Don't Shoot the Messenger - E-40

I got love for real dudes good brothas don't respect suckas

What want for myself i want for others

I had holes in socks and my draws growin up stressin

Didn't have a lot of money and material possessions

Pop warner and little league pitched played out field

Had a valet times hill and paper route to help pay the bills

My hood is a battlefield lots of talent a skill

Women smart enough to be journalists like federico winfield

We hollow broke we or got the latest iphone

A zap it or choke in the lebron zone

Can't remember your sat but to every e40 song

You can recite every lyric and rap along

We living in different day such challenging times

Financial binds, senselessness crimes

I was talkin to my og he did 20 for real

He said if i had some bread i wouldn't put none of these niggas in my will

Because they turn like a steering wheel and forget you when you in jail

They didn't write me or nothin no commissary no mail

That's what he said to me so i pulled out a g

Even though he used to run with my uncle i was just 3

Years old with a snotty nose and observing him being nosey

Soaking up game and ear husslin while they trade war stories

Thugin and bustin, death and destruction

Chaos and catastrophe, triump and tragedy

Don't shoot him

Don't shoot the messenger I don't come from money i come from fried baloney

Starvin and thirsty eb key cards pop a murphy

Lord have mercy it's brutal and murky out here on the ave

Where the mail man's scared to come in you can't catch a cab

Me and my partnas be gettin together drinkin, smokin herb

Talkin bout reincarnation comin back as a bird

I was channel surfing watchin the word network cause i get inspired

When i here the ministry of joyce myers i use my rushcard to order her tapes

Or should i say dvds her's and tb jakes

Is it any good people left on this earth that show pity

That will do anything for their relatives give up a kidney

But would their relatives do the same for them i don't know

You'll be surprised how selfish people can be even kin folk

I can't imagine me goin to hell the devil's a liar

What you wanna be i wanna be one of god's angels when i die

The pearly gates not the underworld in the afterlife

At the end of the tunnel will there be light

Will the sky be purple, will the grass be blue

Will i recognise my family will they know me too

Living on this earth is a test behold

When god call we can't put in on hold

I'm just the writer not the editor

Here go my letter don't shoot the messenger

Hey I like to say to ugh all the industry people out there to that ugh

Has control of what we call hiphop, like for people to put more of an effort for hiphop to be what it was instead of the culture of violence that it is right now you know there's a lot of things going you know what i mean

There's a lot of people that put in a lot of time, you the break dancers

The graffiti artist, people rappin all over the world

And i think it means a lot, i mean it means a lot to people like me that for all my life I've been in hiphop

And it should more than just somebody standin on the side a the road selling dope

I mean that may or may not have it's place too because it's there

But i'm just sayin i ain't neva shot nobody, i ain't neva stab nobody

I'm 45 years old and i ain't i ain't got no criminal record you know what I mean the only thing I've ever done is care about my music

So I mean so while we teaching people what it is about life in the ghetto

Then we should be teaching people what life is in the ghetto me tryna grown up

And come up out of the ghetto and we need everybody's help out there to make it happen

Hiphop needs to grow up and i'm a grown man i'm a be doin hiphop all my life

I need somebody's help to help me do it. So let's get this thing done