Chorus: GZA and RZA
 I gotcha back, but you best to watch your front
 Cause it's the niggaz that front, they be pullin stunts
 I gotcha back, but you best to watch your front
 Cause it's the niggaz who front (they be pullin stunts)

 Lyrics:

 I was always taught my do's and don'ts
 For do's I did, and for don'ts, I said I won't
 I'm from Brooklyn, a place where stars are born
 Streets are shot up, apartment buildings are torn
 and ripped up, stripped up, shacked up and backed up
 from fiends, cause the bosses on the scene, they got it cracked up
 Kids are slingin in my lobby
 Little Steve and Bobby
 Gettin paid but it's a life-threatening hobby
 Yeah, they still play hide and seek
 The fiends seek for the crack, and they hide and let the cops peep
 Grown folks say they should be out on their own
 Before the gangs come and blow up their mom's home
 Because they lifestyle is hectic, so fuckin hectic
 Blaow! Blaow! Blaow! Bullets are ejected
 My lifestyle was so far from well
 Coulda wrote a book with a title "Age 12 and Goin through Hell"
 Then I realized the plan
 I'm trapped in a deadly video game, with just one man
 So I don't only watch my back, I watch my front
 Cause it's the niggaz who front, they be pullin stunts
 Back on the Ave of Lavonia and Bristol with a pistol
 Stickin up Pamela and Crystal
 You know your town is dangerous when you see the strangest
 kid come home from doin the bid and nuthin changes
 What is the meaning of CRIME (what?)
 Is it Criminals Robbin Innocent Motherfuckers Everytime?
 Little shorties take walks to the schoolyard
 Tryin to solve the puzzles to why is life so hard
 Then as soon as they reached the playground, blaow!
 Shots ring off and now one of them lay down
 It's so hard to escape the gunfire
 I wish I could rule it out like an umpire
 But it's an everlasting game, and it never cease to exist
 Only the players change, so...

 Chorus 3X

 RZA - I gotcha back (8X)
 I gotcha back so you best to watch your front
 Cause it's the niggaz who front, that be pullin stunts
 I gotcha back but you best to watch your front
 It's the niggaz who front, that be pullin stunts

 Outro: (LP version only)

 *old man*
 Your, tech, nique, is, mag-ni-ficent
 When cut across the neck
 A sound like wailing winter winds is heard, they say
 I'd always hoped to cut someone like that someday
 To hear that sound
 But to have it happen to my own neck is... ridiculous
 *man gasps for air