Do The Same as My Brother Do - Wu-Tang Clan, RZA

Life is what you make it

My darling, my dear

Try to make it

If I could, I would, if I can’t, I won’t

Please forgive me if I don’t

Should, some should be

I come from the strangest streets

I come from the place where love and danger meets

A house full of noisy kids, boys avoiding bids

Unemployed, on skid row, we had no toys for kids

We would bang our thumbs, gunshots, they run

We would bang on drums made from garbage cans

Even garbageman make more than mom

They make more than teachers, next door the preachers

They were sure they would reach us but we’d never listen

Niggas drunk and pissing on the side of the building

Can’t provide for children, someone stop the squealing

Turned to drugs for healing, thug sneaking and killing

Cop sirens are screaming, inside the cars, we dreaming

One day we could own one, right now we can’t bump crumbs

My brother would sell jawns, my mother would yell, «Son

You’ll end up in jail, son, or dead or in Hell, son»

But what could she tell son?

That money excel, son

Tony got knocked up, now looking for bail, son

Making collect calls, expecting that mail, son

Doing pushups in a six by four cell, son

A hard head makes a soft tail, son

And my little brother on that same trail, son

Life is a puzzle, every day is a struggle

And we ignore the ones who truly loves you

As we do foolish things we see the others do

I try to do the same things my big brother do

Life’s a struggle, we get trapped in this puzzle

And we ignore the ones who truly loves you

As we do foolish things we see the others do

I try to do the same things I saw my brother do

Loaded guns in the shoebox, fingerprints on the ooh-wop

Ziploc plastic bags with black and blue tops

We slung on the block and watch out for the blue coats

Ses blunts we pas after two tokes

Starving for a G-note back, and forth on the ferry boat

Coming up from poverty, we were very broke

To twenty-eight grams, expand to a thousand grams

Reap the twenty dollar bills passed through a thousand hands

Multi-project apartments, spots bubbling

Never went to clubs with less than a dozen men

Recruiting young gunners and runners, let my cousin in

Spot gets knocked, my brother locked the fuck up again

Another mama’s son stuck in the fucking pen

To disperse, no one to trust, back to struggling

Now I’m on the streets trying to get my hustle in

Cheap wine guzzling, life is so puzzling

Life is a puzzle, every day is a struggle

And we ignore the ones who truly loves you

As we do foolish things we see the others do

I try to do the same things my big brother do

Life’s a struggle, we get trapped in this puzzle

And we ignore the ones who truly loves you

As we do foolish things we see the others do

I try to do the same things I saw my brother do