Life With No Crime

(album: The Natural - 2002)

[INTRO:]
Seems like yesterday, we was all here, you know? Money was good, good times. Standing around, drinks in our hands, money in our pockets. Nice cars. A lot of people are gone now, and for them, I wrote this here:

[Verse 1:]
What if they told you you were worthless, born for no apparent purpose?
Would you believe 'em, and spend your whole life getting even?
See, I'm the product of a lack of logic
Brought up by alcoholics right outside the projects
Addicts and narcotics feed families; others have to starve
No question there's a problem, but it's one I cannot solve
Got involved selling dope, what them folks gonna do?
Send me back to jail so I can be with the crew?
Defenseless against the coldest world, homes
I thought of growing up but never growing old
Heard myths of a place where the streets were paved in gold
My grandaddy took me to church, but they just never saved my soul

[HOOK:]
(Life with no crime on my mind)
Life with no crime on my mind feels funny. [X4]

[Verse 2:]
I want you to imagine rehabilitated criminals still making money
Life with no crime on my mind feels funny
"Cunning," "cold": words used to describe
The way I live, the way I've stayed alive
85-95, that's a decade-plus
Something's better than nothing when you ain't working with much
Discussion with a touch of million dollar conversation
We'll supply the products, push them all across the nation
Distribution's a solution, music can be confusing
Conclusions are illusions accused and bruised by new friends
When true friends who thick-and-thin think in statistics say
I will day any day if I continue to live this way
Devoted to turning menaces to businessmen
Nothing's popping in the pen, like to see you make a man
Make a bank to break a rubber band
So do what you gonna do and stop, ain't no career in selling rocks
Just sit and watch life pass you by, stay mad at the world till you die
Instead I get it together, got up out the game
Because I done did my work and I done made my name
Never did get paid like I thought I would
I don't think there's a million to be made in my neighborhood
I never did get paid like I thought I would
I don't think there's a million to be made in my neighborhood

[HOOK]

[Verse 3:]
It seems like lately, I can't find no peace of mind
Mama said, "Baby, that's the way it's gonna be sometimes."
I need some time to get away, get everything straight
But I'm on paper, and that prohibits me from leaving the state
Only had I known how it is once you get convicted
Privacy invaded, rights restricted
I wouldn't have accepted that plea bargain, I would have fought it all the way
Caught my case in '93, partner, they're still fucking with me today!
Trying to lock me up for the weed that I possessed
(They found it in your pocket?) No, in my piss!
House arrest, drug tests get popped on me randomly
Like a fool, I'm still smoking with them watching me
But that don't matter, they expect me to fuck up again
So they can add me to the general population of the state pen
And I can lay there, thinking about my daughter and my boo
I guess they're the reason why I live life like I do. I live.

[HOOK]