(with The Roots, feat. Malik Yusef)
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[Malik Yusef]
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You know you ghetto boy, when you got a face, with a scar
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And yo' highest aspirations is a place, and a car
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Shorties pull out and bussssst, like a money shot
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Now he on the run, he hot
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And he hurtin his Granny and she the only one he got
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The hood so shady
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You give up hope, of ever even tryin to find a sunny, spot-
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-light, they caught him at the stop-
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-light, but if he woulda run that yellow
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Then he coulda, run the globe
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But insteed, with speed
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They put one in the middle of his frontal, lobe
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like a unicorn
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I'm just tryin to keep you, informed
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To my little ghetto soldiers in they, gold
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green, red, and blue uni-forms - chuuch!
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But I'm feeling like the loneliest monk
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So I pull me a Thelonius Monk and blew, the horn
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And we don the monikers of goons and gangsters
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And are trained to conduct ourselves true, to form
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So we add a Shorty, a Money, a Mack
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A Lil', a Eazy, or a Young to our name
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So all the big ballers grab rims and hung, in the game
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And there's a degree, of difficul-ty
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to make it from the ghetto boy into the man-hood
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Especially when you know that yo' fresh greens
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will help eliminated a canned, good
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Can, good, and bad co-exisssst?
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In a place with plenty of off ramps but no ex-its
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Little Ghetto Boy (Prelude)
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John Legend |