Talib Kweli - Knockturnal lyrics

It's all good, do or die, man i hear ya
Before I come out and go to work and whatnot
I hear a shoot-out and whatnot (yeah right)
You know, what you hear, pop-pop-pop
Listen, and I'm like, "Yo"
My moms'd be like, "Yo
You ain't going out in that"
I said "Look, yo
A brother gotta make a living"
You gotta do what you gotta do

The vampires make you fear the night
That kind of talk give
Them evil spirit's life
She on the track like she waiting
For her tears to dry
Listen real close you can hear the city cry
You hear it right?
It's like every night the city die
We the blood, we give the city life
Living the city life

The city get restless when the sun go down
The words get heated and the guns go (pow)
I used to joke and smile
Now everyone's so foul
He grab the heat before he leave
Out the front door now
Check the weather, what's the forecast?
Tryna make it rain, lookin' for more cash
Little man ain't got no parents
Who you gon' follow
When your role models send you to
The store for a cold bottle?
And you come back and see 'em
In cuffs will be enough to hate police
And define manhood as being tough
Sneakers scuffed and them toes turnt up
This shit is aggravating
It's hard to put holes in denim
This ain't a fashion statement
Yelling out "That's my car", so fascinated
By material gain
It's already ours in our imagination
The matri nations of
Supremacy is masturbation
The master race should make you
Want to mash your face
And run right up in somebody gates
Like "Where the fuck the safe?"
Small, quiet dude in the back
Like "I know just the place"
He flash a toothy grin the jakes love to hate
And then he flashed the gun he
Had tucked in his waist
The conversations, son
I'm hearing are overbearing
Ain't no preparing for how much
The hood be oversharing
(Word) The night time, always the right time
When your blood is what's flowing
Through the school-to-prison pipeline

The vampires make you fear the night
That kind of talk give
Them evil spirit's life
She on the track like she waiting
For her tears to dry
Listen real close you can hear the city cry
You hear it right?
It's like every night the city die
We the blood, we give the city life
Living the city life

When you ain't got a pot to piss
Everybody on the block is your competition
Police all in your pocket
You're forced to forfeit
When your espionage is corporate
That means you got an office
Instead arrested for the petty theft
Expected to apologise for every breath
A warrior stood in the face of many deaths
But since they colonized us
Are there any left?
He in the streets like he ain't got a home
Writing a poem to the beat
Of the sobs and moans
Ran into Joan, skin chocolate as a Toblerone
Clickety-clack of stilettos on
Wet cobblestones
Streetlights illuminate how truly dark it is
The block is a college
You got a degree in marketing
A doctorate in swallowing
This pimping paid her scholarships
She poppin' out her tit's cause they
Pay her to be provocative
Broke niggas tryna holla though
(holla though)
But they ain't got no dollars though
(dollars though)
It sound like, "I'ma hit a lick anyday
So fuck you bitch
She don't look that good anyway"
(You don't even look good anyway) Since
When is pettiness a virtue?
Cops circle the block
They went from stop and frisk
To stop and merc you
Smoking dark purple in a crop circle
Fast life
This entourage is saying "Got terfs"

The vampires make you fear the night
That kind of talk give
Them evil spirit's life
She on the track like she waiting
For her tears to dry
Listen real close you can hear the city cry
You hear it right?
It's like every night the city die
We the blood, we give the city life
Living the city life