America
by Nas

Album: Untitled (2008)
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  • Yo
    It's like waking up from a bad dream
    Just to figure out you weren't dreaming in the first place

    If all I saw was gangsters
    Coming up as a youngster
    Pussy and money the only language I clung to
    Claim to, unrolled myself up to become one
    Ain't ya happy I chose rap, I'm amongst the
    Streets deceiving, can't believe my achievements
    Cultural strata, persona's that of a non-needer
    Because I don't need nada except for Prada beaver
    For cold winters, tattoos got my summer's sleeveless
    To my g's on the flee from the coppers
    Stiff bodies on freeze in funeral parlors
    From the slums I come up a phoenix
    Caked up, trying to take what I'm eating
    Came up a dismissive kid
    You lucky if you allowed to witness this
    Savvy mouth, wild, hardly, a man's man
    Who woulda knew the beach houses and wild parties
    Jezebel's and Stella McCartney's
    For years, all that, how could I not be dead
    This old German, said I was a thug with a knotty head
    Looked at my Benz and called that a Nazi sled
    With a face like he wonder where I got my bread
    Probably all these stones he see
    From my shows overseas
    From crime to rhyme
    My stories is I'm from the home of the thieves

    America (pay attention, wake up, this is not what you think it is)

    Blessed, the Lord is a G, he gotta be
    Who's the God of suckers and snitches, the economy
    Lipstick from Marilyn Monroe
    Blew a death kiss to Fidel Castro
    He'd want me to spit this
    Only the strong survive
    Nas bear witness
    The hypocrisy is all I can see
    White cop acquitted for murder
    Black cop cop a plea
    That type of shit make me stop and think
    We in chronic need of a second look of the law books
    And the whole race dichotomy
    Too many rappers, athletes, and actors
    But not enough niggas in NASA
    Who give you the latest dances, trends, and fashion
    But when it comes to residuals, they look past us
    Woven into the fabric, they can't stand us
    Even in white tee's, blue jeans, and red bandannas

    America (pay attention, wake up, this is not what you think it is)

    Assassinations, diplomatic relations
    Killed indigenous people, built a new nation
    Involuntary labor, took a knife split a woman naval
    Took her premature baby
    Let her man see you rape her
    If I could travel to the 1700's
    I'd push a wheelbarrow full of dynamite
    Through your covenant
    Love to sit in on the Senate
    And tell the whole government
    Y'all don't treat women fair
    She read about herself in the bible
    Believing she the reason sin is here
    You played her, with an apron
    Like bring me my dinner, dear
    She the nigga here
    Ain't we in the free world
    Death penalty in Texas kill young boys and girls
    Barbarity, I'm in the double-R casually
    Bugging how I made it out the hood, dazzle me
    How far we really from third world savagery
    When the empire fall, imagine how crazy that'll be

    America (pay attention, wake up, this is not what you think it is) Writer/s: KEVIN HANSFORD, Laurence Wright, Nasir Jones, William Mitchell
    Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

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