Verse1 Welcome to the city Welcome the gritty concrete Where cons and creeps sweep sweet, pretty young girls off their feet Off the Ave., off the beaten path Cops walk the beat and clash with the bad bloods The average thug is not a savage but likes to behave like Hades spat him up This is "home of" the white tee's over the "wife beaters" down to the white sneaks This must be a man's world cause all these girls dress like they're dancers in the club I drove up 106 and parked 'til it got dark and watched as the Ls got sparked The shells shot sharp and whizzed by and all I could think to myself is that Hell's not far A car stopped The window came down She lied about her age, hopped in and went down the wrong road A song showed her how to get it Radio played it, no edit Video aided and abetted A mom calls on Christ's name as her youngest son takes his slain brother's place at the dice game Nice aim...they taught you to aim for nothing and look You hit it dead on the button And we say it's all good just 'cause it's all hood If only we all could live like we should
Hook First we grab the text Next we read His mind Then we hit the set The set gets redesigned Redefine city Redefine hood Redefine all Redefine good Redefine him Redefine her We need to try and swim Up against the current Redefine live Redefine church Read the fine print From the divine Word
Verse 2 My XXL tells XXX tales Sells XXX video cassettes through the mail Since sex sells I guess the next logical step was for them to turn around and sell sex I wrote 'em, they never wrote me back Maybe it's time to go our separate ways like Kobe and Shaq Hold up, rewind that - redefine that Imagine the media feeding us divine facts What if our magazines felt like they just had to screen what they gave us And cared about how our kids were raised up? Picture the radio letting a brotha' save a soul and not playin' a jam unless it's showin' us the way to go That's what the city could use and needs to see New you's and me's troopin' these city streets And just in case you can' t recollect how this could be done let me run it down step by step
Hook
Verse 3 Your dealin' with a pity feelin' X villain Was feelin' pity for my city Philly that I'm still in Lord willin' soon we'll start building up and filling in the gaps between spiritual generations from our past and our children We need real women on duty Yeah, she's a cutie but her outer frame is eclipsed by inner beauty Imagine that - a beauty pageant that's not based on a pretty face or thong And where my fellas at? All my zealous cats who shed a tear over the fact that Hell is packed Cats that's jealous at the way the Lord is treated Who see the Lord getting cheated on and they get heated That's Elijah for you That's the Bible for you We gon' take the streets That's revival for you Tell'em reverse that - run that verse back Picture the city of brotherly love with no thugs What if the big apple wasn't a rotten one And cats were following the only begotten Son? What if the 5th Ward had the light of Christ shinning in side of it and wasn't dark as a Sith Lord? And New Jerus. was switched up And started looking more like the New Jerus of Scripture? So 'til that new Heaven and Earth comes down Let's show'em how we represent Heaven on Earth now