If you don't give a little somethin' back
To your family, you ain't shit in my book
Come on boy

I was her baby, she guided me through life
She whipped my ass for doin' wrong
Rewarded me for doin' right
I caused so many tears to roll down her face
I was just young n dumb n needed my space
But you was there for me, I could depend on you

When I lost my first tooth, when I had pneumonia
You put your own house up ta keep me outta jail
I didn't raise no snitches boy, you betta not tell
I'm gonna go do this time up off the street
Just send me five or ten dollars a week
Every sunday bring me somethin' to eat

Some chicken or macaroni, some brownies, somethin' sweet
N to make it complete, I wanna whole pitcher
Of my nanny's ice tea
What she won't do for the rest y'all she gonna do for me
Like she held me down I'm gonna hold her down
Baby's a superstar, y'all can't control me now

Without you
There's no me
Without roots
There's no tree
There would be no history
Without you

Who taught me how to scratch a dog, shoot at home
Which ones to mess with, which ones to leave alone
Who told me lifes hard on yo' own
Listen to me n you can live to be grown
Perhaps you won't have to pay the dues I done paid
Or make the same mistakes that your uncle made
He was so real, cadillacs, new sevilles
Pocket full of big bills, nerve pills

I'm the new generation automatics
And chrome wheels
Raised by the old code, boy you don't squeal
Uhn uhn, you don't rat, don't snitch
You never fuck with a man dogs, money, or his bitch
N in this life there very few free lunches

Take your boxes with yo' bruises
Roll with the punches
When they tell you you was wrong tell 'em fuck y'all
I could've never fed my family with a football
It's a'ight to have some weaknesses
It ain't a'ight to let 'em show
You'd didn't have no break in stints
So why the hell you let 'em know
Somethin' I had to pay a price for I'm givin' you free
Just hopin' you can grow up n be even bigger than me, yo

So much more than a portrait on my upper arm
He was the bomb, my dad an' my mom
Huh I sit back an' smoke, thinkin' bout way back when
Tears trickle off my cheek onta an10
Don't even seem as though you really gone
I'm still stunned, you treated me like a son
An' no one made you, a lil' bad ass boy
But still you raised me, and in the process

I damn near drove nanny crazy
By the way she's doing good
She took it better than we ever thought she would
You had to suffer so we understood
Probably the last time we gonna come togetha as one
They, my family n we ain't seen each other in months
Experiencin' harder times with every day

I find myself sayin' what would papa say
If you were here, you'd guide me through this
No doubt, but your gone, n' I'm grown, n' I know