Momma Don't Cry

[Chorus: Jaheim]

Mama, don't cry for me

Papa, don't feel bad

Code in the streets that they gotta keep

You bang so they bang back

Our city, our ghetto, our boroughs

So merrily, it's all we had

[Verse 1: Jaheim]

Mama, I know you're listening

We hope our prayers we get up to heaven

If we fall, we are not forgotten

Don't let our little brothers end up like we did

Let 'em grow up and get a job

Don't let 'em grow up behind bars, tryna be hard

Or oh and Father [?] my feet ([?] his feet)

[?] the wrong color on the wrong street with no heat

Rocking Dickie's and checkers, bandanas, my brothers

Hate them or love them, they still got each other

They twist their hands up, and pull their pants up

Walk this way, throw your flag and your set up

[Verse 2: Jay Rock]

I came up in the ghetto where it's complete chaos

Gang injunction had them boys sic'ing  off the canines

Product of my environment, violence had my people rioting

We was doing 50/50 on the same odds

On the porch with a red rag getting my hair cut

Finished, jeans sagging, mama yelled "Pull your pants up"

She knew I was born in it like a placenta

Prays for me, but lord knows Rock is a sinner

Rally through other neighborhoods reppin' my section

My mouth cuss words, my palm clutching a western

The streets turned a nigga out, before I was 12

Serving junkies, me and the homies had phone over cells

Banged out like a motherfucker

City of angels, but every corner the devil hug us, for real though

It's cutthroat but I bleed the block till I be the block in a hearse

I put that on my pops, you feel me

[Chorus: Jaheim]

Mama, don't cry for me

Papa, don't feel bad

Code in the streets that they gotta keep

You bang so they bang back

Our city, our ghetto, our boroughs

So merrily, it's all we had

Gotta cook beef or you can't eat

And that's why they fly their flags

[Verse 3: Jay Rock]

Look, I do this for my niggas up state

We're down for the hood, for the hood's sake

And if I had the master key to open up them gates

Then I would tell the warden that his plans was aborted

They say incarceration supposed to make the hood safer

They protect the neighborhood, then that's out of order

They tryna take our soldiers, make servants out of daughters

Call us rabbits to degrade us, that ain't right, we authors

And that would mean my album was novel

And the realest state of mind when I address the problems

I'm no James Baldwin, I'm just saying

I been praying, you got God's number? Somebody call him

From [?] to New Orleans

Concrete rose like a florist on Florence and [?] speech

What up Mr. Shakur?

I'm still thugging under surveillance confined by the law

But they can't see me

[Chorus: Jaheim]

Mama, don't cry for me

Papa, don't feel bad

Code in the streets that they gotta keep

You bang so they bang back

Our city, our ghetto, our boroughs

So merrily, it's all we had

Gotta cook beef or you can't eat

And that's why they fly their flags

[Verse 4: Jay Rock]

So I'm draped in my colors, spilling blood on the cement

Smoking kush, high flying kites til the present

Middle finger up as I ride in a fleet with

The nine tucked, leave a coward stuck like leeches

I swear on my unborn son I'm indecent

Blame it on where I grew up on some street shit

It's way too graphic for you to grasp it

National Geographic couldn't capture it

Turn my baseball cap to the back

See I'm an activist, in fact the Black Panther of rap

Fist up like I'm on the monkey bars when I held the bars

Put the message in the jar then I left it by the shore

That's a metaphor, did you catch it?

Wasn't sure, too busy coming up with more

The streets is a motherfucker, corrupt and all

I say that to say this, walking out a door

[Chorus: Jaheim]

Mama, don't cry for me

Papa, don't feel bad

Code in the streets that they gotta keep

You bang so they bang back

Our city, our ghetto, our boroughs

So merrily, it's all we had

Gotta cook beef or you can't eat

And that's why they fly their flags

Mama, don't cry for me

Papa, don't feel bad

Code in the streets that they gotta keep

You bang so they bang back

Our city, our ghetto, our boroughs

So merrily, it's all we had

Gotta cook beef or you can't eat

And that's why they fly their flags