L.I.F.E.

[Intro: Joell Ortiz] Let me paint a picture for these suburb niggas This the hood [Verse 1: Joell Ortiz] Dope fiends, syringes on the cracked concrete Lie next to a dirty dipper, life on the streets is real (real) Fiends forming crack packs at night And sell they daughter's brand new bike to fill a pipe It's sad, we've got it bad, weed bags and dutchess' Relax and puff it escape reality Until your high come down, you look around And see the same thing you seen before you gave duke a pound And copped your little chronic, it's off the hook in the projects Parents hooked on drugs, these kids hooked on phonics How little man gonna concentrate on ABC's When he gotta go down the hall to watch they TV (cause you done sold his) [Hook: x2] L - You live it, don't like it but learn to love it I - It ain't fair, but who cares, you gotta thug it F - For sheezee my attitizee is fuck it E - Either you roll or get rolled on it's nothing [Verse 2] I was probably 9 or 10 when I picked up my pen Down in Short's crib, listenin' to Kris Kross then That's when my verses had a million curses and 10 gats Fast cars, and I ain't know where the gas peddle was at (you know) 10 years old, peddling crack, at least to me I was See hood youngin's wanna be like thugs Straight A students got laughed at and called a herb By people in they class that wished they could be called a nerd But they ain't take time to sound out all of they words So they covered it up with jokes and cut to smoke herbs And fill cups with alcohol, over school nights Parents needed a Tylenol, teachers ain't know they child at all At home they weren't wild at all, but when they got to school Bad influences and peer pressure was pilling on Quote unquote cool crowds was where they wanted to fit in A lot of them wish they didn't now they all got addictions Winter time, out in the cold, sniffling on a mission To find something that which is cool when they was school skippin' If they could turn back hands they would have took school different But ain't no time machines Now they stuck in the mind of fiends Feeling sorry for they selves, life is mean and Shorty they was feeling now proudly sports a diamond ring That the nerd gave to her - Wishing they was the one that was engaged to her Now who's the cool crowd? [Hook: x2]