I’m from around the way,
where dice games are played
on corners,
where many die in the race to get paid.
I’m from around the way,
where friends get slain
by stray bullets meant for another’s brain.
But the outcome is still the same;
young black boy dead,
another future oozing down sewage drains.
“Your call can not be completed as dialed, please check the number…”
911 called in vain.
Many young could have lived if ambulance
would have came.
So, we immortalize the decease
in our own way.
On walls we spray paint,
so, we’ll never forget their names.
For the killer we’ll do the same –
in our mind’s, never forgetting his face.
What goes around comes around
no one escapes,
around the way-
cuz, karma lives on every block
in the form of guns, time, and cops.
It’s a cycle, and it don’t stop!!!
Like Hip Hop beats
played on mix tapes
Years before gun smoke
“Jams” were “Deffer” around the way
from RUN DMC and L.L. Cool J.
Hey!!! “G-n, that DJ made my day.”
But that day is gone, and
suckers have killed Jam Master Jay
around the way.
Back in the day there was respect,
but time makes fools forget.
Summer nights, ’85,
Jay’s beats vibrated the streets
and loud radios rattled car glasses.
We never realized time passing,
around the way.
But still,
kids grow up fast
and old men stand in front of grocery stores
reminiscing about the past –
before the Ave. was controlled by cash
and infants with breast milk on their breath
began holding gun to blast.
Around the way,’88,
crack vials use to decorate the street.
As we played running bases they shattered under our feet.
Shattered like a mother’s dreams
of seeing a son succeed.
A future blown away in ’95
by gun smoke and clouds of weed.
Graduating in 2001
just wasn’t meant to be.
But still I believed.
Walking around the way, in’98,
and through out the city I picked up broken dreams,
and made them a part of me.
So, yo my soul never sleeps.
Time flies and I’m reaching for 2003,
but looking back I pour ice for those deceased.
Nowadays, street talk are only memories.
I’m grown and I’ve made it from around the way
from an early grave
and jail cells where the young
live out there days as slaves.
I’m from around the way
where dice games are played
and the players fade,
while close friends grow up
and walk away.