Artist: nas
Song: y'all my ni**as
Album: Nas
Year: 2008
We use the word everyday
Now, if we don?t know the capacity of this word
Are we having a conflict or not? Yes sir
Because we did not break down the capacity
Of the same, what? The same word
Brothers and sisters this is why
We hung up in our consciousness
We been talking wrong
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
Du Bois ain?t here, James Baldwin either, they all were leaders
But they ain?t help me get this Porsche 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 is 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
Tryin? to erase me from y'all memory
Too late, I?m engraved in history, I?m here, my niggas
Speak my name and breathe 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
Yo, I was thinking a little bit
What would it take to authenticate my nigganess?
Ball ridiculous, twenty six inches when I call up the dealership?
Aw, that's some nigga shit
We only out for our own benefit? We havin? too many kids?
We?re claudines, welfare recipients
The infamous free clinics is the sickest shit
Make me think what the hell they clean their syringes with
Everybody bleeding, the cops and the demons
Courtrooms full of goons, jail-busters leaning
Handcuffs squeezed too tight on you flight
If you 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 [Incomprehensible] started dropping their consciousness
Tryin? to erase me from y'all memory
Too late, I?m engraved in history, I?m here, my niggas
Speak my name and breathe 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
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 of ghetto terms, developed our own language
No matter where it came from
It?s celebrated, now, people are mad if they ain't one
Every word we use, it has a capacity
And if you don?t understand the word you?re using
And understand the capacity of it
You are using words that is creating a destiny for you
That you don?t even know or are even conscious of
Tryin? to erase me from y'all memory
Too late, I?m engraved in history, I?m here, my niggas
Speak my name and breathe 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
Tryin? to erase me from y'all memory
Too late, I?m engraved in history
Speak my name and breathe life in me
Make sure y'all never forget me
?Cause y'all use my name so reckless
Whether to be accepted or disrespected
And I love it, especially when y'all do it in public
And I?m the subject ?cause y'all my niggas
