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