Listen to STREET LIVIN' by Black Eyed Peas

STREET LIVIN'

Black Eyed Peas

Hip-Hop/Rap

82,707

Apple Music Note

OVERVIEW

LYRICS

Music Video

Black Eyed Peas - Street Livin' (Official Music Video)

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Featured In

Listen to STREET LIVIN' - Single by Black Eyed Peas

ALBUMSTREET LIVIN' - SingleBlack Eyed Peas

Credits

PERFORMING ARTISTS

Black Eyed Peas

Black Eyed Peas

Performer

COMPOSITION & LYRICS

William Adams

Composer

Eumir Deodato

Composer

Jaime Gomez

Composer

Allan Pineda

Composer

Joshua Alvarez

Composer

Pacífico Mascarenhas

Pacífico Mascarenhas

Composer

PRODUCTION & ENGINEERING

will.i.am

Producer

Keith Harris

Producer

Lyrics

[Verse 1]

(The streets, the streets)

(Livin' in the streets)

[Verse 2]

Street livin', caught in the trap

Guns or books, sell crack or rap

Be like kings or be like pawns

They called us coons, now they call us cons

Street **** be packin' pistols

Terrorists be blastin' missiles

Crips and Bloods and retail thugs

CIA planes bring Colombian drugs in

[Verse 3]

Don't push me 'cause I'm close to hell

The teachers in my neighborhood can hardly spell

And compare to them, prison guards get paid well

Ten years no bail is four years at Yale

So forget about the statue of General Lee

Because the status of blacks are generally

Gonna end up in some penitentiary

Systematically, that's how they made it to be

[Verse 4]

Listen, they derailed the soul train

And put a nightmare in every Martin Luther King

And privatized prisons are owned by the same

Slave masters that owned the slave trade game

And racists no longer have to be racist

'Cause **** kill more **** than the KKK did

Now, every time I hear a new Def Jam

**** killin' **** like they Ku Klux Klan

[Verse 5]

I understand what's a **** to choose?

Be the killer or be the dead dude in the news

I get it, what's a **** to do?

No education in the hood got a **** confused

[Verse 6]

Street livin', tough conditions

Brainwashed by the television

We lost in the war we live in

Double cross, love lost, no religion

Street livin', oh my gosh

Another brother got shot by the searg'

Another cop got off with no charge

If you black in the hood, you at large

[Verse 7]

You're guilty until you're proven innocent

If you're ivory, they treat you different

If you're ebony, they assume your temperament

Will be vigilant and they call you militant

And you'll get shot and they'll say the incident

Is 'cause you're belligerent, what a coincidence

Born and bred but you're still an immigrant

And if you ain't dead, you can see imprisonment

[Verse 8]

There's more **** in the prisons

Than there ever were slaves cotton-pickin'

There's more **** that's rottin' in the prisons

Than there ever were slaves cotton-pickin'

So, how we gon' get up out the trap?

Guns or books, sell crack or rap

Street livin', hustle or hoops

Guns or books, get shot or shoot

[Verse 9]

Street livin', ain't no rules

Break the law, make the breakin' news

The life you choose could be the life you lose

**** gettin' stuck for the Nike shoes

Street livin', ain't no joke

It's a cold world, better bring your coat

Revoke 'cause the streets are broke

And now they wanna take away our dreams and hopes

[Verse 10]

Street livin', no economics

No way out of the Reaganomics

Infected by the Black Plague, new bubonic

No comprende, we speak Ebonics

Street livin', what's your position?

You can take action or take a dick

Listen, you can get fucked by the system

Or you can say "Fuck the system"

Written by: Allan Pineda, Eumir Deodato, Jaime Gomez, Jimmy Gomez, Joshua Alvarez, Pacífico Mascarenhas, William Adams

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