Decoded (14 page)

A World with Amnesia Won’t Forget Your Name. (1:23)

[
Jay-Z
] I got these niggas breezy, don’t worry about it / Let that bitch breathe! / I used to give a fuck, now I give a fuck less / What do I think of success /
It sucks too much stress
¹
/ I guess I blew up quick, cause friends I grew up with /
See me as a premie,
²
but I’m not and my nut’s big / I don’t know what the fuss is / My career is illustrious / My rep is impeccable / I’m not to be fucked with, with shit / Let that bitch breathe! / I’m way too important to be talking about extorting / Asking me for a portion is like asking me for a coffin / Broad daylight I off ya on switch / Ya not too bright, goodnight, long kiss, / Bye-bye, my reply, blah-blah / Blast burner then pass burner, to Ty-Ty /
Finish my breakfast,
³
why? / I got an appetite for destruction and you’re a small fry / Now where was I / Let that bitch breathe! / I used to give a shit, now I don’t give a shit more / Truth be told, I had more fun when I was piss poor / I’m pissed off, is this what success all about / A bunch of niggas acting like bitches with big mouths / All this stress, all I got is this big house / Couple cars, I don’t bring half of them shits out / All this Ace of Spade I drank, just to piss out / I mean I like the taste, could have saved myself six hours / How many times can I go to Mr. Chow’s, Tao’s, Nobu /
Hold up, let me move my bowels
⁴
/ I’ll shit on y’all niggas, OG tell these boys / [
Juan
] Y’all ain’t got shit on my nigga / [
Jay-Z
] / I got watches I ain’t seen in months / Apartment at the Trump I only slept in once / Nigga said Hova was over, such dummies / Even if I fell I land on a bunch of money / Y’all ain’t got nothing for me / Nas, let that bitch breathe!

On Collaboration. (3:08)

Motherfuckers— / say that I’m foolish I only talk about jewels (bling bling) /
Do you fools listen to music or do you just skim through it?
²
/ See I’m influenced by the ghetto you ruined / That same dude you gave nothin, I made somethin doin / what I do through and through and /
I give you the news with a twist it’s just his ghetto point of view
³
/ The renegade; you been afraid / I penetrate pop culture, bring ’em a lot closer to the block where they / pop toasters, and they live with they moms /
Got dropped roasters, from botched robberies niggaz crouched over
⁴
/ Mommy’s knocked up cause she wasn’t watched over /
Knocked down by some clown when child support knocked
⁵
/
No he’s not around—now how that sound to ya, jot it down
⁶
/ I bring it through the ghetto without ridin ’round / hidin down duckin strays from frustrated youths stuck in they ways / Just read a magazine that fucked up my day / How you rate music that thugs with nothin relate to it? /
I help them see they way through it—not you
⁷
/ Can’t step in my pants, can’t walk in my shoes /
Bet everything you worth; you lose your tie and your shirt
⁸
/
I had to hustle, my back to the wall, ashy knuckles
⁹
/ Pockets filled with a lot of lint, not a cent / Gotta vent, lot of innocent lives lost on the project bench / Whatchu hollerin? Gotta pay rent, bring dollars in / By the bodega, iron under my coat, feelin braver /
Do-rag wrappin my waves up, pockets full of hope
¹⁰
/
Do not step to me—I’m awkward, I box lefty
¹¹
often /
My pops left me an orphan, my momma wasn’t home
/ Could not stress to me I wasn’t grown; ’specially on nights /
I brought somethin home to quiet the stomach rumblings
¹²
/ My demeanor—thirty years my senior /
My childhood didn’t mean much,
¹³
only raising green up /
Raisin’ my fingers to critics; raisin’ my head to the sky
¹⁴
/
BIG I did it—multi before I die (nigga)
¹⁵
/ No lie, just know I chose my own fate /
I drove by the fork in the road and went straight
¹⁶

Can I Live? (1:22)

Yeah, hah, yeah Roc-A-Fella / We invite you to something epic, y’all know? / Well we hustle out of a sense of hopelessness. Sort of a desperation. / Through that desperation, we ’come addicted, sorta like the fiends we accustomed to servin. / But we feel we have nothin to lose so we offer you, well, we offer our lives, right? /
What do you bring to the table?
¹
/ While I’m watchin every nigga watchin me closely /
my shit is butter for the bread they wanna toast me
²
/ I keep my head, both of them where they supposed to be / Hoes’ll get you sidetracked then clap from close feet / I don’t sleep, I’m tired, I feel wired like codeine, these days /
a brother gotta admire me from four fiends away
³
/ My pain wish it was quick to see, from sellin ’caine / till brains was fried to a fricassee, can’t lie. / At the time it never bothered me, at the bar / gettin my thug on properly, my squad and me / lack of respect for authority, laughin hard / Happy to be escapin poverty, however brief / I know this game got valleys and peaks, expectation /
for dips, for precipitation we stack chips, hardly
⁴
/ The youth I used to be, soon to see a milli’n / No more Big Willie my game has grown prefer you call me William / Illin for revenues, Rayful Edmond like /
Channel 7 news, round seven jewels, head dead in the mic
⁵
/ Forgettin all I ever knew, convenient amnesia / I suggest you call my lawyer, I know the procedure / Lock my body can’t trap my mind, easily / explain why we adapt to crime /
I’d rather die enormous than live dormant that’s how we on it
⁶
/ Live at the main event, I bet a trip to Maui on it /
Presidential suites my residential for the weekend
⁷
/ Confidentially speakin in codes since I sense you peekin / The NSX rental, don’t be fooled my game is mental / We both out of town dog, what you tryin to get into? / Viva, Las Vegas, see ya later at the crap tables / meet me by the one that starts a G up / This way no fraud Willie’s present gambling they re-up / And we can have a pleasant time, sippin margaritas / Ge-ge-geyeahhh, can I live? / Can I live? /
My mind is infested with sick thoughts that circle
⁸
/ like a Lexus, if driven wrong it’s sure to hurt you / Dual level like duplexes, in unity my crew and me / commit atrocities like we got immunity / You guessed it, manifest it in tangible goods / Platinum Rolexed it we don’t lease /
we buy the whole car, as you should
⁹
/ my confederation, dead a nation, EXPLODE / on detonation, overload the mind of a said patient / When it boils to steam, it comes to it / we all fiends gotta do it, even righteous minds go through this / True this, streets school us to spend our money foolish / Bond with jewelers and watch for intruders /
I stepped it up another level, meditated like a Buddhist
¹⁰
/ Recruited lieutenants with ludicrous dreams of / gettin cream let’s do this, it gets tedious /
So I keep one eye open like C-B-S,
¹¹
ya see me / stressed right. Can I live? / Can I live? / Can I live? Can I live?