On the streets of New York, it's called crack
And the deals go down quickly
You just witnessed a buy
This form of cocaine comes concentrated
It is smoked rather than sniffed
It produces an intense high within 5 to 10 seconds
That lasts only 5 to 10 minutes
And leaves the user craving for more

I used to watch the fiends from the window
Stench in the air every single time the wind blow
Vials on the ground every color of the rainbow
Kids duckin' strays they shoot from every angle
Look out for the dealers and the addicts
Every 1st and 15th had to batten down the hatches
Put the locks on the doors and the hooks in the latches
Seen my brother load the pistol that he kept under the mattress
Our city was a war zone
America ain't hear us and rap was like our morse code
Generation full of lost souls
With torn clothes who met up at the crossroads
They bombed Hiroshima
Then put crack in the hood but nobody believed us
Left with nobody to save us
These the stories that nobody could make up

I can't sleep somethin' woke me out my dreams
Certain nights I can still hear the screams
Close my eyes I could still see the fiends
But I still find relief in these songs that we sing like

And this the most addicting thing that probably ever existed in the world ya know?
It will make you a slave
I have never seen a situation like this
Where a drug has mushroomed so quickly
And gotten such a grip on large segments of the population

They raped a girl right in front of my crib
I dialed 9-1-1 cops didn't do shit
I was 10 years old when I witnessed that shit
When I first realized our hoods different and shit
I'm from Saint Paul and Crooke, see the irony man
That's the saint and the sinner, dichotomy man
Fuck these politicians and their policies man
They put crack in the hood with the poverty damn
Now we livin' with Js
Whole families tryna eat off of minimum wage
Shit trash, sanitation they ain't pick up for days
Things got even worse once they hit us with Aids
Growing up was like living in hell
And every block in the city got a story to tell
Every corner in the town got a soldier who fell
And they love to hear the pain, shit we know it too well

I can't sleep somethin' woke me out my dreams
Certain nights I can still hear the screams
Close my eyes I could still see the fiends
But I still find relief in these songs that we sing like