Back on the Block (7" edit)

Back, back on the block
Back, back on the block
Back on the block
So we can rock it with the soul, rhythm and blues
We brought the hip-hop back on the block
Back on the block

Ice-T, let me kick my credentials
A young player bred in South Central
L.A., home of the body bag
You wanna die? Wear a wrong color rag
I used to walk in stores and yell "Lay down"
You flinch an inch, AK spray down
But I was lucky 'cause I never caught the hard times
I was blessed with the skill to bust a dope rhyme
All my homies died or caught the penso
Lost their diamonds, cops towed their Benzos
Living that life that we thought was it
Fast laning, but the car flipped
I'm not gonna lie to you 'cause I don't lie
I just kick thick game, some people say "Why?"
'Cause I'm back on the block, I got my life back
So I school the fools about the fast track
I gets phat from my style and my technique
Profanity, the blatant way in which I speak
But the dude knows the streets ain't no kiddie game
You don't know the dude? Quincy's his first name
He told me "Ice, keep doing what you're doing, man
Don't give a damn if the squares don't understand
You let 'em tell you what to say and what to write
Your whole career will be over by tomorrow night"

Back on the block
So we can rock it with the soul, rhythm and blues
We brought the hip-hop back on the block
Back on the block

I'm back on the block, on the screen
I'm on the wax, I'm on the stage, I'm on the scene
I'm on your case just like an attorney
The Dude took me on a magic journey
To dance in France, to roam in Rome
On the farmland in Nebraska, the cold of Alaska
The heat of the motherland, to be with my brother man
On top of a snow-capped mountain, and I'm scouting
For what another man saw in a race of people
To see him give his life for the price of evil
The highest wisdom, the richest kingdom
The Song of Songs, we heard David sing them

Back-back, back-back on
Back-back, back on the block

Strokey just strokey my mind
Strokey, strokey
And one by one each woman begins
Begins to receive the father's love
Strokey just strokey your nose
Strokey, strokey
Till someone chooses to get enough
Ain't nothing but the finest stuff to blow

Back up and give the brother room to let poetry bloom
To whom it may concern or consume
As I reminisce before this the bliss did exist
But now we brought about the twist
'Cause I remember reading of my people bleeding
Put through slavery and killed for bravery
We shoulda got our freedom much sooner
You never seen a black man on The Honeymooners
But now somehow we've learned to earn, to grow, to show
The elevation of our people built this, so
Jesse Jackson, Miss America, a black one
No more living for just a small fraction
I was once told by the Dude that knowledge is a food
To nourish, so to conclude
Just from an Asiatic descendant Big Daddy is shot
The Q-B back on the block

Back on the block
So we can rock it with the soul, rhythm and blues
We brought the hip-hop back on the block
Back on the block

An everlasting omnipresence is my present
State of being, seeing the unpleasant
Sight of righteous souls live like peasants
The mind stunts growth and adolescence
My insight enables me to enlight
The weakest of minds and I put 'em in flight
As I transcend the ascent or descend
Recreate, reincarnate, and resend
The powerful spirits, the five ancestors
For those that don't know how God blessed us
Because man messed up, the media dressed up
Lies perpetrated as truth and it left us
Confused, but I've seen it all before
From Babylon to the Third World War
I'm more than a man, I'm more like an entity
Back on the block, and this time my identity is the Dude

Back-back, back-back on
Back-back, back on the block

Some say they can't take it no more
Coming in, coming in, stop, stop
The Dude is back on duty for sure
Back on the block to stay
Oh, no, they say he ain't gonna be wet
Coming back, coming back to the street
The Dude he know you'll never forget
Back on the block to stay

Back on the block
Back on the block