[Intro]
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Streets, streets
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Livin' in the streets
 
[Verse 1: will.i.am]
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 Street livin', caught in the trap
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 Guns or books, sell crack or rap
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 Be like kings or be like pawns
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 They called us coons, now they call us cons
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 Street niggas be packing pistols
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 Terrorists be blasting missiles
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 Crips and Bloods and retail thugs
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 CIA planes bring Colombian drugs in
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Don't push me 'cause I'm close to hell
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The teachers in my neighborhood can hardly spell
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And compare to them, prison guards get paid well
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Ten years no bail is 4 years at Yale
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So, forget about the statue of General Lee
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Because the status of blacks are generally
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Gonna end up in some penitentiary
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Systematically, that's how they made it to be
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Listen, they derailed the soul train
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And put a nightmare in every Martin Luther King
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And privatized prisons are owned by the same
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Slave masters that owned the slave trade game
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And racists no longer have to be racist
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'Cause niggas kill more niggas than the KKK did
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 Now, every time I hear a new def jam
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Niggas killing niggas like they Ku Klux Klan
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I understand what's a nigga to choose?
N.C.
Be the killer or be the dead dude in the news
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I get it, what's a nigga to do?
N.C.
No education in the hood got a nigga confused
 
[Verse 2: apl.de.ap]
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 Street livin', tough conditions
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 Brainwashed by the television
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 We lost in the world we live in
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 Double cross love lost no religion
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 Street livin', oh my gosh
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 Another brother got shot by the searg'
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 Another cop got off with no charge
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 If you black in the hood, you at large
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You're guilty until you prove you're innocent
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If you're ivory, they treat you different
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If you're ebony, they assume your temperament
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Will be vigilant and they call you militant
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And you'll get shot and they'll say the incident
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Is 'cause you're belligerent, what a coincidence?
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 Born and bred but you're still an immigrant
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 And if you ain't dead, you can see imprisonment
 
[Chorus: will.i.am]
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 There's more niggas in the prisons than there ever was slaves cotton picking
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 There's more niggas that's rotting in the prisons than there ever was slaves cotton picking
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 So, how we gon' get up out the trap?
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 Guns or books, sell crack or rap
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 Street livin', hustle or hoops
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 Guns or books, get shot or shoot
 
[Verse 3: Taboo]
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 Street livin', ain't no rules
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 Break the law, make the breakin' news
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 The life you choose could be the life you lose
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 Niggas getting stuck for the Nike shoes
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 Street livin', ain't no joke
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 It's a cold world, better bring your coat
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 Revoke 'cause the streets are broke
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 And now they wanna take away our dreams and hopes
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 Street livin', no economics
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 No way out of the Reaganomics
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 Infected by the black plague, new bubonic
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 No comprende, we speak ebonics
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 Street livin', what's your position?
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 You can take action or take a dick and listen
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 You can get fucked by the system
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 Or you can say "fuck the system"