can't stand us

Even in white tee's, blue jeans, and red bandannas



[Chorus 2]

America (America) pay attention

Wake up (America)

This is not what you think it is

America (America)

Pay attention (America)

This is not what you think it is 

America (America)

(This is not what you think it is)



[Verse 3:]

Assassinations

Diplomatic relations

Killed indigenous people

Built a new nation

Involuntary labor

Took a knife split a woman naval

Took her premature baby

Let her man see you rape her

If I could travel to the 1700's

I'd push a wheelbarrow full of dynamite

Through your covenant

Love to sit in on the Senate

And tell the whole government

Y'all don't treat women fair

She read about herself in the bible

Believing she the reason sin is here

You played her, with an apron

Like, "Bring me my dinner, dear."

She the nigger here

Ain't we in the free world?

Death penalty in Texas kill young boys and girls

Barbarity, I'm in the double-R casualty

Bugging how I made it out the hood, dazzle me

How far we really from third world savagery

When the empire fall, imagine how crazy that'll be



[Chorus 3]

America (America, America)

America (America)

(This is not what you think it is)

America (America ohhh) 

This is not what you think it is

America