This Can't Be Life (feat. Scarface)

See I was, born in sewage, born to make bomb music

Flow tight like I was born Jewish

Used to the streets as a conduit, I kept arms

Thirty-eight longs inside my mom's Buick

At any given moment Shawn could lose it, be on the news

Iron cuffs, arms through it, or stuffed with embalming fluid

Shit, I'm going through it, mom dukes too

Tears streaming down her pretty face, she got her palms to it

My life is getting too wild

I need to bring some sort kinda calm to it

Bout to lose it voices screaming, don't do it

It's like '93, '94, 'bout the year

That big and mag dropped and Illmatic rocked

Out of every rag drop, and the west had it locked

Everybody doing 'em, I'm still scratching on the block

Like, damn, I'ma be a failure

Surrounded by thugs, drugs, and drug paraphernalia

Cops, courts, and their thoughts is to derail us

Three time felons in shorts with jealous thoughts

Trying figure where your mail is, guesstimate the weight you selling

So they can send shots straight to your melon, wait

It gets worse, baby mama water burst

Baby came out still born, still I gotta move on

Though my heart still torn, life gone from her womb

Don't worry, if it was meant to be, it'll be soon

This can't be life, this can't be love

This can't be right, there's gotta be more, this can't be us

This can't be life, this can't be love

This can't be right, there's gotta be more, this can't be us

Second oldest born, from Michelle brown my mother

Hell bound, grew with two sisters and one brother

Pop wasn't around, so many stories, that's another

I'm thinking, damn, how my older sister gon' make me tougher?

When steel sharpens steel, I'ma keep it real

I'm tired of trying to hide my pain behind the syrups and pills

Dead to the world, stretch out like a corpse for real

Y'all **** thinking what ya'll reading in the source is real

What my life like, you looking at the source, it's real

What your life like? Mine, dawg, of course it's real

Passing judgment, you **** second-guessing beans

'Cause you don't eat swine, don't make you a me

Dog you know a couple suras, out the Quran

I guess you all on your deen and I ain't on mine

Stop that akki, 'fore I send shots through your body

Make 'em feel feel hell on earth before Allah drop thee

I feel the line's drawn here, nothing more can stop me

Till them Feds pick me up, or them boys pop

There's only three things that make mac not act like beans

Amatullah tisha, po aldin, samir amin

My seeds dog, gotta teach 'em that before I leave dog

Shit I know that I'ma see 'em when I leave dog

I come back in the afterlife

Like, fuck it, I done touched hell twice, what's the meaning?

This can't be life, this can't be love

This can't be right, there's gotta be more, this can't be us

This can't be life, this can't be love

This can't be right, there's gotta be more, this can't be us

Now as I walk into the studio to do this with jig'

I got a phone call from one my nigs

Said my homebody, Reek, he just one of his kids

And when I heard that, I just broke into tears

And see, in the second hand, you don't really know how this is

But when it hits that close to home, you feel the pain at the crib

So I called mine, and saddened my wife with the bad news

Now we both depressed, counting our blessings 'cause Brad's two

Praying for young souls to laugh at life through the stars

Loving your kids just like you was ours

And I'm hurting for you, dawg, but ain't nobody pain is like yours

I just know that heaven'll open these doors

And ain't no bright side to losing life but you can view it like this

God's got open hands homie, he in the midst of a good company

Who loves all and hates not one

And one day you gon' be with your son

I could've rapped about my hard times on this song

But heaven knows I would've been wrong

I wouldn't have been right, it wouldn't have been love

It wouldn't have been life, it wouldn't have been us

This can't be life

This can't be life, this can't be love

This can't be right, there's gotta be more, this can't be us

This can't be life, this can't be love

This can't be right, there's gotta be more, this can't be us