Gottaknow - Royce 5'9

Presenting to you, the President of the United States

The bullet being lodged an inch away from his heart, Reagan is launched into

the operating room, and tells his doctors, ‘I hope you’re all Republicans.'

Cash rules everything around me

I ain’t claiming I’m street

I’m just saying everything that surrounds me is concrete

In the bubble-eyed ride all because I bubble like Don P

Right beside me’s a dime piece, college girl looking ‘bout as good as I sleep

That’s cause I keep it low, the opposite of high key

Y’all niggas got the wrong idea ‘bout what’s really going on, out here

Y’all weird, I see, they told you, ‘Keep your ears to the streets'

Y’all niggas laying down and y’all ears out here in these streets

I guess you took it literal

Guess the only code you live by’s forget-it-code

Uh, if I should get my own guilty verdict

May the next man learn from it, then flourish

You could put it on the news, you could put my face on the front of a shirt in

the latest video, then blur it

Y’all niggas fucking with the next nigga, bitch

Mostly attracted to her cause she the next nigga bitch

One of my niggas made a name for killing niggas

Now he on the slayin' spree for Dilla niggas, I call it the nigga nitch

Life is set up for you to dig a ditch

God is looking down on all, being carried by the crisp pallbearers

Like, just ball, player

You ain’t even gotta pull a trigger, you can still assist

Imma keep it real as this

Got to know when to row from the madness

Got to know when to give these niggas passes

Got to know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em

Got to know when to beats niggas asses

Got to know when the money ain’t good money

Got to know when somebody ain’t good for ya'

Got to know when to open and when to close

When being silent exposes, and when it’s golden

Got to know all the got to knows

Got to know all the got to knows

God made us niggas, then made us all breakable

Then gave us all decision making that’ll make or break a nigga

People tryna blaze with you, just so they can lace a nigga

All because of public sensationalism

With brothers with faces that people see and can relate to

When the place where the foundation of eating’s

Higher population is based on popularity

Gotta be careful where you place your wisdom

All it takes is just one conversation where you unbeknownst to the fact you’re

talking to an abomination

At the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong crime taking place

That’ll put you away for a long grind, where it’s locked

Where it’s not safe unless you know them combinations

Yeah, it’s just a way a man to be taken by the same thing that took his brother

We don’t learn from each other, we learn to look the other

Way when one of us in trouble

That karma looking to catch you, it’s patient

It’ll wait till you think you would love to come get you

Cause it know that women been the downfall of men ever since pussy was

discovered

Dearly beloved, you soul searching for nothing

Just follow the instincts the lord versed you with, historically

That feeling that you get in your gut been getting ignored more than that poor

person

Who’s living under the gun in this cold, cold world that we live in

That’s under the imminent control of the consumer and indigenous war merchants

More religion and more churches, doctors, more nurses

Cause it’s the American way to make anything that’ll finish you or drop you,

for purchase

Who said I couldn’t buy my way into heaven?

All I need is a bottle, a couple dollars, a couple people that’ll keep me

company

And who love misery as much as me

You got to know your pedigree, got to be yourself at all times

Your true self at all times ain’t gon hesitate to let you know when you should

let it be

A lot of these brothers done died tryna follow their pride

Gotta know the alert signs, them butterflies as reliable as your first mind,

genetically

Got to know when to row from the madness

Got to know when to give these niggas passes

Got to know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em

Got to know when to beats niggas asses

Got to know when the money ain’t good

Got to know when somebody ain’t good for ya'

Got to know when to open and when to close

When being silent exposes, and when it’s golden

Got to know all I got to know

Got to know all I got to know