America Songtext / Lyric

(Verse One - Nas)

If all I saw was gangsters comin' up as a youngster

Pussy and money the only language I clung to

Cling to, I rolled myself up to become one

Ain't you happy I chose rap? I'm a monster

Streets they see me, they can't believe my achievements

Cultural-strata, persona is that of a non-needer

'Cause I don't need nada except for Prada beaver

From cold winters, tattoos got my summer's sleeveless

Tell my G's don't flee from the coppers

Stiff bodies don't freeze at funeral parlors

From the slums I come up a phoenix

Caked up trying to take what I'm eatin'

Came up a dismissive kid

You lucky if you allowed to witness this

Savvy mouth, while hardly a man's man

Who woulda knew the beach houses and wild parties

Jezebels and Stella McCartneys

For years, all that how can I not be dead?

This old German said I was a thug with a knotty head

Looked at my Benz and called that a Nazi sled

With a face like he wondered where I got my bread

Probably all the stones he see, from my shows overseas

From crime to rhyme, my story is: I'm from the home of the thieves



(Hook - Nas)

America

Pay attention

Wake up

America

This is not what you think it is

America

Pay attention

This is not what you think it is



(Verese Two - Nas)

Blessed, the Lord is a G, he gotta be

Whose the god of suckers and snitches? The economy

Lipstick from Marilyn Monroe blew a death kiss to Fidel

Castro

He want me to spit this only the strong survive

Nas bear witness

The hypocrisy is all I could see

White cop acquitted for murder

Black cop cop a plea

That type of shit make stop you and think

We in chronic need of a second look of the law books

And the whole race dichotomy

Too many rappers, athletes and actors

But not enough niggas at NASA

Who gave you the latest dances, trends and fashions?

But when it come to residuals they look past us

Woven into the fabric, they can't stand us

Even the white tees, blue jeans and red bandanas



(Hook - Nas)

America

Pay attention

Wake up

America

This is not what you think it is

America

Pay attention

This is not what you think it is

America

This is not what you think it is



(Verse Three - Nas)

Assassinations, diplomatic relations

Killed indigenous people, built a new nation

Involuntary labor took a nice little women

Even took a premature baby, let a man see you rape her

If I could travel to the 1700s

I'd push a wheelbarrow full of a dynamite through your

covenant

Let her sit on the Senate and tell the whole government

Y'all don't treat women fair

She read about herself in the Bible believin' she the reason sin is here

You played her with an apron like "bring me my dinner dear"

She the nigga here, ain't we in the free world?

Death penalty in Texas killed young boys and girls

Barbarity, I'm in a double R casualty

Buggin' how I made it out the hood, dazzle me

How far we really from third world savagery?

When the empire fall, imagine how crazy that'll be



(Hook - Nas)

America

America

This is not what you think it is

America

This is not what you think it is

America