Lyrics Surviving (feat. 2Pac) - Outlawz , Bone Thugs-n-Harmony , 2Pac

The press and the media make you think that a black man arming himself is illegal or criminal
Or they even wanna arm themselves to rob a liquor store or something
You know what I'm sayin'?
That is for me to defend myself and it should always be
That's just about surviving, you know?

And we have to be honest about the tools that we use to survive
And why is a black life any—
Any more recoupable than a white life?
You know what I'm saying?
We know that they don't put the same security in them ghettos
That they do in the whites - in the white neighborhoods

So therefore, for me to be out here sayin'
"Don't," you know, "put your guns down" and "no violence"
That's hypocritical
And if I didn't talk about the violence
Everybody would act like the violence wasn't there

We as rappers bought that violence
We bought the violence that we seen on the streets
We put it in our records
Put it in our records for years
And after three, four years, people finally startin' to see it
Because of all the statistics that's going on in the streets
If we stopped talking about it
Then they wouldn't take statistics
And when they stop taking statistics
Then we'd be killing each other in the streets
And these white people wouldn't care no more

Only reason they care is 'cause, you know
'Cause there's been some strays and
We done slipped over in the white neighborhoods
And there's kids in Iowa that wanna be like us
You know what I'm saying?
There's kids in Indiana that's trying to be like us
'Cause they can relate too
You know what I'm saying?

And in two years, I've had a gun pulled on me
By my limo driver, by police, by everybody
You know what I'm saying?
And I better be, I better be
You know what I'm saying?

I've been attacked
You ain't read the papers about these skinheads
Trying to blow up black churches, why?
They see me as the enemy just like y'all do
You know what I'm saying?
They can come to my house and sit outside my house
Just like anybody else can
A skinhead

And once my life is gone, it's gone
Can't nobody give it back to me
Not the judge, not the president, not the governor
Not Calvin Butts, not Jesse Jackson
They can't do nothing but come to my funeral
And talk pretty about how black people suffer
You understand?