Back When

Warning, Warning...
 New York, New York
 The sound, the sound
 you're about to hear, to hear...
 You love to hear the story
 How it all, how it all, got started, got started
 You love to hear the story
 How it all, how it all, got started, got started
 You love to hear the story
 How it all, how it all, got started, got started
 Start it off, start it off, start it off
 Back when, back when, back when, back when
 Back when, back when, back when, back when
 The ill reminisce and think about the fly days
 Nothing like them 80s summer NY days
 Hop on the NB5 days
 Mopeds, Pro Keds, city split five ways
 How it all started, fifth floor apartment
 A jigsaw puzzle aerial view of the projects
 A kid saw struggle, buried a few of his partners
 Now I chill in resorts, enjoying massages
 Check out the oracle bred from city housing
 Nas, I arise the dead by thousands
 I remember seeing Shan chilling near his Audi
 Hollis Ave, Run and them, but I proudly
 Put a poster up of Shan and Marley, that was art, kid
 You love to hear the story how it started
 The bubbly I'm pouring wasn't popped yet
 Before there was a audience to watch us
 I assure you, there was a process
 You love to hear the story
 How it all, how it all, got started, got started
 You love to hear the story
 How it all, how it all, got started, got started
 You love to hear the story
 How it all, how it all, got started, got started
 Start it off, start it off, start it off
 Back when, back when, back when, back when
 Back when, back when, back when, back when
 To call them fake today is hate, real niggas extinct
 Pac left me inside a rap world with niggas that wink
 At other rappers, undercover niggas spit every way
 Won't be surprised if all their rides have federal plates
 Let alone their wardrobes and Studio 4 flow
 It was real when I appeared, it would've been some jaws broke
 Nas, my real name, stage name, same thing
 How could you let these lames claim king? I'm so ashamed, man
 I light a L for Vernon, for niggas who would burn in Hell
 For Vernon; 10th Street, 12th Street, Nightmare on Elm Street
 Pimps creep, delve deep inside the editorials
 Of the ghetto queens, kings, stories true
 Who possesses the testicular fortitude
 To blow away myths that's a hindrance to all of you?
 You blame your own shortcomings on sex and race
 The mafia, homosexuals and all the Jews
 It's hogwash point of views, stereotypical
 Anti-Semitic like the foul words Gibson spewed
 And it's pathetic
 I don't get the credit I deserve
 That's why I hate doing interviews
 But I don't sweat it, study long, study raw
 My man Dion said "Nas over-think the songs he writing"
 I'm not a wack performer standing near a corny hype man
 I got the Donism
 I'm here to enlighten
 You love to hear the story
 How it all, how it all, got started, got started
 You love to hear the story
 How it all, how it all, got started, got started
 You love to hear the story
 How it all, how it all, got started, got started
 Start it off, start it off, start it off
 Back when, back when, back when, back when
 Back when, back when, back when, back when