(Verse 1)
Now I was barely seventeen with a pocket full of hope
Screaming, dollar and a dream with my closet looking broke
And my ni**a’s looking clean, getting caught up with that dope
Have you ever served a fiend with a pocket full of soap?
Ni**a I can tell you things that you probably shouldn’t know
Have you ever heard the screams when the body hit the floor?
Flashbacks to the pain, waking up, cold sweats
Six o’clock in the morning, gotta hit the BowFlex
Get my weight up on the block, keep watch for the cops
God they love to serve a ni**a three hots and a cot
Nowadays crime pays like a part time job
And the drought got me praying for a Carl Thom vibe
Summer Rain come again
Numb the pain cause it’s hard for a felon
In my mind I been crying, know it’s wrong but I’m selling
Eyes welling up with tears
Thinking bout my ni**as dead in the dirt
Immortalized on this shirt
(Chorus)
Real ni**as don’t die
Forward with the plot
One-Seven-Forty-Five
For him at the plot
Real ni**as don’t die
For him on the block
Real ni**as don’t lie
For him in the plot
My ni**as don’t die
For him on the block
Real ni**as don’t die
For him on the block
Real ni**as don’t die
Real ni**as don’t die
(Verse 2)
Have you ever seen a fiend cook crack on the spoon?
Have you ever seen a ni**a that was black on the moon?
Have you ever seen your brother go to prison as you cry?
Have you ever seen a motherf**king ribbon in the sky?
Nope, all I see is that cream ni**a, that green
I’m a black king, black jeans on my black queen
And her ass fat, too fat for a flat screen
I’m the type of ni**a make the whole f**king trap lean
Kingpin ni**a, put wings on a crack fiend
If they want a ni**a, they gon have to send a SWAT team
And I’m going out like Scarface in his last scene
A legend, what that mean?
(Chorus)
Real ni**as don’t die
Forward with the plot
One-Seven-Forty-Five
For him at the plot
Real ni**as don’t die
For him on the block
Real ni**as don’t lie
For him in the plot
My ni**as don’t die
For him on the block
Real ni**as don’t die
For him on the block
Real ni**as don’t die
Real ni**as don’t die
(Outro)
To die a young legend or live a long life unfulfilled
Cause you wanna change the world
But while alive you never will
Cause they only feel you after you gone, or I’ve been told
And now I’m caught between being heard and getting old
Damn, death creeping in my thoughts lately
My one wish in this bi**h make it quick if the Lord take me
I know nobody meant to live forever anyway
And so I hustle like my ni**as in Virginia
They telling ni**as sell dope, rap or go to NBA, in that order
It’s that sort of thinking that been keeping ni**as chained
At the bottom and hanged
The strangest fruit that you ever seen
Ripe with pain, listen