Nobody ever said life was gon' be easy  But damn..    [ VERSE 1 ]  Just a kid, moms died when I was seven  Pops died, eleven, what's up with heaven?  It's hell when you're an orphan at a early age  This impressionable stage, no love breeds rage  In the heart of a child who never knew his roots  Looked up to pimps and to hustlers in the eel-skin boots  Parkin Caddies on the sidewalk, gangsta talk  Truckin diamonds and gold  Rubberbands around the bankrolls  Fly girls to make your head spin  Seemed they partied all night long  I was like, "Put me on"  But they said, "Little fellow, run and go play  Take your butt to school or else you'll have to be like us one day"  I didn't understand, but I tried to get a job  While all the players got the girls cause they'd hustle and rob  I was like makin 'bout 1-50 a week  And after taxes, you know what that is - lunch meat    And I know I can be better than this  I gotta get me a car, man  I gotta get a girl    I know I can do it out there, man  I'm finna go for it, man  I gotta get some money  Word    [ VERSE 2 ]  Streets of anger, trouble and crime  I had it hard, had to sleep in my car sometime  But I never let another player see me down  I kept my front up, my gear clean  Even when checkin minor green  Brothers knew my game was true  So I hooked up with the real crew  That knew excactly what to do  Bank jobs and jewels, quick to flex with tools  Pimpin hoes on the block  Checkin cash non-stop  Crack spots, armor with interior bars  No lie, I used to own 'bout 15 cars  Every piece Fila made  Drape my women in suede  Pavet Piaget, Cesar's Palace holidays  It was on, crazy out of control  We made up the word 'ballin', that was how we rolled  But the FBI had a-whole-nother idea  It's called multiple indictments for hundreds of years    What  Daff is dead?  Carter got 25 years?  Nah..  Spike 35 to life?  Nah, don't tell me B.O.'s dead, man  I don't wanna hear that, man  I was just with him    [ VERSE 3 ]  The game is vicious, no retirement, you die young  Listen to a fake, he might tell you to grab a gun  I get phone calls from condemned row  Brothers I ran with, brothers I really know  They tell me, "Ice you got much love in the pen  You're the one that got away, don't wanna see you in"  They tell me, "Tell the little homies the deal  Don't let em come up in this hellish habitat of shanks and steel"  I marched two million strong in D.C.  Lookin eye to eye with brothers that I used to think below me  Damn, my mind was twisted in my hustlin days  But God spared me, I got a baby son to raise  And bein black ain't easy, prejudice is real  But health and liberty is all we need for us to build  We gotta come together, unseparated  Check yourself like I did, blackman, because we're all related