KRS-One

Released: September 28, 1993

Songwriter: KRS-One

Producer: KRS-One

[Intro]
You ain't that tough ya
Choose the right friends
You ain't that tough now
Don't make your life end

[Verse 1]
You walk around the town like you a big man
But you never know now that there's always a bigger man
You sling the M-16 and flash the M-1
But you don't know what you're doing never learned to handle one
But true! All you friend thinking you a gangster
While your mother tried to warn you from certain danger
So when you in your room you playing with your Mac-10
Fully loaded automatic, just you and a friend
You posing aw dey mirror like you a gangster clown
But the Mac-10 go off and you friend go down

[Chorus]
Uh oh! What you gonna do now?
Uh oh! They gonna blame you somehow
Uh oh! Tell me what you gonna say
Uh oh! Look, they cutting you away

[Verse 2]
Your father telling you "Now son just go to school
Don't go acting like a fool and don't go acting too cool"
You get to the school and meet up with the right bunch
Just a group of kids with no names taking people lunch
You join the clique because you wanna meet some girls
And you want a little prestige in you little school world
One day you're walking with your crew along the road
And a member of your crew pull out a gun and unload
He shoot a parked car and all you run far
You and your friends laughing like you a superstar
And you get home and you thinking it was fresh
And a cop meet you there with a warrant for your arrest
Them ask, "Who shot the gun? why you walking down the street?
Didn't you see the little boy there in the back seat sleep?
Now the boy dead we want to know from you
Who shot the car up, are we gonna take you?"

[Chorus]
Uh oh! Now what you gonna do now?
Uh oh! Boy, them gonna blame you
Uh oh! Now tell me what you gonna say
Uh oh! Look, they cutting you away

[Bridge]
You ain't that rough ya
Choose the right friends
You ain't that tough ya
Don't make your life end

[Verse 3]
White kids! You living in the whitest part of town
You are a white kid but you know you hang around
So you and your friends thinking that you are all of that
When you see a youth walk by and yes the youth is black
One kid say "Hey, what you doing on the block
We don't want no niggers here unless he is a cop"
So the kid pull out a big baseball bat
And them him slap with the bat because the kid is black
Now then the kid fell down but still alive
So he reach in his pants and pull out a four-five
Pop! One friend drop and everyone run
Out of all the white kids now you the only one
You start cry, cause now you gonna die
And it's all because what your friends did to this guy

[Chorus]
Uh oh! What you gonna do now?
Uh oh! He gonna blame you somehow
Uh oh! What you think you gonna say?
Uh oh! Now them cutting you away, check!

[Outro]
You ain't that rough ya
Choose the right friends
You ain't that tough ya
Don't make your life end
You ain't that rough now
Choose the right friends
You ain't that tough now
Don't make your life end

The legendary MC from the South Bronx, New York, Lawrence “KRS-One” Parker has been steadily rapping since 1985. His name stands for “Knowledge Reigns Supreme Over Nearly Everyone”.

KRS came to rapping only by chance. In the Something from The Art of Rap documentary, he recalls watching an MC cypher when suddenly “a dude” randomly picked him out of the crowd and made fun of him. Feeling compelled to defend himself, KRS performed a little freestyle which impressed the crowd and eventually kicked off his rapping career.

His breakthrough onto the hip hop scene began with “The Bridge Is Over” – an answer record to the popular Queens rapper MC Shan’s song “Queensbridge”. From 1986 to 1992, KRS-One fronted the groundbreaking hip hop group Boogie Down Productions, scoring six top 20 hits on the US Rap Chart. In 1993, he began a solo career spanning three decades, racking up six more top 20 Rap Chart hits with “Sound of da Police”, “MCs Act Like They Don’t Know”, “Step Into A World” and “Men Of Steel” also achieving mainstream pop success on the Hot 100.

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