nas:


I rap for listeners, blunt heads, fly ladies and prisoners
Henessey holders and old school niggaz, then I be dissin a
unofficial that smoke woolie thai
I dropped out of Kooley High, gassed up by a cokehead cutie pie
Jungle survivor, **** who's the liver
My man put the battery in my back, a differencem from Energizer
-Memory Lane

This // raps with a razor, keep it under my tongue
The school drop-out, never liked the shit from day one
cause life ain't shit but stress fake niggaz and crab stunts
So I guzzle my Hennesey while pullin on mad blunts
The brutalizer, crew de-sizer, accelerator
The type of // who be pissin in your elevator

Could use a gun Son, but **** bein the wanted man
but if I hit rock bottom then I'ma be the Son of Sam

-Represent

Dipped to the projects flashin my quick cash
and got my first piece of ass smokin blunts with hash
Now it's all about cash in abundance, niggaz I used to run with
is rich or doin years in the hundreds
I switched my motto -- instead of sayin **** tomorrow
That buck that bought a bottle could've struck the lotto

-Life's a btch

You couldn't catch me in the streets without a ton of reefer
That's like Malcolm X, catchin the Jungle Fever

Versatile, my style switches like a faggot
But not bisexual, I'm an intellectual
Of rap, I'm a professional and that's no question, yo

-Halftime

Deep like The Shinin', sparkle like a diamond
Sneak a uzi on the island in my army jacket linin
Hit the Earth like a comet, invasion
Nas is like the Afrocentric Asian, half-man, half-amazin
Cause in my physical, I can express through song
Delete stress like Motrin, then extend strong


The buddha monk's in your trunk, turn the bass up
Not stories by Aesop, place your loot up, parties I shoot up
Nas, I analyze, drop a jew-el, inhale from the L
School a fool well, you feel it like braille
It ain't hard to tell, I kick a skill like Shaquille holds a pill
Vocabulary spills I'm Ill
plus Matic, I freak beats slam it like Iron Shiek
Jam like a tech with correct techniques
So analyze me, surprise me, but can't magmatize me
Scannin while you're plannin ways to sabotage me
I leave em froze like her-on in your nose
Nas'll rock well, it ain't hard to tell

Packin like a rasta in the weed spot
Vocals'll squeeze glocks, MC's eavesdrop
Though they need not to sneak
My poetry's deep, I never fell
Nas's raps should be locked in a cell
It ain't hard to tell

-it ain't hard to tell

Once they caught us off guard, the Mac-10 was in the grass and
I ran like a cheetah with thoughts of an assassin

It's like the game ain't the same
Got younger niggaz pullin the triggers bringing fame to they name
and claim some corners, crews without guns are goners

It drops deep as it does in my breath
I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death
Beyond the walls of intelligence, life is defined
I think of crime when I'm in a New York state of mind

Life is parallel to Hell but I must maintain
and be prosperous, though we live dangerous
cops could just arrest me, blamin us, we're held like hostages

I'm takin rappers to a new plateau, through rap slow
My rhymin is a vitamin, Hell without a capsule

I lay puzzle as I backtrack to earlier times
Nothing's equivalent, to the new york state of mind

-NY State of Mind

Dear Born, you'll be out soon, stay strong
Out in New York the same shit is goin on
the crack-heads stalking, loud-mouths is talking
hold, check out the story yesterday when i was walking
the // you shot last year tried to appear like he hurtin' something
word to mother, i heard him fronting

On the reels, all these crab niggaz know the deal
When we start the revolution all they probably do is squeal

so stay civilised, time flies
though incarcerated your mind dies
I hate it when your moms cries

Sometimes I sit back with a buddha sack
mind's in another world thinking how can we exist through the facts
written in school text books, bibles, et cetera
**** a school lecture, the lies get me vexed-er

I took an l when he passed it, this little bastard
keeps me blasted he starts talkin mad shit
I had to school him, told him don't let niggaz fool him
'cos when the pistol blows that's when a murder be the cool one

shorty's laugh was cold blooded as he spoke so foul
Only twelve trying to tell me that he liked my style
Then I rose, wiping the blunts ash from my clothes
then froze only to blow the herb smoke through my nose

-one love

Wipe the sweat off my dome, spit the phlegm on the streets
Suede Timb's on my feets, makes my cypher, complete
Whether crusin in a six-cab, or Montero Jeep
I can't call it, the beats make me fallin asleep
I keep fallin, but never fallin six feet deep

I'm out for dead presidents to represent me

I trip we box up crazy bitches aimin guns in all my baby pictures
Beef with housin police, release scriptures that's maybe Hitler's
Yet I'm the mild, money gettin style, rollin foul
The versatile, honey stickin wild, golden child
Dwellin in the Rotten Apple, you get tackled
Or caught by the devil's lasso, shit is a hassle
There's no days, for broke days, we sell it, smoke pays
While all the old folks pray, to Je-sus' soakin they sins in trays
of holy water, odds against Nas are slaughter
Thinkin a word best describin my life, to name my daughter
My strength, my son, the star, will be my resurrection
Born in correction all the wrong shit I did, he'll lead a right direction

Born alone, die alone, no crew to keep my crown or throne

-the world is yours


enough said