Product of Your Environment

The hood will teach you/ That to be good is evil/ Because to be bad as a crook is what Gs do/ A place where if they see you shook, you feeble/ Face it! That’s how it may look to most people/ Mad seeds will become a product of they environment/ Drug dealing, thugs chilling, they squad up & be firing/ The influence is so powerful/ It’s literally like a power-pull/ It reels you in like a fishing rod/ Kinda like Popeyes or KFC with chicken & corn on a cob/ You’re prone to be a statistic due to living conditions, it stems from the block/ You’re wishing to be far distant from the predicaments of your district, so you really need God/ Chances of being a square than high as the sky is slim, this is the odds/ Majority will smoke, sell dope & bang hoes, going by the code of no snitching while they do they job/ Listen it’s even ongoing at 57th Ave & Junction Blvd/ The hood will ultimately have you as if you stood out stripping like a thot/ You’ll be a target from the rip like a dude big pimping on a yacht/ Last thing you wanna be is a simp sticking his dick in a twot/ If you’re a product of your surroundings/ Then you have succumbed to the ills of the place you are found in/ You’re like a virgin when you’re first exposed to the street life, amped up with your heart pounding/ It’s slim to none that say they can’t be moved like mount zion, a mountain/ It’s either you in a single, multi family home or in public housing/ Every hood’s the same from Queens, Newark, East Orange to Irvington/ The hustlers supply the fiends the rock and they relapse, like satisfied customers at food joints with servings done/ Or like cashiers ringing up clothes customers wanna purchase at Burlington/ I have seen a whole lot in my early thirties son/ Lived in the Q-Borough, lived in Brick City, lived in the Crossroads of Jersey and live in Camptown/ Where you can be a product of your environment/ It’s only God that got us or else how would we stay afloat like old folks in retirement?/ Everywhere they fire led/ Everywhere they try to money order, autopay or wire rent/ Keeping up with trying to pay the entire rent/ Drinking and smoking is the norm, when bums are drunk they not a liar when they bent/ Weed is the thing in the hood, so you smell it in the hallway, it lingers like food aroma from a slob, plus / You smell it on the bus, you smell it even on the job front/ You’ll smoke it when you’ve been exposed to the ganja enough/ Your lips will turn black, that means you’ve become a product/ Trying to resist the temptation of getting pulled into that life is so unlikely/ At the age of 14 I was being called over to sling dope, chose to decline, I was fighting/ Gang violence, ambulance sirens/ Bullets flying, innocent bi-standards dying/ Cops timing, thugs on the block facing time and grinding while they stuck in fixes that are binding/ Dealing with they people flatlining in the hospitals on beds lying/ When you in the hood you need to be deciding how you will be surviving/ Fact of the matter is crime is always staring you in the eyes and letting dudes find something to take pride in/ Abandoned buildings, unsanitary neighborhoods/ Bombarded by garbage, waste is all over with street dudes we call goons that’ll take your goods/ It’s either you’re gonna overcome your circumstances or give into what keeps calling you/ The traps of the street are like mousetraps for the animal that goes squeak that be all in your room/ You can be a square and walk pass by the fellas on your block that you view as cool/ They’ll make fun of you, get all the girls, while you start high school/ You’ll be a bookworm and won’t get any pussy as food/ Then suddenly decide to one day switch up and be down with they crew/ Your parents will start to see a change in you like Nick Canon from Love Don’t Cost a Thing with what you do/ Peer pressure, conforming to your societal norms, can’t depart from it unless it’s a phase or a mood/ But it’s inevitable to go through it and that’s the truth/ So face the fact that you might be a product of your environment, but still try and fight it to the very end until you see it through/ And if not, well at least you’ll be that dude/