N.Y. State of Mind (feat. National Symphony Orchestra) - Live

Twenty years in the making

What was I thinking?
1992, wow
I was just tryna get into 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 them, with the funky rhythm I be kicking
Musician, inflicting composition of pain
Scarface sniffing cocaine
Holding an M16, with the pen I'm extreme
Now, bullet holes left in my peepholes
Suited up with street clothes, hand me a nine and I'll defeat foes

Y'all know my steelo, with or without the airplay
Keep some E&J, sitting bent up on the stairway
Or either on the corner betting Grants with the cee-lo champs
Laughing at base-heads, tryna sell some broken amps
G-packs get off quick, forever niggas talk
Reminiscing about the last time the task force flipped

Yo, they be running through the block shooting
Time to start a revolution, catch a body, head for Houston
They caught us off-guard, MAC-10 was in the grass and
Ran like a cheetah, with thoughts of an assassin
Picked the MAC up, told brothers, "Back up!" the MAC spit
Lead was hitting niggas, 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 my shit back had three bullets caught up in the chamber
Now I'm running through the building lobby
It was full of children probably, couldn't see as high as I be
(So what you saying son?) The game ain't the same
Got young niggas pulling the triggers, bringing fame to their name

Claim some corners, crews without guns are goners
Broad daylight, stick-up kids, they run up on us
.45's and gauges, MAC's in fact
Same niggas will catch you back-to-back, snatching your cracks
In black, it's a snitch on the block getting niggas knocked
So hold your stash 'til the coke price drop

I know this crackhead, said she got to smoke nice rock
If it's good, she'll bring you customers and measuring pots
But yo, you gotta slide on a vacation
Inside information, large niggas erasing, their wives basing
It drops deep as it does in my breath
I never sleep 'cause sleep is the cousin of death
I lay puzzled 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
Where I live (New York state of mind)
Where I'm at (New York state of mind)

Be having dreams I'm a gangster
Drinking Moëts, holding TEC's
Making sure the cash came correct, then I stepped
Investments in stocks, sewing up the blocks to sell rocks
Winning gunfights with mega-cops
But just a nigga walking with his finger on the trigger
Make enough figures 'til my pockets get bigger
I ain't the type of brother made for you to start testing
Give me a Smith & Wesson, I'll have brothers undressing

Thinking of cash flow, Buddha, shelter
And get frustrated, I hijack Delta
In the PJ's, my blend tape plays, bullets are strays
Young bitches, hoodrats, it's 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 living 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
Is parallel to Hell, but I must maintain
And be prosperous, though we live dangerous
Cops could just arrest me, blaming us, we're held like hostages
It's only right that I was born to use mics
And the stuff that I write, even tougher than dykes

I've taken rappers to a new plateau
Through rap slow, my rhyming is the vitamin held 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 villains and creeps
Where I learned to do my hustle, had to scuffle with freaks
I'm an addict for sneakers, 20's of Buddha, 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 because 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
Where I live (New York state of mind)
Where I'm at (New York state of mind)

But tonight, tonight
In the D.C state of mind
Yeah, yeah
Nasty Nas, come on
Nasty Nas, what
Nasty Nas, uh

Thank you
20 years ago, I was writing that rhyme in a small apartment
In a small room, inside that small apartment
Just living 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 was going on, man