Gang Starr

Released: March 8, 1994

Songwriter: DJ Premier Guru

Producer: Guru DJ Premier

[Intro: Sample]
"If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it is wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us, and make us violent abroad in defense of her."

[Verse 1]
Tons o' guns everybody's getting strapped
Tons o' guns got to watch the way you act
Tons o' guns real easy to get
Tons o' guns bringing nothing but death
Tons o' guns are in the streets
Nowadays
It's big money and you know crime pays
Check your nearest overpopulated ghetto
They greet you with a pistol not trying to say hello
Mad kids packed 'cos the neighbourhood's like that
Want some shit that's fat catch a victim do a stick
Kids pulling triggers, niggas killing niggas
Five-o they sit and wait and tally death-toll figures
It's crazy there ain't no time to really chill
Jealous motherfuckers always wanna act ill
22's 25's 44's 45's
Mack elevens ak's taking mad lives
What the fuck you gonna do in a situation
It's like you need to have steel just to feel relaxation
Tons o' guns

{* Premier scratching *}
"The thing they know best is where the gun is kept"

[Verse 2]
Tons o' guns you got we got they got
The state of affairs yo it's like mad chaos
I know a kid who just passed the other day
They shot him sixteen times so there he lay
You can pray for this shit to like cease
But until then a nigga's going to pack a piece
And yo the devil's got assasination squads
Want to kill niggas 'cos they're scared of god
They got camps where they train they learn to take aim
At a nigga like a piece of game
And I'm not seeing that, them days are gone
'cos now we got [chromes] to put them where they belong
So me a rude boy from and in a brooklyn
Fuck the bullshit pain and suffering
I'm coming off with a foolproof plan
As if each every lyric was worth a hundred grand
I stand in the face of hatred
Letting off mad shots making devils run naked
Tons o' guns

{* Premier scratching *}

[Verse 3]
Tons o' guns everybody's getting strapped
Tons o' guns got to watch the way you act
Tons o' guns real easy to get
Tons o' guns bringing nothing but death
Tons o' guns but I don't glorify
'cos more guns will come and much more will die
Why, yo I don't know black
Some motherfuckers just be living like that
They like to feel the chrome in their hands
The shit makes them feel like little big man
Twelve years old catching wreck
'cos there ain't no supervision putting kids in check
People get wounded, others they perish
And what about the mother and the child she cherish
The city is wild up steps the wild child
Tension anger living in danger
What the fuck you gonna do in a situation
It's like you need to have steel just to feel relaxation
Tons o' guns

Gang Starr is the formidable hip-hop duo of MC Guru and producer DJ Premier.

The group was originally founded by two childhood friends, Big Shug and Guru, in Atlanta; coming up with the logo design and name of the group. Big Shug and Guru got separated when Shug got imprisoned and Guru moved to New York where he met Dj Premier.

While DJ Premier is from Texas and the monotone Guru is from Boston, they came together in Brooklyn, New York, and helped define the sound of East Coast hip-hop in the 1990s with their jazzy production on singles such as “Words I Manifest” and “Jazz Thing,” as well as their harder boom bap singles like “Just to Get a Rep” and “Take it Personal.”

more tracks from the album

Full Clip: A Decade of Gang Starr

From the albums

Hard to Earn (1994)
Full Clip: A Decade of Gang Starr (1999)

Gang Starr popular songs

Tonz ‘O’ GunzGang Starr

Gang Starr

Full Clip: A Decade of Gang Starr