Momma Don’t Cry

[Chorus: Jaheim]
Mama, don't cry for me
Papa, don't feel bad
Code in the streets that they gotta keep
You bang so they bang back
Our city, our ghetto, our boroughs
So merrily, it's all we had

[Verse 1: Jaheim]
Mama, I know you're listening
We hope our prayers we get up to heaven
If we fall, we are not forgotten
Don't let our little brothers end up like we did
Let 'em grow up and get a job
Don't let 'em grow up behind bars, tryna be hard
Or oh and Father [?] my feet ([?] his feet)
[?] the wrong color on the wrong street with no heat
Rocking Dickie's and checkers, bandanas, my brothers
Hate them or love them, they still got each other
They twist their hands up, and pull their pants up
Walk this way, throw your flag and your set up

[Verse 2: Jay Rock]
I came up in the ghetto where it's complete chaos
Gang injunction had them boys sic'ing off the canines
Product of my environment, violence had my people rioting
We was doing 50/50 on the same odds
On the porch with a red rag getting my hair cut
Finished, jeans sagging, mama yelled "Pull your pants up"
She knew I was born in it like a placenta
Prays for me, but lord knows Rock is a sinner
Rally through other neighborhoods reppin' my section
My mouth cuss words, my palm clutching a western
The streets turned a nigga out, before I was 12
Serving junkies, me and the homies had phone over cells
Banged out like a motherfucker
City of angels, but every corner the devil hug us, for real though
It's cutthroat but I bleed the block till I be the block in a hearse
I put that on my pops, you feel me

[Chorus: Jaheim]
Mama, don't cry for me
Papa, don't feel bad
Code in the streets that they gotta keep
You bang so they bang back
Our city, our ghetto, our boroughs
So merrily, it's all we had
Gotta cook beef or you can't eat
And that's why they fly their flags

[Verse 3: Jay Rock]
Look, I do this for my niggas up state
We're down for the hood, for the hood's sake
And if I had the master key to open up them gates
Then I would tell the warden that his plans was aborted
They say incarceration supposed to make the hood safer
They protect the neighborhood, then that's out of order
They tryna take our soldiers, make servants out of daughters
Call us rabbits to degrade us, that ain't right, we authors
And that would mean my album was novel
And the realest state of mind when I address the problems
I'm no James Baldwin, I'm just saying
I been praying, you got God's number? Somebody call him
From [?] to New Orleans
Concrete rose like a florist on Florence and [?] speech
What up Mr. Shakur?
I'm still thugging under surveillance confined by the law
But they can't see me

[Chorus: Jaheim]
Mama, don't cry for me
Papa, don't feel bad
Code in the streets that they gotta keep
You bang so they bang back
Our city, our ghetto, our boroughs
So merrily, it's all we had
Gotta cook beef or you can't eat
And that's why they fly their flags

[Verse 4: Jay Rock]
So I'm draped in my colors, spilling blood on the cement
Smoking kush, high flying kites til the present
Middle finger up as I ride in a fleet with
The nine tucked, leave a coward stuck like leeches
I swear on my unborn son I'm indecent
Blame it on where I grew up on some street shit
It's way too graphic for you to grasp it
National Geographic couldn't capture it
Turn my baseball cap to the back
See I'm an activist, in fact the Black Panther of rap
Fist up like I'm on the monkey bars when I held the bars
Put the message in the jar then I left it by the shore
That's a metaphor, did you catch it?
Wasn't sure, too busy coming up with more
The streets is a motherfucker, corrupt and all
I say that to say this, walking out a door

[Chorus: Jaheim]
Mama, don't cry for me
Papa, don't feel bad
Code in the streets that they gotta keep
You bang so they bang back
Our city, our ghetto, our boroughs
So merrily, it's all we had
Gotta cook beef or you can't eat
And that's why they fly their flags
Mama, don't cry for me
Papa, don't feel bad
Code in the streets that they gotta keep
You bang so they bang back
Our city, our ghetto, our boroughs
So merrily, it's all we had
Gotta cook beef or you can't eat
And that's why they fly their flags