JAY-Z - Streets Is Watching lyrics

Uh huh uh huh uh, gee-gee-geyeah
Peeping, watching, streets
You boys are soft like bread
Uh huh uh huh uh, live from Brooklyn
Uh huh uh, the streets is watching
Check it, check, uh huh uh, check

Look, if I shoot you, I'm brainless
But if you shoot me, then you're famous!
What's a nigga to do when
The, streets is watching
Blocks keep clocking
Waiting for you to break
Make your first mistake?
Can't ignore it
That's the fastest way to get extorted
But my time is money, and twenty-five
I can't afford it
Beef assorted like Godiva chocolates
Niggas you bought it
I pull the slide back and cock it
Plan aborted, you and your mans get a pass
This rhyme, you're operating on bitch time
Y'all niggas ain't worth my shells
All y'all niggas tryna do
Is hurt my sales
And stop trips to John Meneilly
The type to start a beef then run to the cops
When I see you in the street
Got one in the drop
When I'd rather be on tour
Getting a hundred a pop
Taking pictures with some bitches in
Front of the drop
The streets is watching

When the, streets is watching
Blocks keep clocking
Waiting for you to break
Make your first mistake
Can't ignore it

Now it's hard not to kill niggas
It's like a full time job
Not to kill niggas
Can't chill
The streets is watching you when
You froze your arms
Niggas wanna test you when your gun goes warm
Can't get caught with your feet up
Gotta keep your heat up
Sweet niggas running 'round swearing
Shit is sweeter
Once you're tagged lame
The game is follow the leader
Everybody want a piece of your scrilla
So you gotta keep it realer
Kidnap niggas wanna steal you
Broke niggas want no cash
They just wanna kill ya
For the name, niggas don't know the rules
Disrespecting the game
Want you to blow your cool
Force your hand
Of course that man's plotting
Smarten up, the streets is watching
(it's on)

When the, streets is watching
Blocks keep clocking
Waiting for you to break
Make your first mistake
Can't ignore it

My street mentality: flip bricks forever
Know me and money
We like armed co-defendants
Nigga we stick together
Shit whatever for this cheddar ran
My game into the ground
Hustle harder 'til secret indictment
Time came around
Now you can look up and down the
Streets and I can't be found
Put in 24 hour shifts but, that ain't me now
Got a face too easy to trace
Niggas mouths got slow leaks
Had to hire a team of workers
Couldn't play those streets
See out of space like Mercury
You jerking me? Hectic
Had to call upon my wolves
To send niggas the message
It said this: "Let's play fair
And we can stay here
I'm trying to transform you boys
To men like daycare!
Hey, there's money to be made!"
And niggas got the picture
Stopped playing with my paper and
We got richer
Then hard times fell upon us
Half of my staff had warrants
The other half, in the casket lay dormant
I felt like life was cheating me
For the first time in my
Life I was getting money
But it was like my conscience was eating me
Was this a lesson God teaching
Me? Was he saying that
I was playing the game straight from
Hell from which few came back?
Like bad coke, pimp or die
Was my mind frame bad?
Was niggas thinking simplify was
Turning cocaine crack?
Ain't a whole lot of brain to that
Just trying to maintain a stack
And not collide like two trains
That's on the same track
But get my life together like
The oils I bring back
In the bottom of the pot
Where no water gets hot
Got my transporter take it across
The border then stop
To set up shop with a quarter of rock
Here's the plan
For three straight weeks
Niggas slaughtered the block
But you know the game is food
It fucked up me and my dudes
One drought can wipe a nigga out
Faster than the cops
And this unstable way of living
Just had to stop
Half of my niggas got time
We done real things
By '94 became the subject of
Half of y'all niggas rhymes
Public apologies to the families of those
Caught up in my shit
But that's the life for us lost
Souls brought up in this shit
The life and times of a demonic mind
Excited with crime
And the lavish luxuries that
Just excited my mind
I figured, "Shit
Why risk myself? I'll just
Write it in rhymes
And let you feel me and
If you don't like it
Then fine!"
The mind state of a nigga
Who boosted the crime rate
So high in one city they send
National Guards to get me
Shit, bitch
Who's fucking with that? The streets