Shhhh Back It Up

Short ride Through the long ghetto Axe in my hand This is heavy metal Black and white Man The pot and kettle Ran a light Foot to the petal Never met a problem I couldn't cut through Touch an op Before an op can touch you Everybody wanna claim invincible We got 50 ways to make 'em miserable I meant to mention Wipe away the residue Scratch the serial Leave no residual Evidence Not a fingerprint For detectives Or the rest of forensic Investigators I'll educate ya When fools claim to be regulators I take 'em down Like the elevator Or females doing the Perculator What precipitated the initiation Is the contents of a private conversation When they're going left In their orientation It only REALLY takes The heat to straighten 'em It only REALLY takes The heat to straighten 'em It only REALLY takes The heat to straighten 'em When their mouth is writing checks Their ass can't pay with That mouth can get 'em In some situations Back 'em up, back 'em up What you say, gotta back it up What you say, gotta back it up What you say, gotta back it up Back 'em up, back 'em up What you say, gotta back it up What you say, gotta back it up What you say, gotta back it up The game chose me How I hold these Truths For anyone that knows me Broke and lonely Nowhere to go Homeless in Chicago streets Slept in Omar's attic With the insulation Couldn't have been a worse Situation Poverty got me motivated Cold nights Ain't nothing to play with Appetite Of the emaciated Crying out From beyond the matrix Everything I loved Like everything I hated Separated The real From the fake And Dipped my soul Below the frozen lake And Endured the frozen ice Against my face And Attacked the world With a different game plan Searched the right words To hang the hangman Did everything I could to change man Adjust the mirror Til I saw a changed man I bent the corner Then they took my main man He bent the shades And he saw the mainland He closed his eyes And I couldn't save him The one that made him Came to take him Ran the race With the best laid plans And lost his life From the wage . of . sin Back 'em up, back 'em up What you say, gotta back it up What you say, gotta back it up What you say, gotta back it up Back 'em up, back 'em up What you say, gotta back it up What you say, gotta back it up What you say, gotta back it up