Nas - Y'all My Niggas lyrics

We use the word everyday
Now we don't know the capacity of this word
Are we headed for conflict or not? (Yes sir)
Because we did not break down the capacity
Of the same what (The same word)
Brothers and sisters
This is why we hung up the consciousness
We've been taught wrong

Find a room to lock yourself
In and close the door
It's some heavy concepts that
We gotta explore
We gotta strip the word down rugged and raw
The rhetoric of Martin King just
Ain't around no more
Du Bois ain't here, James Baldwin neither
They all were leaders but they ain't help me
Get this Porsche two-seater
A lawyer left the hood, he never looked back
To be a Fortune 500 CEO, it took rap
So what if my pants sag
With my hat turned back?
The same swag got our merchandise
Flying off the rack
Marketing companies is hiring blacks
Fresh hip-hop lingo for your campaign ads
Controversy surrounds who could say
It and when some niggas are full time
Some play and pretend
So fuck that, no apologies on the issue
If it offends you, it's meant to
It's that simple

Tryna erase me from y'all memory
Too late, I'm engraved in history
(I'm here, my niggas)
Speak my name and breathe life in me
Make sure y'all never forget me
('Cause y'all give me life)
'Cause y'all use my name so reckless
Whether to be accepted or disrespected
(And I love it) and I love it
Especially when y'all do it in public
And I'm the subject 'cause y'all my niggas

Yo, I was thinking a little bit
What would it take to
Authenticate my nigganess?
Ball ridiculous? Twenty-six inches when I
Call up the dealership?
Aww, that's some nigga shit
We only out for our own benefit?
We having too many kids?
We Claudines? Welfare recipients?
The infamous free clinics is the sickest shit
Make me think what the hell
They clean they syringes with
Everybody bleeding, the cops are the demons
Courtroom's full of goons, jail buses leaning
Handcuffs squeezed too tight on youth life
If you fight, they just give in
People used to do sit ins
They got Nigeria and Niger
Two different countries
Somehow Niger turned to nigga
And shit got ugly the problem is we started
Thinking like the colonists
'Til Noble Drew Ali started
Dropping that consciousness

Tryna erase me from y'all memory
Too late, I'm engraved in history
(I'm here, my niggas)
Speak my name and breathe life in me
Make sure y'all never forget me
('Cause y'all give me life)
'Cause y'all use my name so reckless
Whether to be accepted or disrespected
(And I love it) and I love it
Especially when y'all do it in public
And I'm the subject 'cause y'all my niggas

My father was not a banker
Neither was my neighbor
When it came to getting paper
Who the hell was gon' train us?
Oppression couldn't escape us
Through the ages
We changed the basis of derogatory phrases
And I say it's quite amazing
The use of ghetto terms
Developed our own language
No matter where it came from
It's celebrated
Now people are mad if they ain't one

Every word we use, it has a capacity
And if you don't understand
The words you're using
And understand the capacity of it
You are using words that is
Creating a destiny for you
That you don't even know or even conscious of

Tryna erase me from y'all memory
Too late, I'm engraved in history
(I'm here, my niggas)
Speak my name and breathe life in me
Make sure y'all never forget me
('Cause y'all give me life)
'Cause y'all use my name so reckless
Whether to be accepted or disrespected
(And I love it) and I love it
Especially when y'all do it in public
And I'm the subject
Tryna erase me from y'all memory
Too late, I'm engraved in history
Speak my name and breathe life in me
Make sure y'all never forget me
'Cause y'all use my name so reckless
Whether to be accepted or disrespected
And I love it
Especially when y'all do it in public
And I'm the subject, 'cause y'all my niggas