Brooklyn Lyrics - Black On Both Sides - Mos Def

Hey hey, ha ha say what say what 

Ha ha bust it yo 

Sometimes I feel like I don't have a partner 

Sometimes I feel like my only friend 

Is the city I live in, is beautiful Brooklyn 

Long as I live here believe I'm on fire hey 

Cause it's the B-the-R-the-O-the-O-K 

L-Y-N is the place where I stay 

The B-the-R-the-O-the-O-K 

Best in the world and all USA 

It's the B-to-the-R-the-O-the-O-K 

L-Y-N is the place where I stay 

The B-to-the-R-the-O-the-O-K 

Place where I rest is on my born day 

Bust it, sometimes I sit back and just reflect 

Watch the world go by and my thought connect 

I think about the time past and the time to come 

Reminisce on Bed-Stuy when I was pride and young 

I used to try and come, to the neighborhood function 

Throw on my Izod, say a little something 

When I was just a younging, before the days of thugging 

How me and Charlie Chims (hey yo what?) I'm only bugging 

Fast forward, Nine-Now I gotta team my seed 

I must proceed at God's speed to perform my deed 

Livin the now space and time, round the nine to five 

For as long as I'm alive, paw I got to strive 

I ain't sitting roadside, that ain't harder to plan 

I'm out here for my fam doing all that I can 

I love my city, sweet and gritty in land to outskirts 

Nickname Bucktown cause we grown to outburst 

Philosophy redefine us, touch mines I touch back 

Walk the streets like a sweet and get beat like drum tracks 

Catch no shakes over jakes (boomp-boomp!) we bust back 

Bring the marty to your face wit no place to run back 

I'm from the slums that created the bass that thump back 

This ain't a game clown, play ya James Brown and jump back 

What you want, Jack? Young cats stash they jums at 

Draw they guns back, momma screams where she sons at 

Tryin to hunt that, recurring dream of high stakes 

The fourth largest, first artist, Brooklyn is the place 

Settled by the judge many years ago 

Three billion strong and here we go 

Good morning Vietnam! 

Ha (back up back up back up back up back up) 

Yo sometimes I sit back, reflect on the place that I live at 

Unlike any place I ever been at 

The home of big gats, deep dish hammer rim caps 

Have a mishap, push ya wig back 

Where you go to get the fresh trim at 

Four on the Jake got the Timb rack 

Blue collars metro carding it 

Thugs mobbing it, form partnership 

Increase armorment, street pharmacist 

Deep consequence, when you seek sleek ornaments 

You get caught, rode the white horse and can't get off 

Big dogs that trick off just get sent off 

They shoebox stash is all they seeds gotta live off 

It's real yo but still yo, it's love here 

And it's felt by anybody that come here 

Out of towners take the train, plane and bus here 

Must be something that they really want here 

One year as a resident, deeper sentiment 

Shout out "Go Brooklyn!", they representing it 

Sitting on they front stoop sipping Guinesses 

Using native dialect in they sentences 

From the treeline blocks to the tenements 

To the Mom & Pop local shop menaces 

Travel all around the world in great distances 

And ain't a place that I know that bear resemblance 

That's why we it The Planet 

Not a borough or a prov, it's our style that's uncalm 

From "sun" to the ? to the Lafayette Gardens 

White "coff guawinas" in they army jacket linings 

Yo this goes out to my cats in Coney Isle 

Friday night out in front The Himalaya goin wild 

This goes out to Crown Heights and Smurv Village 

The nighties, and all my "yarda trenny" Brown's Village 

Parkside tenants caught, thirties, forties, and the fifties 

The cats out in Starite City gettin busy 

To the Hook, to the East, to the Stuy 

Bushwick and Kanarcy, Farraget, Fullgreen, and Marcy 

My Flatbush posse, generals of armies 

When it's time to form, just call me 

And let this song be, playing loud in Long B 

If you love Bucktown strongly! 

Raise it up! 

Brooklyn my habitat, the place where it happen at 

Live sway and the sharp balance of the battle axe 

Irons is brandished at, thugs draw they hammer back 

It's where you find the news tool crew cameras at 

It's where my fam is at, summertime jam is at 

They play Big and get you open like a sandal back 

Hotter than candle wax, hustling you can't relax 

The crack babies trying to find where they mama's at 

It's off the handle black, wit big police scandals that 

Turn into actions screenplays sold to Miramax 

The type of place where they check your appearance at 

And cats who know where all the hot 'lo gear is at 

The stomping grounds, where you find a pound, smoke is that 

Be blazing charm that have your wave cap floating back 

The doorstep where the dispossessed posted at 

Dope fiends out at Franklin Ave selling zovarax 

You big balling better keep your money folded back 

Cause once the young guns notice that it's over, black 

Brooklyn keep on taking it, worldwide we known for that 

Flossy cats get it snatched like the local tax 

The place I sharpen up my baritone vocals at 

Where one of the greatest MC's was a local cat