N.Y. State of Mind (Live)

20 years in the making
What was I thinking
1992 wild
I wasn't trying to get in the rap game
The incredible rap game
It's all a dream
It's time
And when that time came I took it
Yeah

Rappers i monkey flip em with the funky rhythm i be kicking
Musician, inflictin composition
Of pain scarface sniffin cocaine
Holdin a m-16, see with the pen i'm extreme, now
Bulletholes left in my peepholes
Suited up in street clothes
Hand me a nine and i'll defeat foes
Y'all know my steelo with or without the airplay
I keep some e&j, sittin bent up in the stairway
Or either on the corner bettin grants with the celo champs

Laughin at baseheads, tryin to sell some broken amps
G-packs get off quick, forever niggaz talk
Reminiscing about the last time the task force flipped
Yo they be runnin through the block shootin
Time to start the revolution, catch a body head for houston
They caught us off guard, the mac 10 was in the grass
Ran like a cheetah with thoughts of an assassin
Pick the mac up, told brothers, "back up," the mac spit
Lead was hittin niggaz one ran, i made him backflip
Heard a few chicks scream my arm shook, couldn't look

Gave another squeeze heard it click yo, my shit is stuck
It wouldn't shoot now i'm in danger
Pulled shit back had three bullets caught up in the chamber
Now i'm running through the building lobby
It was filled with children probably couldn't see as high as i be
(So whatchu sayin?) the game ain't the same
Got younger niggaz pullin the triggers bringing fame to they name
Claim some corners, crews without guns are goners
In broad daylight, stickup kids, they run up on us
Fo' fives and gauges, macs in fact

Same niggaz'll catch a back to back, snatchin yo' cracks in black
There's a snitch on the block gettin niggaz knocked
So hold your stash until the coke price drop
I know this crackhead, who said she gotta smoke nice rock
And if it's good she'll bring ya customers in measuring pots, but yo
You gotta slide on a vacation

Inside information large niggaz erasin and they wives basin
It drops deep as it does in my breath
I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death
I lay puzzle as i backtrack to earlier times
Nothing's equivalent, to the new york state of mind

(New york state of mind)
(New york state of mind)
Be havin dreams that i'ma gangster drinkin moets, holdin tecs
Making sure the cash came correct then i stepped
Investments in stocks, sewein up the blocks
To sell rocks, winnin gunfights with mega cops
But just a nigga, walking with his finger on the trigger
Make enough figures until my pockets get bigger
I ain't the type of brother made for you to start testing
Give me a smith and wessun i'll have niggaz undressing

Thinkin of cash flow, buddah and shelter
And get frustrated I hijack delta
In the p.j.'s, my blend tape plays, bullets are strays
Young bitches is grazed each block is like a maze
Full of black rats trapped, plus the island is packed
From what i hear in all the stories when my peoples come back, black
I'm livin where the nights is jet black
The fiends fight to get crack i just max, i dream i can sit back
And lamp like capone, with drug scripts sewn
Or the legal luxury life, rings flooded with stones

I got so many rhymes i don't think i'm too sane
Life is parallel to hell but i must maintain
And be prosperous, though we live dangerous
Cops could just arrest me, blamin us, we're held like hostages
It's only right that i was born to use mics
And the stuff that i write, is even tougher than dice
I'm takin rappers to a new plateau, through rap slow
My rhymin is a vitamin, hell without a capsule

The smooth criminal on beat breaks
Never put me in your box if your shit eats tapes
The city never sleeps, full of villians and creeps
That's where i learned to do my hustle had to scuffle with freaks
I'ma addict for sneakers, twenties of buddah and bitches with beepers

In the streets i can greet ya, about blunts i teach ya
Inhale deep like the words of my breath
I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death
I lay puzzle as i backtrack to earlier times
Nothing's equivalent, to the new york state of mind
(New york state of mind)
(New york state of mind)
(New york state of mind)
(New york state of mind)

(Nasty nas)
(Nasty nas)
(Nasty nas)
(Nasty nas)
(Nasty nas)
(Nasty nas)
(Nasty nas)
(Nasty nas) nasty nas

Thank you
20 years ago I was writing that rhyme in a small apartment
In a small room inside that apartment
Just living in a in a world that I knew
Talking about the things that I see and live man
You know teenagers mind is wild, that's just what was going on man