Blood On My Nikes

[00:29.78] Yo, I was just a kid, I was barely 16
[00:33.75] Couldn't tell a man what this shit means
[00:36.14] To shoot a man on a fucking split-screen
[00:38.59] Take a life that was kinda pristine
[00:41.24] Uh, I wasn't listening to Christine and the Queens
[00:44.51] I was listening to Fifteen
[00:46.49] Young men like me kick a 16
[00:48.95] Full of pain in a city, let the shit stream
[00:51.32] Deep in the consciousness, down south
[00:53.42] Where the monsters live, abandoned houses and consequence
[00:56.64] Yeah, heart breaks, it was common sense
[00:59.08] Don't sit on that shit, man, we jumped the fence
[01:01.74] Uh, 'cause certain areas are tense
[01:03.98] Yeah, that's why I'm never at events
[01:06.54] Uh, 'cause I was tryna make pence
[01:09.34] Doesn't make bread, doesn't make sense
[01:11.60] Mama, I lost a friend (ayo, it doesn't make sense)
[01:16.79] Mama, I lost again (I lost a friend)
[01:21.35] Yo, it's the L, won't you pull it?
[01:23.24] The destination of the bullet, the man living life to the fullest
[01:27.31] Can't lie, yo, at times, was the purest
[01:29.53] But now you're in another city like a tourist
[01:32.16] The prayers can't cure this, deep rain, hop in the ride
[01:34.85] I closed the door, told the cabbie to drive, uh
[01:37.35] Late at night, see the mother that cried
[01:39.40] The bullet whizzed past my face, saw her son as he died
[01:41.86] My eyes wide, yeah
[01:44.60] Ah, shaking up my belly from inside
[01:47.49] Ah, I shoulda stayed, shoulda lied
[01:50.26] Yeah, I shoulda prayed, shoulda tried
[01:52.88] Trust, but like his mother, I cried
[01:54.87] When they took the boy's life 'cause he's from the wrong side
[01:57.92] Shit, I know I should have thought twice
[02:00.52] Ah, washing off the blood from my Nikes
[02:03.27] Mama, I lost a friend (I lost a friend)
[02:07.96] Mama, I lost again (I lost again)
[02:12.34] Ah, and so I grew up, scared of the night bus
[02:16.06] Scared of the boys that look like us, ah
[02:18.81] No wonder why they want to fight us
[02:21.36] They think the same, give a second and we might buss
[02:23.49] Squeeze, bust caps, spray, say it's a wrap
[02:25.96] I wish I'd given him a hug and a dap
[02:28.16] Wish he could have felt my son on his lap
[02:30.43] And seen life's for the living, to be done with the trap
[02:32.94] But it's a fact, live for today, fuck tomorrow
[02:36.00] No tomorrow if your life's feeling borrowed
[02:38.48] He needs the money right now, fuck the sorrow
[02:40.85] Spend it right now, right now feeling hollow
[02:43.39] Then save it for a rainy day, if every day's grey
[02:46.23] And tomorrow might never come his way
[02:48.88] Ah, just another man went astray
[02:51.31] The hate, tell him get from out my way
[02:53.96] The impact of knife crime on individuals is undeniable
[02:58.85] And while politicians wish to police themselves out of the knife crime epidemic
[03:03.36] It is simply not possible
[03:05.82] We must focus on the root causes of knife crime
[03:09.85] Poverty, inequality, austerity, and a lack of opportunity
[03:15.33] We must petition the government to put reason over rhetoric
[03:19.92] Compassion over indifference, equality over austerity
[03:24.64] As knife crime claims more lives within our country
[03:28.10] Never has so much been lost by so many
[03:32.70] Because of the indecision of so few
[03:36.21]