Nas: Y'all My Niggas

Verse 1
Find a room to lock yourself in and close the door
It's some heavy concepts that we gotta explore
We gotta strip the word down rugged and raw
The rhetoric of martin king just ain't around no more
Dave bowie ain't here James Baldwin neither
They all were leaders
But they ain't help me get this porcsh two seater
A lawyer left the hood he never looked back
To be a fortune 500 ceo it took rap
So what if my pants sag with my hat turned back
The same swag got our merchandise flying off the rack
Marketing companies that's hiring blacks
Fresh hip hop lingo for your campaign ads
The controversy surrounds who could say it and win
Some niggas are full time some play and pretend
So fuck that no apologies on the issue
If it offends you
It's meant to
It's that simple

Hook
Tryin to erase me from y'all memory
Too late I'm engraved in history (I'm here my niggas)
Speak my name and breath life in me
Make sure y'all never forget me (y'all give me life)
Cause y'all use my name so reckless
Whether to be accepted or disrespected (and I love it)
And I love it especially when y'all do it in public
And I'm the subject
Cause y'all my niggas

Verse 2
Yo I was thinking a little bit what would it take
To authenticate my nigganess
Ball ridiculous
26 inches when I call up the dealership
Yeah that's some nigga shit
We only out for our own benefit
We haven too many kids
We? welfare recipients
The infamous free clinics is the sickest shit
It makes me think what the hell they clean they're syringes with
Everybody bleedin
The cops or the demons
Courtrooms full of goons
Jailbrushers leanin
Handcuffs squeezed too tight
On you?
If u fight they just give in
People used to do sit ins
They got Nigeria and Niger two different countries
Somehow niger turned to nigger
And shit got ugly
The problem is we started thinking like the colonists
To know the ?
Started droppin that consciousness

Hook
Tryin to erase me from y'all memory
Too late I'm engraved in history (I'm here my niggas)
Speak my name and breath life in me
Make sure y'all never forget me (y'all give me life)
Cause y'all use my name so reckless
Whether to be accepted or disrespected (and I love it)
And I love it especially when y'all do it in public
And I'm the subject
Cause y'all my niggas

Verse 3
My father was not a banker
Neither was my neighbor when it came to getting paper
Who the hell was gonna train us
A pressure couldn't escape us through the ages
We changed the basis of derogatory phrases
And I say it's quite amazing
The use the ghetto terms developed our own language
No matter where it came from
It's celebrated now people are mad it they ain't one

Hook x2
Tryin to erase me from y'all memory
Too late I'm engraved in history (I'm here my niggas)
Speak my name and breath life in me
Make sure y'all never forget me (y'all give me life)
Cause y'all use my name so reckless
Whether to be accepted or disrespected (and I love it)
And I love it especially when y'all do it in public
And I'm the subject
Cause y'all my niggas