The Empire - Iron Solomon, Talib Kweli

I’m from the home of the hustler, born with a mean mark

Talk fast and we walk fast, keep up

Step with a different rhythm, try to make the most of what little we’ve been

given

By the city that we live in

We… walk … like a streets marks,

Intersect, dogs eat dogs, … law, that’s

Dry a nigga even for the odds that we overcoming

So we can hear them sirens and them coppers…

No matter what we facing we don’t turn the cheek

The highest currency is courage in these urban streets

We’re in the … where people popping they heels

We never follow our leader…

With lady liberty’s … without stopping the…

You can never doubt us out, even when we downing out

Nothing to be proud about, show the people shouting out

My city, my home, my city, my home, my city, my home, New York city

My city, my home, my city, my home, my city, my home, New York city

I’m from the home of the stickers, can’t be always show the streets love

Talk fast, plus we walk fast, keep up a step

Over gutter rainbows

Wish I could give away millions like I was Maino

You know how the gutters… if you listen to the…

The bombers made it tragic but we rose up from the ashes

Like the promise of the phoenix…

I roll a purple… youth… I grew up in New York

… Fuck how niggas… it’s tragic how our whips got more gadgets than the

Batmobile

The inspiration… the metropolitan… stay on top of other problems

Cause we’re coming my from the bottom

My city, my home, my city, my home, my city, my home, New York city

My city, my home, my city, my home, my city, my home, New York city

New York, New York, my city, my home

My city, my home,

As a teen I sold 20's spending my own money

Stepping out my parent’s house the city was home to me

Riverside park, we would kick it after dark, by the peer

With some beers, and a piff that we would spark

And run up in house parties and turn them to our parties

And neighbors would call cops, cause we would get…

Another night, another page written in life’s journal

9 million stories in a city with 5 burrows

Different backgrounds, but we came through the same struggle

Dreaming of fame, we wrote our names on train tunnels

Running round the city like rats in crawl spaces

Catching court cases for jacking north faces

Chasing the fast life, we know that it’s short

Breathing the air here it’s like smoking a Newport

My home is in New York… we living… die

The city of NY

My city, my home, my city, my home, my city, my home, New York city

My city, my home, my city, my home, my city, my home, New York city

New York, New York, my city, my home

My city, my home.