De La Soul - The Grind Date

If the meek shall inherit the earth then not the weak
let me inherit the streets,
fuck. you know what I mean, I mean I love life man, you know what I mean, life is beautiful, it's just the shit in it that's fucked up.
its rough but its fair
people gotta go out there and bust they, busy they ass for a job
i mean my dad got five kids man and i mean you know
he hates driving a bus but he loves five kids, you feel me?

I'm a rhyme artist
out here trying to grind my hardest
up early so to milk the cow
keep me john deer out here ploughing the fields
to keep my john hancock's worth up in the now
went from hanging on glocks to hanging on to chart positions
as part of my mission to hanging on top
gotta get your polly cracker all with the crackers
and the shysty ass niggaz if you like it or not
i been rewired to work although officially in the dirt
I'm hands all in
all up in my cuticles
some try to get off the farm
but fell in to harm
by getting in the game of street pharmaceuticals
but i was raised in the blue collard greens
having white collar derams cos I see what it is
and though the meek shall inherit the earth but don't forget
the poor are the ones who inherit the debt
but then I got better things to do than that
i was a dick who got jerked by Tom and his boys
came on my land and seized my cattle and catalog
as if it wouldn't leave me less than corny
but I'm far from bitter even further from quittin
gotta Grind Date to make no time for sittin and playin xbox
stand up and exercise my right to succeed with ???

I'm saying i'm sick of asking them
i mean the street philosophy was
I'm a milk the cow and cook the meat
At least I'll have some kind of food and drink
because sometimes you can't come back
like mum said if you need 5 cents don't ask for 3
ask for 10, that's wassup

fuck a rhyme artist
i ain't here for that
i was born with the boom-bap
respect the game
my hands on experience was hands on my first contract
taught me quick how to respect the game
introduced to the block
got used to the block
but ya neighbours be the ones to throw shit on ya lawn
its like every single time we pop they got annoyed but we got ahead
and we got along
putting work on the calendars worse on them calendars
word to hot dayz that broke the camels back
the grind'd make today look grey
and pain to take a picture of tomorrows in an album of black
meet grind, street grind so whatever the beats
i'm a take it out the horns to the pinky toe pawned
and show you why we here this long
cos when it comes to puttin' in work
once again it's on