Don't Shoot the Messenger

[Verse 1:] I got love for real dudes good brothas don’t respect suckas What want for myself i want for others I had holes in socks and my draws growin up stressin Didn’t have a lot of money and material possessions Pop warner and little league pitched played out field Had a valet times hill and paper route to help pay the bills My hood is a battlefield lots of talent a skill Women smart enough to be journalists like federico winfield We hollow broke we or got the latest iphone A zap it or choke in the lebron zone Can’t remember your sat but to every e40 song You can recite every lyric and rap along We living in different day such challenging times Financial binds, senselessness crimes I was talkin to my og he did 20 for real He said if i had some bread i wouldn’t put none of these niggas in my will Because they turn like a steering wheel and forget you when you in jail They didn’t write me or nothin no commissary no mail That’s what he said to me so i pulled out a g Even though he used to run with my uncle i was just 3 Years old with a snotty nose and observing him being nosey Soaking up game and ear husslin while they trade war stories Thugin and bustin, death and destruction Chaos and catastrophe, triump and tragedy [Chorus:] Don’t shoot him Don’t shoot the messenger [x4] [Verse 2:] I don’t come from money i come from fried baloney Starvin and thirsty eb key cards pop a murphy Lord have mercy it’s brutal and murky out here on the ave Where the mail man’s scared to come in you can’t catch a cab Me and my partnas be gettin together drinkin, smokin herb Talkin bout reincarnation comin back as a bird I was channel surfing watchin the word network cause i get inspired When i here the ministry of joyce myers i use my rushcard to order her tapes Or should i say dvds her’s and tb jakes Is it any good people left on this earth that show pity That will do anything for their relatives give up a kidney But would their relatives do the same for them i don’t know You’ll be surprised how selfish people can be even kin folk I can’t imagine me goin to hell the devil’s a liar What you wanna be i wanna be one of god’s angels when i die The pearly gates not the underworld in the afterlife At the end of the tunnel will there be light Will the sky be purple, will the grass be blue Will i recognise my family will they know me too Living on this earth is a test behold When god call we can’t put in on hold I’m just the writer not the editor Here go my letter don’t shoot the messenger [Chorus] [Outro:] Hey I like to say to ugh all the industry people out there to that ugh Has control of what we call hiphop, like for people to put more of an effort for hiphop to be what it was instead of the culture of violence that it is right now you know there’s a lot of things going you know what i mean There’s a lot of people that put in a lot of time,you the break dancers The graffiti artist, people rappin all over the world And i think it means a lot, i mean it means a lot to people like me that for all my life I’ve been in hiphop And it should more than just somebody standin on the side a the road selling dope I mean that may or may not have it’s place too because it’s there But i’m just sayin i ain't neva shot nobody, i ain't neva stab nobody I’m 45 years old and i ain't i ain't got no criminal record you know what I mean the only thing I’ve ever done is care about my music So I mean so while we teaching people what it is about life in the ghetto Then we should be teaching people what life is in the ghetto me tryna grown up And come up out of the ghetto and we need everybody’s help out there to make it happen Hiphop needs to grow up and i’m a grown man i’m a be doin hiphop all my life I need somebody’s help to help me do it. So let’s get this thing done