Reconstruction of the Heart - SA-ROC

Youngin, I remember hide and seek after lights out, tell the homies pipe down

Y’all gon wake the house up, then we gon' have to fight now

Batman, Batman, who gon' hit my left hand?

'Cause once they slap the palm it’s on and poppin', finna scrap dance

That was back when the crack had fractured the Black collective

We was fragments of this establishment, disconnected

Roc vernacular dope, in fact, 'cause that shit’s infested

With them dirty streets, festering rotten drams, disinfectant

'Member rocking camouflag, cutting through them back woods?

Steady tryna

camouflage red eye from them Backwoods

Every exhale similar to status of them Black hoods

In other words, they up in smoke, no Cheech to lighten that mood

Fought like alley cats, streets like Alcatraz, this the Alamo

Hate our native tongues, them boys preyed on the tribe like Navajo

Don’t know how in the hell we survived the daily violence, though.

This is just a memory of every ghetto child I know, mercy

Hands up in the air, but only if you feel like

You ain’t gotta think about it if it feel right

See the home that made me came with bitter and the sweet

Like my heart tryna imitate real life

That’s okay, I came out fine

Found my greatness in all that grind

Kept that faith and ain’t stop trying

To make my mark in every space that I find

Oh Lord, I

I can still remember high school, that was when the homie died

Killed before his nineteenth, seem like those were passage rites

We was tryna fight the world, nature rather Cassius-like

A gamble tryna beat the odds, tell 'em, «Hold up, pass the dice»

Corner store, liquor store, Michelob, church

Dope boys go missing when the pigeons go chirp

Those boys fingers itching to pull a trigger on a perp

Of course, if he tinted, no judicial courts work

I remember summers on MLK Ave was like a shark tank

They circling feminine assets like it’s shark bait

When us young women would pass, it’d raise their heart rate

The denim had us looking like we copping squats, park bench

They popping wheelies on Yamahas feeling kamikaze

That’s how young Mike ended up between the sheets, Ronald Isley

But we keep playing with life and death like a childish hobby

Caught between a rock and the hardest place in the valley, mercy

Hands up in the air, but only if you feel like

You ain’t gotta think about it if it feel right

See the home that made me came with bitter and the sweet

Like my heart tryna imitate real life

That’s okay, I came out fine

Found my greatness in all that grind

Kept that faith and ain’t stop trying

To make my mark in every space that I find

Oh Lord, I

I know you keep mentioning that I dwell in the past

But I’m known for long memory like an elephant has

Been prone to hold grudges like a devilish ex

Betrothed to Black excellence like I’m Betty Shabazz

My dude, I came up with Hueys and Ninas in class

You ain’t rocking with the familia, we’ll immediately clash

They’ll market us 'til we popular then retreat with the cash

And stock us with guns and roses for the people we slash

My Lord, this love deep and complicated

Split in half every time I sit and contemplate it

They made us a mark just 'cause the darkest continent made us

This ain’t regular, shit has to stop, constipated

But I was made from the concrete, raised on them front stoops

Praised by them aunties, 10K on their front tooth

Aged from them rough edges, saved by their blunt truth

Engraved with the scars and stripes if you want proof, have mercy

Hands up in the air, but only if you feel like

You ain’t gotta think about it if it feel right

See the home that made me came with bitter and the sweet

Like my heart tryna imitate real life

That’s okay, I came out fine

Found my greatness in all that grind

Kept that faith and ain’t stop trying

To make my mark in every space that I find

Oh Lord, I

Mercy, mercy, mercy

Have mercy