Murder Of A Teenage Life - Mos Def

Man, what was the young blood name?

Funk Crush

Young blood just hungry

It’s no glamour, it’s no glory

It’s no joke no game

It’s murder everyday, murder (Boogeyman)

(They shot the boy!)

The murder of a teenage life

Fire from the cold steel, the heat from the brights

The temperature of flesh and the shortness of breath

The murder of a teenage threat

The aroma of sinsemilia dollar superstar

Scum of vicodin cocaine tobacco leaf

Ecstatic tap-less fire water and freaky-deeky-e

The murder of a teenage chief

My easy speaking is easy as it seem to be

Hungry belly drama busts off easily

Balloon bang, pop, hot as a bang spot in Bangkok

Colder than a pimp Glock, aim shot the frame drops

Pressure pushed him to the earth like a rain drop

Take not life in vain, now how the preacher was saying

Remember anyway

they laid him in the straight box

Dark suit and gray socks

the neighborhood is all distraught

Candle lights upon the news report the families and students saw

Confused in awe, they weep into each others' arms

It’s murder

New absence from a mother’s arm

Even the warmth from the mother’s arms

Could not keep her son from harm

From standing where the gun was drawn

Over come done and done he gone, murder

Shell like a bell that rung

The blood burst body temperature fell and plunged

And then the time it took the medics to come

The breath eased out of his lungs

And his soul eased out of the slums

And the voice eased out of the drums

The sireens they gleam they swung, murder

Telephone wire sneakers hung, murder

For the black and young, murder, and the Ave they from

I am from the block the president did not campaign on

Where the dollar that the working poor slave for is made on

Where hustlers stretch the yay long

Hustle hard for an outpost to trade on

Flip it over and make more

Where the blocks are yellow taped off

Young bloods is trained off for obese to gray zone

Where the pressure just stay on

But the lights and the heat don’t

The place where you witness the true power of street folk

And that’s where I’m coming from people

High post low key eighth oz and kilo

Law man dope man adversary amigo

Preacher man pimp hand both folding their C-notes

A black fist clutching deliverance for the people

Young hand reach out, strong hand reach in

Chop the devil’s hand to make the fucker stop reaching

Ghetto people know when the voice of true speaking

M-Def, and foreal hold still nigga seein'

I ain’t got to say please, just believe it

The unerasable the black ink fact

Y’all fuckers know exactly how to act get back

Forever black (forever black) never wack (never that)

From the K (Killa K) that’s that (that's that)

So you can kill all the yap, murder

They shot the boy (3x)

They kill 'em all