Common - High Expectations lyrics

Come on, let's get started don't listen to
That street talk that street
Talk is dead don't be talking about no drugs
And no popped Uzis around here
If you ain't got no
Basketball in your hand and
Wanna shoot it out
You gotta go somewhere else

I don't expect you to
Be something you're not
All I expect you to give is all you got

Yo, yo, check it
Unattached and calm, sundaes and pills I palm
With intentions to make it to the league
Intrigued by two letter cars
SE's and GS'ses
On the court, niggas I leave like messages
Plagued by this ball-player exorcist
It's sort of foul how the
World be reffin' us kenny is our Moses in
This five-on-five Exodus
For the game of life
Full courts ain't preppin' us
Schools want me
But the ghost of Manigault haunts me
Plus they wanna crib me
Way out in the country
I'm city like street lights and
Some games that be fights
Never worked on my left so
It's hard to be right either rich, poor
Or Mike is who I wanna be like
Story of many black males that
I refuse to rewrite

I don't expect you to
Be something you're not
All I expect you to give is all you got

Yo, brothers opinions is Bias-ed, like Len
That I'll end up like Ben wilson still
Some pretend to be friends beneath the grin
I see the jinn spoke of in the Surah
More so than my soul, my jumper is purer
People play juror i witness
The fall of legends
Once was the joint now they
Resin got a God-given present
My gallant talent is like a magic
Trick turned by a chick with a bad habit
Opportunity to move, I grab it
Me and my moms had static now
I reek Hennessy and havoc
Man to man talks with Kenny send me to a zone
Been on my own for so long
My vocal tone's grown
Competition gets blown like speakers
When I cross her like Jesus
Out of bleachers, broads, and beepers
Yeah I boogey it's all good
But it could be better
Want to stay eighteen forever
But now I stay on point
Like Rod in this Strickland
If Brooklyn courts was a campus
Then I would be the big man

I don't expect you to
Be something you're not
All I expect you to give is all you got

From thoughts that pennies bring
I assemble teams like the Kenny Kings
Think fast over breaks
Dialect I'm dribbling
Remembering night posters of Moses
And the Supreme Court
Realizing that rap and life are team sports
I follow these thoughts
Moves never receive thought
Lyrical Johnny Cochran
'Cause of the way I free thought
The system make a nigga think to
Make it that he need sports
Or either to the tip he gotta resort
My seed'll be taught to start his
Own in the George Carter zone
Don't wanna be a dope MC
Living in his momma's home
Or speaking to my fans in
A starving artist tone
Unknown zones I roam with mind architecture
Spark the lecture
Emphasizing: let God direct ya

I don't expect you to
Be something you're not
All I expect you to give is all you got