Lyrics: Krayzie Bone & Young Noble: Thug Brothers 2: Both Worlds
2Pac
I’m extremely angry, confused; you know? A lot of the times I sat up in court I couldn’t defend myself, you know what I’m saying? And it wasn’t like the things they were saying about me were beyond my comprehension, or the things that I could say weren’t going to help my case, but because it’s like being exiled from society, and that’s how I feel. This whole anger comes from…I’m tired of waiting for my past to get into society. All I ever wanted to do was make me and everybody around me feel more comfortable about where we were, about the places that we stay. This is our home place, let’s build it up, let’s be happy about where we come from. Instead of trying to assimilate and get a pass key to where they at. Not to say that everything needs to be separate. We gotta find pride in ourselves. Once you get the pride, damn near 2 seconds after the pride comes anger. From being held like that for so long. And to be made to go through those changes, you get mad. I believe as soon as any black man receives his first 3 checks, he starts getting mad. Because it’s not about the necessity of having a job and having to pay and having to do that. You don’t care no more about the smiles, and the “yes massa” because you done got paid. And now you wanna save money. You wanna help other people. And you see how far it is, how far you have to go to help anybody in your neighborhood. It’s set up for me when I get paid for me to exit the ghetto. The only reason I’ve had these problems is because I haven’t left yet. And these problems don’t come from a white man. It comes from society. The problems that we have. I can see that the one thing we do have in common as black people is we share that poverty. So the thug side is more closer to the poverty than me being rich. How can I come to any community center sporting a Rolex, Presidential, all these diamonds and be like, “look, we gotta gotta” But now, when I say “we” they know what I mean. I’m not saying I live in this neighborhood, but I’m a thug, they thugs. They can relate. I don’t even have to say that. When I come, I don’t have to say, “I’m real.” They already know that. From me being me. From not pushing the thugness, but I know from the business that everybody in this business is always whispering in your ear about what you can’t say, what you can’t do, what you can’t wear, in this world. It’s 2 worlds. A white world, and a black world. All I did was stand in the middle, and said I’m living in both worlds. I can go to the streets and survive and I can go out here and do my business out here.
2Pac Interview with BET’s Ed Gordon (1994)