Corner Store Stories - Marlon Craft

I remember drinking 50 cent nutties sittin' on the stoop, listenin' to 'Gimme

The Loot'

The truths were hard and the lies were in abundance

Back when all that mattered was vaginas you done bust in or the fights that you

done won, shit

You needed some stories, old heads told you bout 'back in the day'

Speaking passionately, we lusted for our own tails

But now I’m older, hear our stories get retold by all my friends and shit,

an honest recollection be like so rare

Cyclical embellishment be only to our detriment, 'cause we going on decades of

money, pussy, weed fetishes

Rhetoric be redundant, heaven be when the blunt lit, discussion rarely meanders

to waters we ain’t accustomed, it’s hard

Remember after dark, we used to bring the gloves out, and back further we was

playing manhunt

We didn’t know the cops was playing too on anybody with a tan

But got a little older and began to understand what the city about

Shit, the beauty and the wickedness, profundity and simpleness

We right up in the thick of it, grab a 40 and listen to tales of glory and

sinnin'

If our best days behind us, we ain’t gon' never forget 'em

New York, New York, I’m a Hell’s Kitchen baby

Born with a pitchfork, you could never play me

Born with the shit talk, I don’t need that praise, B

Shouts to the city that raised me

You can take my blocks, you ain’t takin' my pride

Catch me at the corner store, I be waitin' outside

I’m from 'round here, yeah, motherfucker I’m from 'round here, yeah

I remember when Pat punched dude off his skateboard for breathing

When Mike fought on 48th street to squash the beef

When every year, it was lit at the 9th ave.

festival

Throwin' stink bombs under tables, shit, just to mess with you

Hittin' chicks in staircases, roofs, and playgrounds too

I’m paintin' you a picture, ain’t always say I was proud to, hey

It’s what it is, those days when we was kids lasted longer for some

I seen that quandary become unbearable for a few now

Watch my big bro lose his mind to the stress, he walkin' round without a crew

now

Ain’t always stick to the script but the loyalty the glue now

When push comes to shove I hold everyone in my crew down

But see, the thing is in New York, even that corner store know that any minute,

shit

He could get evicted and replaced by some fucking organic spinach

So it’s every man for himself and that’s just how we live in New York

New York, New York, I’m a Hell’s Kitchen baby

Born with a pitchfork, you could never play me

Born with the shit talk, I don’t need that praise, B

Shouts to the city that raised me

You can take my blocks, you ain’t takin' my pride

Catch me at the corner store, I be waitin' outside

I’m from 'round here, yeah, motherfucker I’m from 'round here, yeah

You can take my blocks, you ain’t takin' my pride

Catch me at the corner store, I be waitin' outside

I’m from 'round here, yeah, motherfucker I’m from 'round here, yeah