E-40 - Don't Shoot the Messenger

[Verse 1:]
I got love for real dudes good brothas don’t respect suckas
What want for myself i want for others
I had holes in socks and my draws growin up stressin
Didn’t have a lot of money and material possessions
Pop warner and little league pitched played out field
Had a valet times hill and paper route to help pay the bills
My hood is a battlefield lots of talent a skill
Women smart enough to be journalists like federico winfield
We hollow broke we or got the latest iphone
A zap it or choke in the lebron zone
Can’t remember your sat but to every e40 song
You can recite every lyric and rap along
We living in different day such challenging times
Financial binds, senselessness crimes
I was talkin to my og he did 20 for real
He said if i had some bread i wouldn’t put none of these niggas in my will
Because they turn like a steering wheel and forget you when you in jail
They didn’t write me or nothin no commissary no mail
That’s what he said to me so i pulled out a g
Even though he used to run with my uncle i was just 3
Years old with a snotty nose and observing him being nosey
Soaking up game and ear husslin while they trade war stories
Thugin and bustin, death and destruction
Chaos and catastrophe, triump and tragedy

[Chorus:]
Don’t shoot him
Don’t shoot the messenger [x4]

[Verse 2:]
I don’t come from money i come from fried baloney
Starvin and thirsty eb key cards pop a murphy
Lord have mercy it’s brutal and murky out here on the ave
Where the mail man’s scared to come in you can’t catch a cab
Me and my partnas be gettin together drinkin, smokin herb
Talkin bout reincarnation comin back as a bird
I was channel surfing watchin the word network cause i get inspired
When i here the ministry of joyce myers i use my rushcard to order her tapes
Or should i say dvds her’s and tb jakes
Is it any good people left on this earth that show pity
That will do anything for their relatives give up a kidney
But would their relatives do the same for them i don’t know
You’ll be surprised how selfish people can be even kin folk
I can’t imagine me goin to hell the devil’s a liar
What you wanna be i wanna be one of god’s angels when i die
The pearly gates not the underworld in the afterlife
At the end of the tunnel will there be light
Will the sky be purple, will the grass be blue
Will i recognise my family will they know me too
Living on this earth is a test behold
When god call we can’t put in on hold
I’m just the writer not the editor
Here go my letter don’t shoot the messenger

[Chorus]

[Outro:]
Hey I like to say to ugh all the industry people out there to that ugh
Has control of what we call hiphop, like for people to put more of an effort for hiphop to be what it was instead of the culture of violence that it is right now you know there’s a lot of things going you know what i mean
There’s a lot of people that put in a lot of time,you the break dancers
The graffiti artist, people rappin all over the world
And i think it means a lot, i mean it means a lot to people like me that for all my life I’ve been in hiphop
And it should more than just somebody standin on the side a the road selling dope
I mean that may or may not have it’s place too because it’s there
But i’m just sayin i ain't neva shot nobody, i ain't neva stab nobody
I’m 45 years old and i ain't i ain't got no criminal record you know what I mean the only thing I’ve ever done is care about my music
So I mean so while we teaching people what it is about life in the ghetto
Then we should be teaching people what life is in the ghetto me tryna grown up
And come up out of the ghetto and we need everybody’s help out there to make it happen
Hiphop needs to grow up and i’m a grown man i’m a be doin hiphop all my life
I need somebody’s help to help me do it. So let’s get this thing done