C.R.E.A.M. (Cash Rules Everything Around Me) - A Cappella

I grew up on the crime side, the New York Times side
 Staying alive was no jive
 Had secondhands, Mom's bounced on old man
 So then we moved to Shaolin land
 A young youth, yo, rocking the gold tooth, 'Lo goose
 Only way I be gettin' the G off was drug loot
 And let's start it like this son, rolling with this one and that one
 Pulling out Gats for fun
 But it was just a dream for the teen who was a fiend
 Started smoking woolas at 16
 And running up in gates, and doing hits for high stakes
 Making my way on fire escapes
 No question I would speed for cracks and weed
 The combination made my eyes bleed
 No question I would flow off and try to get the dough all
 Sticking up white boys in ball courts
 My life got no better, same damn 'Lo sweater
 Times is rough and tough like leather
 Figured out I went the wrong route
 So I got with a sick-ass clique and went all out
 Catching keys from across seas
 Rolling in MPV's every week we made forty G's
 Yo nigga respect mine or here go the TEC-9
 Ch-chick-POW, move from the gate now
 It's been twenty-two long hard years of still struggling
 Survival got me bugging, but I'm alive on arrival
 I peep at the shape of the streets
 And stay awake to the ways of the world cause shit is deep
 A man with a dream with plans to make cream
 Which failed; I went to jail at the age of fifteen
 A young buck selling drugs and such who never had much
 Trying to get a clutch at what I could not
 The court played me short, now I face incarceration
 Pacin' - going upstate's my destination
 Handcuffed in the back of a bus, forty of us
 Life as a shorty shouldn't be so rough
 But as the world turned I learned life is hell
 Living in the world no different from a cell
 Every day I escape from Jakes giving chase, selling base
 Smoking bones in the staircase
 Though I don't know why I chose to smoke sess
 I guess that's the time when I'm not depressed
 But I'm still depressed and I ask what's it worth?
 Ready to give up so I seek the old Earth
 Who explained working hard may help you maintain
 To learn to overcome the heartaches and pain
 We got stickup kids, corrupt cops, and crack rocks and
 Stray shots, all on the block that stays hot
 Leave it up to me while I be living proof
 To kick the truth to the young Black youth
 But shorty's running wild, smoking sess, drinking beer
 And ain't trying to hear what I'm kicking in his ear
 Neglected for now, but yo, it gots to be accepted
 That what? That life is hectic