Nice Things

[Reporter]

Violence has come, but many argue it’s also tolerated as long as Blacks and Hispanics fight each other, and as long as they do it in their own neighborhoods

[Talib Kweli]

[Hook]

Damn right, we got it

Damn right, I’m 'bout it

Police state trying to kill us

Will they succeed? I doubt it

Y'all don’t want no problems

So lame nigas be quiet

We 'bout to start the survival

We 'bout to start the survival

(Chorus)

That’s why we can’t have nice things

That’s why we can’t have nice things

(Verse 1)

Used to race home after school

Just to turn on the tube

To catch the new videos, thought I was cool

I’m talking Snoop, Dr. Dre, to Fugees, to Biggie, to Diddy, to Wu

My O.G. will come from the spot with the loot

Like, "Kweli you nice, niga. Hop in the booth."

Together Forever, the name of the crew

Now, I wonder is there any real rap left; is it just me yelling no justice no peace? (hands up!)

This new video full of black death, fuck rap 'cuz we dying at the hands of the police (hands up!)

Horror movies don’t get no scarier than the way cops treating nigas in America

See more videos of cops trying to bury us than ISIS, you tell me who's the terrorist

Terrorists making bomb threats ain’t got shit on the Prison Industrial Complex

Slavery to Jim Crow, now force my kinfolk into poverty, living in the projects! (trapped!)

Coming such a long way from living like kings

Now we like bling, wanna pull up in a white thing. (you trapped, niga)

This is why we can’t have nice things

Got to be prepared for the drama that it might bring

Jealousy gonna tear us apart

They say it’s all love, but what’s in their hearts?

The product in niggas, kidnapping your wife

You’re out in the desert like what’s in the box?

In your Brad Pitt voice

So what you have is a choice

You can have all of us thinking you’re moist

Or get like Chuck D and start bringing the noise

Rap life I attack like a pit bull

Let it off like a clip full

Known to stand up to all that bullshit that you sit through

Tell the world what we’ve been through, it’s pitiful

Portrait of the artist as a young man

Raised in a borough or Brooklyn in the late 80's

Rap crazy are the crack babies who act shady when snitches start singing like the fat lady

Amadeus, you know what it is man

[Hook]

Damn right, we got it

Damn right, I’m bout it

Police state trying to kill us

Will they succeed? I doubt it

Y'all don’t want no problems

So lame niggas be quiet

We 'bout to start the survival

We 'bout to start the survival

[Chorus]

That’s why we can’t have nice things

That’s why we can’t have nice things

[Verse 2]

Naw, it ain’t trap rap

It ain’t backpack (what’s that?)

This is what you sound like when you have facts

And you’re facing down the cops in a gas mask

Y'all be listening to lames? Well, we past that

Half-assed rap, you can have that back

All you fake deep niggas where your hashtag at?

Cut you open on the mic when I’m showing you the light

Niggas scatter like roaches, where the black flag at?

Radio solace is coming I promise you nigas I give you a preview (it’s coming)

Transparency, that’s the key

I got nothing to hide you niggas is see through

Trans parent, no Caitlyn genital

Tatted up but you faker than henna ho

Black Star with the bars that expose you

Just like you posed nude, no centerfold

[hook]

That’s why we can’t have nice things

That’s why we can’t have nice things