Blood On My Nikes

Yo, I was just a kid

I was barely sixteen

Couldn't tell a man what this shit means

To shoot a man on a fucking split screen

Take a life that was kinda pristine

I wasn't listening to Christine and the Queens

I was listening to fifteen

Young men like me kick a sixteen

Full of pain in a city, let the shit stream

Deep in the consciousness

Down south where the monsters live

Abandoned houses and consequence, yeah

Heart breaks, it was common sense

Don't sit on that shit, man, we jumped the fence

'Cause certain areas are tense, yeah

That's why I'm never at events

'Cause I was tryna make pence

Doesn't make bread, doesn't make sense

Mama, I lost a friend (Ayo, it doesn't make sense)

Mama, I lost again

Yo, it's the L, won't you pull it

The destination of the bullet

The man living life to the fullest

Can't lie, yo, at times, was the purest

But now you're in another city like a tourist

The prayers can't cure this

Deep rain, hop in the ride

I closed the door, told the cabbie to drive

Late at night, see the mother that cried

The bullet whizzed past my face

Saw her son as he died

My eyes wide

Yeah

Shaking up my belly from inside

I shoulda stayed, shoulda lied

Yeah

I shoulda prayed, shoulda tried

Trust

But like his mother, I cried

When they took the boy's life 'cause he's from the wrong side

Yeah

I know I should have thought twice

Washing off the blood from my Nikes

Mama, I lost a friend

Mama, I lost again

So I grew up

Scared of the night bus

Scared of the boys that look like us

No wonder why they want to fight us

They think the same, give a second and we might buss

Squeeze

Buss caps, spray, say it's a wrap

I wish I'd given him a hug and a dap

Wish he could have felt my son on his lap

And seen life's for the living, to be done with the trap

But it's a fact

Live for today, fuck tomorrow

No tomorrow if your life's feeling borrowed

He needs the money right now, fuck the sorrow

Spend it right now, right now feeling hollow

Then save it for a rainy day

If every day's grey

And tomorrow might never come his way

Just another man went astray

The hate

Tell him get from out my way

(The impact of knife crime on individuals is undeniable

And while politicians wish to police their way out of the knife crime epidemic

It is simply not possible

We must focus on the root causes of knife crime

Poverty, inequality, austerity and a lack of opportunity

We must petition the government to put reason over rhetoric

Compassion over indifference

Equality over austerity

As knife crime claims more lives within our country

Never has so much been lost by so many because of the indecision of so few)