Talib Kweli | Lyrics | Country Cousins

Yo son, what the deal, son? What's really hood, son?
The word is bond, s*** is real, s*** is real
Yo son, this block is dead
Nigga need to go over here and pop off real quick
Yo, I gotta get that guap by all means
You know what I'm sayin', son?

Growin' up in Brooklyn, s***
I thought that everybody talked this way
Raised on Rakim and Run-DMC
So I thought that everybody 'Walked This Way'

We fresh, we chill, we def, we ill
It's just some things I was taught to say
And every Saturday morning
I watched cartoons with a bowl of Frosted Flakes

The puberty came, started hittin' them cuties with game
And the truancy came
Started cuttin' in just class, I was comin' all fast, I was new to game
Used to playin' on TV courtesy of video music box
Plus knew a lot of hustlas, goin' O.T., comin' back with the new hip hop

Like E-40 holding down the yay , N.W.A. in L.A.
OutKast from the A-Town, way down in Houston, they play the UGK
I walk and talk kinda fast and thought of as a New York kinda rhymer
But must New Yorkers got family in South and North Carolina

L.A. is little Alabama
They walk and they talk with a country grammar
And you think everybody else sound country
So they started callin' 'em Bamas

Down south where we buy them hammers
Down south where we sell them drugs
Down south where life is cheap
Where they quick to fill you with them slugs

It's nothin', I'm from New York but I got country cousins
It's nothin', you stay connected by the slang you bustin'
Want it simply put? You can't rip me
When I spit for the set, everyone free
I'ma underground king, nigga Pimp C free
Word up to my man Bun B, what?

It's nothin', I'm from New York but I got country cousins
It's nothin', you stay connected by the slang you bustin'
The things you bustin', the game you hustlin', the days you're cuttin'
The flame you cuffin' and the lames you snuffin', your name is nothin'

Growin' up in P.A., I knew nobody out there talked like us
Nothin' but that county slang, what up, dog? What up, cuzz?
Late night you see us guzzlin' 40's, menthols, wine and weed
Sittin' on the back porch, gettin' zooted, feelin' fine indeed

Listenin' to Eric Band, Rakim or EPMD
Cool C and Steady B, plus that Public Enemy
Not to mention N.W.A., DJ Quik and MC Eiht
Down south we listen to it all, we didn't discriminate

Then along came Geto Boys, Raheem and the Royal Flush
Rap-A-Lot Records based out in Houston, represents for us
OG style, they cars, ditch that 4 and too much trouble
Our squad is gangsta nigga, put it down for H-Town on the double

So I said it's time to hustle, got down with my brother C
Put together UGK and s***, the rest is history
We make hits by the dozen, put it down when they said we wasn't
Trust me it's nothin', just another day in the life for country cousins

It's nothin', I'm from New York but I got country cousins
It's nothin', you stay connected by the slang you bustin'
Want it simply put? You can't rip me
When I spit for the set, everyone free
I'ma underground king, nigga Pimp C free
Word up to my man Bun B, what?

It's nothin', I'm from New York but I got country cousins
It's nothin', you stay connected by the slang you bustin'
The things you bustin', the game you hustlin', the days you're cuttin'
The flame you cuffin' and the lames you snuffin', your name is nothin'

In Brooklyn, New York, I'm down with Large and Marl
Back in P.A.T., man, we be sippin' the barre
I'm down with J from Houston and I think it should be
But when I'm out in L.A., I f*** with Ice-T

$hort Dog is my OG, we been down forever
Taught me the game, lane to lane, and keep my pimpin' together
Niggaz don't understand by far back in the day
It was 'mazin' and my brother put me up on Black Star

Start as blacks off the news, I weighed
'Cause we isolate ourselves and give our ghetto pass away
My niggaz passed away in an unreal way
They mommas' depleted
I'm just tryna make sure that their kids straight

I'm on the Chitalin tour with my mic in my hand
Shittin' on these jealous niggaz in the new world clan
I wouldn't trade it for nothin', only a crazy man would
I represent for the whole south, I made it just for my hood
The pimpin's good

I got cousins, country cousins
Like blood that's thicker than water, down dirty 'cross the border
I got cousins, country cousins
Like blood that's thicker than water, down dirty 'cross the border
In my country cousins