| Gotta check out, the avenue
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| Got, ta, check out. |
| the avenue
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| Livin in the big city, not just New York, every hometown
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| Has a place where things are known for goin down
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| Where you can learn a lot of things that you shouldn’t know
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| It’s a place where people tell ya that ya shouldn’t go
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| All the kids that go dere they end up misled
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| Cause of a hardhead, some of 'em turn up dead
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| Mothers cry as they identify their child y’know
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| In the morgue wearin a tag on their big toe
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| I’m sayin listen you should go to school and learn
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| But fast cash and respect is what you wanna earn
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| So you stand for days and days on the ave
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| To make enough to get the things that you didn’t have
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| Gettin five for the vial, some two for seven
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| But losin out on your childhood’s what you’re really gettin
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| But if that’s the way you get respect I pity you
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| Checkin out the avenue
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| Second verse y’all, I’ll catch you on the go around
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| Livin in the big city, the big city is where I come from
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| Not the slums but where poor is many more than none
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| A young man grows up and then grows to rump |
| With the girls wild now got a child and he’s stuck
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| Dirt poor hits the block he’s sellin the rock
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| Gets nabbed by the cops, hits the cell block
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| Listenin to Lou Rawls while lookin at the blue walls
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| Of a jail cell, cause he tried life and he failed
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| So now the hardest job is keepin a smile
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| Stay in line for survival in the penile
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| This is your worst nightmare, how cheery it isn’t
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| None of your family or friends don’t even come to visit
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| So you’re forced into a line of behavior
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| Cause you don’t wanna catch scars from a razor
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| And it’s your fault you couldn’t make it, I pity you
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| Checkin out the avenue
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| Checkin out the avenue.
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| Checkin out the avenue. |
| (check it out)
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| The city never sleeps I stay awake 24/7 days a week
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| Thinkin bout all the things that I consider deep
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| Literally ladies live life lonely, singin the blues
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| And to make matters worse, the eye witness news
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| From anything to everything that’s under the sun
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| What’s next? |
| A mother usin her son for sex?
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| Bad lives, battered wives hidin they black eyes |
| And then they decide their husband has got to die
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| She’s on trial, there goes another broken family
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| Unless she gets off on temporary insanity
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| Then there’s a single mother, her man deserted her
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| Two year old grows up to be a mass murderer
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| There ain’t nobody around that’s left to raise 'em straight
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| There ain’t nothin we can do but sit back and wait
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| A sad life to live, some pity me too
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| Checkin out the avenue
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| — repeat 2X |