Hold on now, don't die now, be strong now      He said, "I was born a crack baby   In a plastic bag in the alley   Raised in a foster home   With no mother to love and I never knew my papi"   Back in the days of Bobby McFerrin   Used to sing, "Don't worry, be happy"   Lord how can I be happy   When I don't even know my own family tree Lord?      We are the next generation, we ain't scared to die   The only thing I fear is the after life   'Cuz I don't know what's there on the other side   But I pray the Lord forgives me, gives me one more try      Gang poppin' things, doin' drive-by's and angers   Kids goin' to school puttin' fears in their teacher   The teacher let them know that it ain't all good   'Cuz the gang was created to protect the neighborhood, now   All you red now, all you blue now   All you yellow now, follow me now   To that place of righteousness   Where the only thing that matters is your consciousness, he said      We are the next generation, we ain't scared to die   The only thing I fear is the after life   'Cuz I don't know what's there on the other side   But I pray the Lord forgives me, gives me one more try      In my father's kingdom there are many mansions   All the rooms are free, there is no tax collection   I can see Biggie, Tupac, Moses and Abraham   Jason, the one and two's, jammin' with the sun of man      I've been kicked, I've been stabbed   I've been shot, I've been [Incomprehensible] by a   Person that I thought I trusted, where I live   It's a war at the cribs, walk with a strap   Myself 'cos I don't want nobody's son on my back   My mind playin' tricks [Incomprehensible], to really   Me out in five unless I take another hit   I done seen the sunset on the other side of town   Now I'm driftin' in the darkness, Heaven hold me down      [Incomprehensible] but I know I'm born dyin'   Feel the tears of the angels lookin' down on me cryin'   For a lyin' ass but yo forgive us in a while   And I'm sorry, never let me forget that I'm your child   While I'm locked up in this basement starin' eye to eye with Satan   In this cold dark world with no patience   We get plotted on by agents with talks of replacin'   The Africans, Jamaicans and the Haitians in this next generation      We are the next generation, we ain't scared to die   The only thing I fear is the after life   'Cuz I don't know what's there on the other side   But I pray the Lord forgives me, gives me one more try      Whoa, we the next generation, look at what we facin'   The kids raise themselves, all kind of temptation   Flowers and candles decoratin' all the pavements   No, the perpetrator ain't seein' no arrangements   Nobody cares about the feelings of the poor   Many suffer while we spendin' eighty billion on a war, uh   Cuttin' school budgets, U.S. stockmarket plummets   Condition's only worse and I wonder what become it      Metal detectors replace music classes   Angry little kids wanna beat their teacher's asses   The red and blue's, somebody gotta lose   Reality TV be reality for who   I don't question what the Lord found in me   I just pass it on to folks with no boundaries   Got a long road ahead of us, AIDS already gettin' us   Now we got stars, how many will there be left of us?      We are the next generation, we ain't scared to die   The only thing I fear is the after life   'Cuz I don't know what's there on the other side   But I pray the Lord forgives me, gives me one more try