New York - KRS-One

If you was born in New York City let me hear say «You know that»!

You know that!

Hey yo, once upon a rhyme where the scenery sets, you see stress

Streets a matter of life and death, no regrets

Life’s a test, strife, wit special effects

Neighborhood’s full of reps, cities are projects

Where the young cadets get stripes from the vets

And comrades quest to be the next, to fitness

Collect debts and select bets with death threats

Object, chedder, better your total net

Where trends are set from ways to express the outfits

Friends get wet tryin' to make ends connect

Avenues to check, boulevards to sweat

The smell of gun smoke more common than cigarettes

We got clicks for wreck

We like Pits for pets

We got Giants and Jets, the Knicks, Yanks and Mets

We like much respect and sex extra wet

And high-tech dialect you ain’t catch yet

The Bronx,

Ya out there?

No doubt

Brooklyn,

Ya out there?

Hey yo, we got blocks and glocks with

Big shots with big knots and big props

Yo this is where the bullshit stops

Where herbs get got, if you snitch you get shot

We get down and leave the town in a state of shock

We got dangerous hang out spots and slick cops

Place called Riker’s Island where kids get locked

A lotta gear to rock with blocks of clothes shops

Styles are top notch, this is the place to watch

So bust the box, the radio station is Hot

Ease your mind staring at skylines from rooftops

Flip scripts for chips, and new whips off the lot

Quick to call a shot, politic with thick plots

And the Garden of Eden against the sea that we got

To make sure the core of the Big Apple don’t rot

Where seeing’s believing, we be achieving a lot

Since disc jocks created hip hop, check it out!

Queens, ya out there?

No doubt

Manhattan?

No doubt

New York City, Staten Island

New York, New York, Long Island

New York, ya out there?

Hey yo, we got five boroughs of ghettos

With many places to meet, you get lost in city streets

The city that never sleeps

Mecca, Medina the population increase

The desert and the oasis, New York, the far East

With Gods and Sheiks, pretty Amazons for weeks

Player dons that fleece the family’s black sheep

Icons that teach that we all act unique

We got stats to reach so we all have to eat

A mass of peeps, with they own masterpiece

The crafts elite, we going past the beat

The latest technique no other place get as deep

Who parks release some of the worlds greatest athletes

DJ’s and MC’s and graffiti artists

Who use walls and subway trains for marquees

We go back to B-boys, break dancing, break beats

And it’ll never cease, and on that note, we say peace