Talib Kweli

Yo son, what’s the deal son? What’s really hood son? (What’s really hood?)
Yo, word is bond, shit is real (Shit is real)
Yo son this block is dead (word is bond), a nigga need to go OT and pop off real quick
Yo, I gotta get that gwap by any means, you know what I’m sayin’ son

Verse 1: Talib Kweli

Growin’ up in Brooklyn, shit, I thought that everybody talked this way
Raised on Rakim and Run DMC, so I thought that everybody walked this way
“We fresh, we chill, we def, we ill,” was just some things I was taught to say, and
Every Saturday morning I’d watch cartoons with a bowl of Frosted Flakes, and
The puberty came, started hittin’ them cuties with game and the truancy came
Started cuttin’, and not just class, I was coming off fast, I was new to the game
Music playin’ on TV courtesy of Video Music Box, plus
Knew a lot of hustlers going OT coming back with the new hip hop, like
E-40 holdin’ down the yay, NWA in LA
OutKast from the A-Town, way down in Houston they play the UGK
I walk and talk kinda fast and thought of as a New York kinda rhymer
But most New Yorkers got family in South and North Carolina
LA is little Alabama, they walk and talk with a country grammar
New York think everybody else sound country, so we started callin’ em bammas
But we was talkin’ funny, everybody else was talkin’ country
Nowadays it seems like they don’t listen if you ain’t talkin’ money

Chorus:

It’s nothin’ - I’m from New York, but I got country cousins
It’s nothin’ - we stay connected by the slang we bustin’
When it’s simply put you can’t be me, what I spit gotta set everyone free
I’m an underground king nigga, Pimp C free, what up to my man Bun B, what?
It’s nothin’- I’m from New York, but I got country cousins
It’s nothin’ - we stay connected by the slang we bustin’
Them thangs we bustin’, the game we hustlin’, the dames we cuttin’
The flame we cuppin’, the lames we snuffin’, your name is nothin’

Verse 3: Bun B

Growin’ up in PA, I knew nobody out there talked like us
Nothin’ but that country slang – “what up dog, what up cuz?”
Late nights you see us buzzin’ on 40s, Mad Dog, wine and weed
Sittin’ on the back porch getting zooted, feelin’ fine indeed
Listening to Eric B and Rakim or EPMD
Cool C and Steady B, plus that Public Enemy
Not to mention NWA, DJ Quik and MC Eiht
Down south we listened to it all, we didn’t discriminate

Then along came Geto Boys, Raheem and the Royal Flush
Rap-A-Lot Records based out of Houston represents for us
OG Style, the Convicts, The Four and Too Much Trouble
Odd Squad and Gangsta Nip put it down for H-Town on the double
So I said it’s time to hustle, got down with my brother C
Put together UGK, and shit, the rest is history
We make hits by the dozens, put it down when they said we wasn’t
Trust me, it’s nothin’, just another day in the life of your country cousin

Chorus

Verse 3: Pimp C

In Brooklyn, New York, I’m down with Lord Jamar
Back in PAT, man we be sippin’ the barre
I’m down with J from Houston and I think you should peep
But when I’m out in LA, I fuck with Ice-T
Short Dog is my OG, we been down forever
Taught me the game, lane to lane, and keep my pimpin’ together
Niggas don’t understand by far, back in the day
It was May and then my brother put me up on Black Star
Cause us blacks often lose our way
Cause we isolate ourselves and give our ghetto pass away
My niggas pass away at an unreal rate, they mamas get greedy
I’m just tryna make sure that they kids straight
I’m on a chitlin tour, with my mic in my hand
Shittin’ on these jealous niggas and the new world clan
I wouldn’t trade it for nothin’, only a crazy man would
I represent it for the south but mainly just for my hood, the pimp is good

Chorus