Brand Nubian: A Child Is Born

[Lord Jamar - interpolation of Grandmaster Flash's "The Message"]
A child is born with no state of mind
Blind to the ways of mankind
God is smiling on you but He's frowning too
Because only God knows what you'll go through, uhh
A child is born with no state of mind
Blind to the ways of mankind
God is smiling on you but He's frowning too

[Sadat X]
He grew up in an instant, the fourth of seven children
The oldest male on the block was half and half
Brown stones to neck bones, crack jonez to tones
Where young girls spread out and drop seeds like they're farmers
They're old as their momma's, the same age as their aunt
and the neighbourhood drunk men
and that lady with the dreaded disease is like hard to please
And the house of ill fate with the metal gate
Keep the thin people cracked out like munchkin monks
The ole man with the fruit stand is on his man
His hand, his ole heart just can't stand
the CPR as they load him in the back of a car
I'm on a world tour to help free the poor
>From the local drug cats to kids in front of the store
Number runners, gangbangers and the big money spenders
Reality check rings as we descend from the king


[Grand Puba]
Now a child is born with no state of mind
Blind to the ways of mankind
God is smiling on you but He's frowning too
Because only God knows what you'll go through
A child is born with no state of mind
Blind to the ways of mankind
God is smiling on you but He's frowning too
Because only God knows....

[Lord Jamar]
The home's filled with horror in my horoscope
Tomorrow I could be broke, this ain't a joke
I'm twenty dollars away from bein dead ass
I'm bout to spend half on a bag to get my head blast
Last week I lost to justice cypher born
and spawned a riff with my wiz
now she dead with my kids
I live by the subway, niggas push drugs in my hallway
All day everyday tryin to get the pay
And I be tryin ta find a better way
You see, when you're poor then you're forced to adore to raw play
Survival be a forte, lookin forward to-a robble up your food stamps
Projects' like boot camps
wit generals cookin chemical warfare
Ki's to a mayor, I ain't seen ya ass in four years
The law bears down on anybody that's brown
My complexion puts me in the direction of the section 8
Rejection seems to be my fate
As a kid, don't wanna ship my momma, always said I had to wait
And it's been drama up to date
Enough to traumatise people's lives and the eyes they try to fixate

[Sadat X]
A child is born with no state of mind
Blind to the ways of mankind
God is smiling on you but He's frowning too
Because only God knows what you'll go through
A child is born with no state of mind
Blind to the ways of mankind
God is smiling on you but He's frowning too
Because...

[Grand Puba]
Born into existance with some resistance
A struggle comin out my ol' earth's womb
It was little past noon, three months before June
I had a feelin I was headed toward the land of doom
I came out and the doctor got ready to smack
I grabbed the 'bilical cord and tried to pull myself back
but it was too late for that cos in fact
I'll slit the sack so I gotta maintain where I'm at
Now I'm here breathin this diff'rent kind of air
Poverty bound, headed for the welfare
Drug-infested, rat-infested, people drownin in sorrow at neighbourhood bars
Roaches bigger than my hot wheel cars
Dope fiends with swollen arms lookin like rotten wood
turn to crack monsters up and down the neighbourhood
Liquor store business soar as the crowd pour
or thru the corridors, echoin off the project walls
That's why the Gods say

[Lord Jamar]
A child is born with no state of mind
Blind to the ways of mankind
God is smiling on you but He's frowning too
Because only God knows what you'll go through, uhh
A child is born with no state of mind
Blind to the ways of mankind
God is smiling on you but He's frowning too
Because only God knows what you'll go through, uhh