5 Boroughs

KRS-One representing Ma 6T va Crack er, Cercle Rouge KRS-One
Droppin' on 'em like this, pick it up, pick it up
You know what time it is when KRS-One comes through
Representing all true hip hop culture, you know how we do

How can they throw you in prison now for long years
If in reality the black man doesn't belong here?
Have you forgotten how we got to this place?
Why then are all the jails predominantly the black race?

If you don't teach me my culture, I don't know who I am
I don't know the difference between my enemy and my friend
So I'm robbin' and killin' I got nothing to live for
You turn my father into a boy, my mother into a whore

Now I'm hardcore on the Ave
Watching while people that got me to walk fast
After beatin' us, rapin' us and robbin' us
400 years of that's what's inside of us

Take a look at me now I'm really your creation
A technological anti-human mutation
A mutation of a better way of life
You first pulled the knife
But to heal it will take my whole life

I fought no force on this level
I listen to bass and treble
Thinking that the white man is the devil
'Cause who could be so cruel like this?
So heartless, so senseless?

But I'm taught by the devil
To grow up and be a devil
To do the same devilish things on another level
However when I act out the mission
You turn around and throw me in prison
You a sucker

If you come from France
And you like the break dance, say, oh oh
(Oh oh)
And If you come from New York
And you like the way I talk, say, yeah
(Yeah)

You can kill a man by taking him out of his land
And putting him in a land he really doesn't understand
Then teach him to respect Greek mythology like
Pythagoras, Ptolemies, Socrates, these people are thieves
They stole us astronomy, mathematics, all tactics of biology

Even the concept of democracy stolen from the King Akhanoton
Put down the book, use your brain
If you don't know who you are you are clinically insane

The board of education can't see that
Well it deserves to get beaten and robbed by black
Give me my frame of mind back, give me my culture
But you don't understand that 'cause you a sucker

If you come from France
And you like the break dance, say, oh oh
(Oh oh)
And If you come from New York
And you like the way I talk, say, yeah
(Yeah)

I see Beauval in the house, Collinet in the house
Sarcelles in the house, Cercle Rouge in the house
KRS-One rocks the mike without a doubt
Turning parties out, you know what I am about

'Cause we will be here forever I told you
Soldier floods your mind like Noah
As you get older you've got to pay attention
At how you livin' hardcore

You ain't a kid anymore grow up
To blow up the spot you're at
Learn the skill and go to the top of that
Cercle Rouge definitely rockin' in rap
KRS-One I got your back

If you come from France
And you like the break dance, say, oh oh
(Oh oh)
And If you come from New York
And you like the way I talk, say, yeah
(Yeah)

KRS-One with the freestyle rhyme
Representing Cercle Rouge in France, all the graffiti artists
We like to break dance to the MC, yes, you know that's me
KRS-One down with the BDP

From way back you know we take it like that
Kenny P and Zizwe, Will-Dee, gods of rap
We do it like this, do it like that