Released: November 22, 2018

Featuring: CJ Fly Kirk Knight Joey Bada$$

Songwriter: Statik Selektah Joey Bada$$ Kirk Knight CJ Fly

Producer: Statik Selektah

[Producer Tag]
Statik Selektah

[Hook: The Notorious B.I.G. & Joey]
Y'all know the rules
Y'all know the rules (Peep the rap patois)
From BK
Y'all know the rules
Y'all know the rules
Y'all know the rules
From BK

[Intro: Joey Bada$$]
Uh
Check, check

[Verse 1: Joey Bada$$]
It be the nights like this that make me question His name
And it's sights like this that make me question the fame
Feeling like, I'm the only one who destined to blame
Never be testing my faith, so I ain't resting today
They don't like to see sunshine
They'd rather see sundown or the nightfall
Pray that he might fall, just like all
Before his time and presence
Before his prime and essence really stepping
But fuck it, we stepping, repping Beast Coast
On the West End
Hoes be impressed with his entrance
And the valet's parking just to spark up your interest
Let's just enter all types of keys and postures
Ima keep it G, 'til you give me G responses
Don't worry, I gotcha, I'm here for you conscious
I'm all upright in your bitch concha
Shit get deep like conches said
They can't see me switch your consciousness
Nigga Kirk hit me up like "What's the plans, my nigga?"
We all trying to eat, but they don't understand, my niggas
Trying to see figures way bigger than that minimum wage shit
We winners for days, but it's in the sinister phase
Now my life got stamina ways, to sin on my plates
If I ain't reading a script, I'm reading ya bitch
Don't trip, I see the signs she be eyeing me
She know who I am so she be eyeing me
But she don't get the IMG, nor the irony
To prove you ain't as high as me
I like these blunts Siamese
'Til we airborne riding on herb shuttles
Don't try to rebuttal
I rap in puzzles like rap's Rapunzel
Ima be here long, niggas ain't know
Introduce you to the show
Let me show you how to roll
When you fucking with the Pro

[Hook]
Y'all know the rules
Y'all know the rules
Y'all know the rules

[Verse 2: Kirk Knight]
And I said
We not kids
But we suited for family ties
My eye tear through the leather(?) of wire
808's, knocking as the temple of my heart
When we robbed that girl for an iPhone
Man, I wish I ain't start
To work hard
My head honchos oversee masses
Just to see an oversea master, with disaster
In the night, royal flush with the microphone
Fuck it with the metronome
Made me holler like silicone
See my girl slip for the (?)
Look how much years is it worth
All the time that my body is shook
All the time in the ER
Thinking 'bout the E's and R's we picked up
We could prob'ly use a see or saw
Girls can be on the war like Christ do
I don't need a movie
A way, or a pistol
And yeah i'm pissed too(?)
Ready, ignite like a crystal
Fuck being lyrical
All niggas is making doubles
But they not feeling you

[Hook:The Notorious B.I.G. & CJ Fly]
Y'all know the rules (Check)
Y'all know the rules (Yo, Yo)
Y'all know the rules

[Verse 3: CJ Fly]
Check, Check
I'd rather live my life right than to be dead wrong
Never left, so I'm guessing right I had my head on
Then I wasn't getting gassed like Exxon
One basket, would I know to never put all of my eggs on?
Never meant to leave, what mentally [been rich in mine?]
Some time I spent for free [plus I was?] sent to read
Led me to believe I've been alive for some centuries
We're spitting heavenly, on the memory of STEEZ
Won't ever quit but no one knows all I've been through
Supplied your mind with food for thought
Your choice - what you feed into
Sometimes I wonder how to even stomach it
Hit a couple licks of a [guilty conscience?]
Take the lotion off your mother's skin
On some other shit, fell down like I fell from the top
And had dropped and kept plummeting
And I don't know how I do it
Know how I keep on making songs and music
Eye do it for you...

[Outro]
Y'all know the rules
Y'all know the rules
Y'all know the rules
From BK

Pro Era

Pro Era is a Brooklyn hip hop collective that includes rappers Joey Bada$$, CJ Fly, Kirk Knight, Nyck Caution, Aaron Rose, Dessy Hinds, Dirty Sanchez, Rokamouth, J.A.B. and Jakk the Rhymer, along with producers Chuck Strangers and Powers Pleasant. The collective was formed in 2011 by Capital STEEZ and Powers Pleasant, with Joey Bada$$ and CJ Fly among its founding members.

Pro Era stands for Progressive Era. We live in the Common Era, so naming the group “Pro Era” is symbolic of the group helping to bring forth a new era, a new age, with their conscious music.

The Collective uses and refers to the number ‘47’ heavily. First championed by Capital STEEZ, the number is meant to represent the tension between the fourth chakra—the heart—and the seventh—the brain.