Meet The Parents

It's 'The Gift and the Curse'
First they love me then they hate me then they love me again
(They love me again)
Let's take a trip down, I gotcha

Let's take a trip down memory, lane at the cemetery rain gray skies
Seems at the end of every young black life is this line
'Damn, him already?' such a good kid, got us pourin' Henn' already
Liquor to the curb for my niggaz up above when it
Cracks through the pavement that's my
Way of sendin' love so, give Big a hug, tell Aliyah I said hi
'Til the next time I see her, on the other side he was just some thug that
Caught some slugs and we loved him 'cause, in him we, saw some of us

He walked like us, talked like us his back against the wall
Nigga fought like us, damn poor Isis, that's his momma name
Momma ain't strong enough to raise no boy, what's his father name?
Shorty never knew him, though he had his blood in him hot temper
Momma said he act just like her husband daddy never fucked with him
So the streets raised him Isis blamin' herself
She wish she coulda saved him damn near impossible
Only men can raise men he was his own man

Not even him can save him he put his faith in a, thirty-eight in his waist
But when you live by the gun you die by the same fate end up
Dead before thirty-eight and that's the life of us raised by winter
It's a cold world old girl turned to coke, tried to smoke her pain away
Isis, life just, ended on that rainy day when she got the news her boy
Body could be viewed down at the City Morgue, opened the drawer
Saw him nude her addiction grew, prescription drugs, shift and brew
Angel dust, dipped in she slipped into, her own fantasy world

Had herself pregnant by a different dude but reality bites and
This is her life he wasn't really her husband, though he called her wife
It was just this night when, moon was full and the stars were just right
And the dress was real tight had her soundin' like Lisa Lisa
I wonder if I take you home will you still love me after this night?
Mike was the hard head from the around the way
That she wanted all her life shit she wanted all the hype
Used to hold on tight when he wheelied on the bike

He was a Willie all her life he wasn't really the one to like it was a
Dude named Shy who would really treat her right he wanted to run
To the country to escape the city life but Isis, liked this, Broadway life
She loved the Gucci sneakers, the red green and whites
Hangin' out the window when she first seen him fight she was so turned
On that she had to shower twice how ironic it would, be some fight that
Turned into a homicide that'll alter their life see Mike at thirty-two
Was still on the scene had a son fifteen that he never saw twice

Sure he saw him as an infant, but he dissed on him like
"If that was my son, he would look much different see I'm light-skinned
And that baby there's dark so it's, mommas baby, poppa's maybe"
Mike was still crazy out there runnin' the streets
(Fuck niggaz want?)
Had his old reliable thirty-eight gun in his reach it's been
Fourteen years, him and Isis ain't speak he runnin' around
Like life's a peach, 'til one day he approached this thug that

Had a mean mug and it looked so familiar that he called him
"Young Cuz" told him, get off the strip but the boy ain't budge
(Fuck you)
Instead he pulled out a newer thirty-eight snub
He clearly had the drop but the boy just paused
(Hold up)
There was somethin' in this man's face he knew he seen before
It's like, lookin' in the mirror seein' his self more mature

And he took it as a sign from the almighty Lord
You know what they say about he who hesitates in war
(What's that?)
He who hesitates is lost he can't explain what he saw before
His picture went blank the old man didn't think he just
Followed his instinct six shots into his kid, out of the gun
Niggaz be a father, you're killin' your son six shots into his kid
Out of the gun niggaz be a father, you killin' your sons

Meet the parents