[Hook x 2]
All of your teachers think
I may not be that smart,
but I know exactly;
man, you know it too:
you don’t learn in school
what you need on the streets,
here on the streets,
so listen up now ¹
[Part I]
My teacher used to say,
Boy, what will become of you,
‘ don’t care about anything,
look, my life’s in shambles.
I always had bad grades,
but who cares ²
I never wanted to be like you people,
work like a fool for nothing
What we did during recess ³
was important,
that was our real school,
honors course in grand theft auto. ⁴
Out here, you count how many passes you get
how much dough you earn, ⁵
now that’s mathematics.
I didn’t care about spelling tests, ⁶
didn’t care about times tables,
I was the king on my street;
all at once, everything was mine.
How time passes,
back then it meant; F, sit down
Frank White, ⁷
I’ll fuck you all today in six effing sentences. ⁸
[Hook x 2]
All of your teachers think
I may not be that smart,
but I know exactly;
man, you know it too:
you don’t learn in school
what you need on the streets,
here on the streets,
so listen up now
[Part II]
I’m lookin‘ back
I was the top dog on my block
education was completely shitty,
notebooks filled with doodling. ⁹
If you don’t want to know anything anyway
why should you sit in detention? ¹⁰
For me, gym class was running from the cops
through the park,
and instead of doing homework
we hung out at the department store in the evening,
two pair of Airmax tucked under my arm,
chop chop, and out the store we ran. ¹¹
You were laughed at
when you had the wrong outfit.
Okay, you’re cool; but you,
you’re a retard too,
and my teachers thought
he’s goin’ to juvey anyway,
they tell you that you don’t have a future anyway,
but I had a dream
and held onto my pride,
was way bad in school,
but look here, now I’ve got gold ¹²
[Hook 2x]
All of your teachers think
I may not be that smart,
but I know exactly;
man, you know it too:
you don’t learn in school
what you need on the streets,
here on the streets,
so listen up now
[Part III]
My teacher didn’t know squat ¹³
only saw me in the classroom,
thought what a total screwball,
he didn’t have a clue
My school began
after the last bell
“How to survive the Streets”
was written on my lesson plan
Who really cares
what your teacher says about your life
If you’re always hungry,
you’ve got to steal stuff every day
I wasn’t a good kid,
I always played the tough kid,
but I’ve got my diploma from the streets
‘cause I’ve studied the streets.
There’s a war out here
yeah, and everyone is their own boss
what’s school good for
if you’re up to your neck in shit?
Being held back means ¹⁴
fuck it
if fate let’s you repeat a grade
I’ll write my own story now
[Hook 2x]
All of your teachers think
I may not be that smart,
but I know exactly;
man, you know it too:
you don’t learn in school
what you need on the streets,
here on the streets,
so listen up now