[ti:N.Y. State Of Mind(Explicit Al]
[ar:Nas]
[al:Illmatic]
[offset:0]
[00:00.55]N.Y. State Of Mind(Explicit Album Version) - Nas
[00:03.04]Yeah yeah, aiyyo black it's time (word?)
[00:07.11](Word, it's time nigga?)
[00:08.36]Yeah, it's time man (aight nigga, begin)
[00:11.10]Yeah, straight out the fuckin dungeons of rap
[00:15.59]Where fake niggaz don't make it back
[00:20.34]I don't know how to start this shit, yo, now
[00:23.40]Rappers I monkey flip em with the funky rhythm I be kickin
[00:25.51]Musician, inflictin composition
[00:27.89]of pain I'm like Scarface sniffin cocaine
[00:31.15]Holdin a M-16, see with the pen I'm extreme, now
[00:34.58]Bulletholes left in my peepholes
[00:36.84]I'm suited up in street clothes
[00:38.27]Hand me a nine and I'll defeat foes
[00:40.40]Y'all know my steelo with or without the airplay
[00:42.77]I keep some E&J, sittin bent up in the stairway
[00:45.02]Or either on the corner bettin Grants with the celo champs
[00:48.51]Laughin at baseheads, tryin to sell some broken amps
[00:51.39]G-Packs get off quick, forever niggaz talk shit
[00:54.12]Remeniscing about the last time the Task Force flipped
[00:56.62]Niggaz be runnin through the block shootin
[00:59.30]Time to start the revolution, catch a body head for Houston
[01:02.74]Once they caught us off guard, the Mac-10 was in the grass and
[01:06.23]I ran like a cheetah with thoughts of an assassin
[01:08.66]Pick the Mac up, told brothers, "Back up," the Mac spit
[01:11.72]Lead was hittin niggaz one ran, I made him backflip
[01:14.10]Heard a few chicks scream my arm shook, couldn't look
[01:17.16]Gave another squeeze heard it click yo, my shit is stuck
[01:19.83]Try to cock it, it wouldn't shoot now I'm in danger
[01:23.21]Finally pulled it back and saw three bullets caught up in the chamber
[01:25.89]So now I'm jetting to the building lobby
[01:28.01]and it was filled with children probably couldn't see as high as I be
[01:31.56](So whatchu sayin?) It's like the game ain't the same
[01:33.93]Got younger niggaz pullin the triggers bringing fame to they name
[01:36.62]and claim some corners, crews without guns are goners
[01:39.24]In broad daylight, stickup kids, they run up on us
[01:42.55]Fo'-fives and gauges, Macs in fact
[01:44.36]Same niggaz'll catch a back to back, snatchin yo' cracks in black
[01:48.35]There was a snitch on the block gettin niggaz knocked
[01:50.66]So hold your stash until the coke price drop
[01:53.66]I know this crackhead, who said she gotta smoke nice rock
[01:56.47]And if it's good she'll bring ya customers in measuring pots, but yo
[02:00.02]You gotta slide on a vacation
[02:01.14]Inside information keeps large niggaz erasin and they wives basin
[02:04.02]It drops deep as it does in my breath
[02:07.69]I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death
[02:10.44]Beyond the walls of intelligence, life is defined
[02:12.25]I think of crime when I'm in a New York state of mind
[02:17.05]
[02:27.48]Be havin dreams that I'ma gangster -- drinkin Moets, holdin Tecs
[02:30.34]Makin sure the cash came correct then I stepped
[02:33.72]Investments in stocks, sewein up the blocks
[02:36.27]to sell rocks, winnin gunfights with mega cops
[02:39.08]But just a nigga, walking with his finger on the trigger
[02:42.08]Make enough figures until my pockets get bigger
[02:44.01]I ain't the type of brother made for you to start testin
[02:47.69]Give me a Smith and Wessun I'll have niggaz undressin
[02:51.00]Thinkin of cash flow, buddah and shelter
[02:53.56]Whenever frustrated I'ma hijack Delta
[02:55.99]In the P.J.'s, my blend tape plays, bullets are strays
[02:59.18]Young bitches is grazed each block is like a maze
[03:01.80]full of black rats trapped, plus the Island is packed
[03:04.61]From what I hear in all the stories when my peoples come back, black
[03:07.72]I'm livin where the nights is jet black
[03:10.09]The fiends fight to get crack I just max, I dream I can sit back
[03:13.21]and lamp like Capone, with drug scripts sewn
[03:15.96]Or the legal luxury life, rings flooded with stones, homes
[03:18.27]I got so many rhymes I don't think I'm too sane
[03:22.14]Life is parallel to Hell but I must maintain
[03:24.57]and be prosperous, though we live dangerous
[03:26.45]cops could just arrest me, blamin us, we're held like hostages
[03:29.82]It's only right that I was born to use mics
[03:33.25]and the stuff that I write, is even tougher than dice
[03:35.74]I'm takin rappers to a new plateau, through rap slow
[03:38.93]My rhymin is a vitamin, Hell without a capsule
[03:41.79]The smooth criminal on beat breaks
[03:44.23]Never put me in your box if your shit eats tapes
[03:47.47]The city never sleeps, full of villians and creeps
[03:50.04]That's where I learned to do my hustle had to scuffle with freaks
[03:53.40]I'ma addict for sneakers, twenties of buddah and bitches with beepers
[03:56.09]In the streets I can greet ya, about blunts I teach ya
[03:59.27]Inhale deep like the words of my breath
[04:01.45]I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death
[04:04.20]I lay puzzle as I backtrack to earlier times
[04:06.07]Nothing's equivalent, to the new york state of mind