Rakim - Living for the City lyrics

In the city where life
Is animated with colors
Contaminated with aggravated brothers
Who knows where the love is?
Growing up swinging, through my upbringing
My limit's is the sky from the all eye seeing
Of so-called realities filled
With technicalities i watch my steps
Stay on my p's and check my casualties
Not to get played
Equipped with all the tricks of the trade
I even learned from the mistakes
That the next man made
I know to choose and pick the
People I grow up around
I know to grow and get to
Know the town up and down
But there's no instructions
So many directions a lot of crooks look to
Get hooked with connections
Some thought they knew all
Adolescence could teach
They graduated from school but fail
Life in the streets
Your pops taught you to strive
And stay a live, no ditty
It's easy to die when you're
Living for the city

That's how I'm living that's how I'm living
That's how I'm living
Yeah that's how I'm living

I grow according to my environmental habitat
I hang where everything seem to happen at
I seen it all
And I've been doing that since I was small
Catch a flashback y'all, if I can recall
The days on the corner we
Watched the world go by
Or nights that wasn't right like
When a good friend dies
I quest for the best for
Prepare for the worst
Never scared but I cared if
I'm blessed or I'm cursed
Yes I fear no man but Allah
I'm Gomar Oz Dubar
Which is God so It's hard to see Ra
I do what I gotta do, with or without a clue
Run through any obstacle including you
Cause, I ain't got to bust you
Cause I got the muscle
A push any clown that tries
To slow down my hustle
I gotta get by, but there's no time for pity
It's easy to die when you're
Living for the city

That's how I'm living that's how I'm living
That's how I'm living
Yeah that's how I'm living

I'm in a zone everywhere I
Seem to roam is home a rolling stone
I hold my own just like a microphone
I stay in tune
Travel in harmony and set the tone
Being young but I'm grown and well-known
Try to take me out New York but you
Can't take New York out of me
Cause that's the only way that
I know how to be
My neighbors is jealous they
Label us drug sellers
We may be hood dwellers
We're just a bunch of goodfellas
Cause we run wild with a passion
My style and my fashion
Is getting, kid, I'm making cash and crashing
Parties that everybody's talking about
We turn it out
I'm just a native New Yorker with clout
I know my way around any borough and any town
I make a lot of ground and
I'm hard to be found
I get down to the nitty gritty
Wake up with something pretty
It gets me through another day
Living for the city

That's how I'm living that's how I'm living
That's how I'm living
Yeah that's how I'm living