| Up in this muthafucka trippin', man
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| Thinkin' about how it was
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| Back in the days, you know
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| Beat soundin' kinda cool, feelin' kinda cool
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| Let gon' and do somethin' to this though
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| Check it out
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| Once upon a time, my nine stayed in the small of my back
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| I sold crack and drove a Cadillac
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| Shot craps, made snaps on the corner by the stop sign
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| Strapped with my ‘gnac, dank sack and my Glock nine
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| Kickin' it with the homies on the grind for cabbage
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| A Double-R soldier, 3C savage
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| Runnin' from the ones with the nightsticks
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| High-speed chasin' and racin' in tight shit
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| Back in '85 selling goop was the shit
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| Wasn’t a thing that them fiends wouldn’t do for a hit
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| Bitches suck dick, niggas rented they cars
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| While young players like me became street stars
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| Glued to the track with a sack and a handgun
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| Steady sweatin' sales, stoppin' cars at random
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| Runnin' from the 50, hittin' fences and hidin' out
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| Seven cars deep is how the homies is ridin' out
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| House parties pop, stayed packed with hoodrats
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| Niggas on the mic, drunk, bustin' them hood raps
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| Hooked on the dank, Thunderbird we drank
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| Rollin' in the bucket with the fucked up paint
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| 24−7 on the hunt for coochie
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| Sportin' Troop, Nikes, Fila, and Gucci
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| Makin' much money on the dope track
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| But when the crack slacked then niggas started to jack
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| Every young nigga tryna stay in the mix
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| Was breakin' them tricks and cold hittin' a lick
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| Jackin' became the quickest way to make some mail
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| But some niggas fell and spent years in jail
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| Droppin' nine in the pen tryna make they chest bigger
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| Some niggas died gettin' jacked by the next nigga
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| But that’s the way it goes, you pay the price
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| When you’re deep in the game, and you’re livin' that life
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| Everybody wants a little something
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| (When you’re livin' that life)
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| Cool but you got to give it all
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| (When you’re livin' that life)
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| ‘Cause everything in life has a price you’re…
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| (When you’re livin' that life)
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| Livin' the life, livin' the life, livin' the life, oh
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| I was against all odds, fresh out the womb
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| My only hope was to soak game, so I consume
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| While niggas chilled and parlayed, I learned the hard way
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| Scuffed and roughed up, the game had scarred Dre
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| Back in the days, all I knew was the hood and rocks
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| Lookin' for funk and headed straight for a wooden box
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| Prone to quick cash and gettin' the grit fast
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| Never really trippin' on how long would shit last
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| Earnin' my ghetto stripes from scraps and ghetto fights
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| Fuckin' with hoodrats, them tramps and ghetto types
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| Never givin' a fuck, nah, not even sometimes
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| Just havin' a fun time, runnin' from one-time
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| Trippin', and wasn’t even peepin' the shit
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| Slippin', and steady gettin' deep into shit
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| I let the game control me, shape and mold me
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| Then it treated me coldly, it pimped and hoed me
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| I was sellin' the crack but not stackin' a damn thang
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| And now that I look back, man it’s a damn shame
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| Couldn’t recognize there was game to peep
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| The dank had me gone and my brain is sleep
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| I finally woke up in the federal pen
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| Broke than a muthafucka beggin' for ends
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| I was a midget, a small digit… forgotten
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| Game was stale, my name was rotten
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| Had life by the ass, my shit was twisted
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| I thought about the hood and how much I missed it
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| But the life I was livin' wasn’t really shit
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| I was clockin' them ends but wasn’t stackin' a grip
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| They had the world thinkin' I was runnin' in vaults
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| I reassessed my thoughts, and proved my faults
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| And for the next four years, I kicked and waited
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| Becoming top notch while incarcerated
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| But that’s the way it goes, you pay the price
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| When you’re deep in the game, and you’re livin' that life
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| Livin' that life
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| Growin' up in the hood, slangin' that cocaine
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| Fuckin' with them hoochies
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| Runnin' from the rollers
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| Goin' to juvenile hall, county jail, penitentiary
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| All that shit
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| But you gotta pay the price, when you’re livin' that life
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| If you’re soft, homeboy, think twice
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| It ain’t nuthin' nice
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| Got my boy Khayree up in here, man
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| We just doin' this shit |