Brooklyn-born rapper Jay Z is widely considered one of the greatest rappers of all time. Part of that is due to his business savvy, as well. Truly, the mogul has done it all.
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Well, next up on his list was, apparently, to drop a knowledge-rich freestyle in Hartford, Connecticut on Tuesday night (March 22) while dressed in a fine suit—and to trend on Twitter because of it.
Check out the verse in this clip from social media and read along to what we believe are the lyrics in full.
Okay. Gentrify your own ‘hood ‘for these people do it
Playing imminent domain and have your people movin’
That’s a small glimpse into what Nipsey was doing
For anybody still confused as to what he was doing.
The neighborhood designed to keep us trapped:
They red line us so property declines if you live by Blacks.
They depress the asset and take the property back.
It’s a ruthless but a genius plan, in fact.
So, now we fightin’ over scraps.
Crabs in a barrel but crabs don’t belong in a barrel—they ain’t never tell us that.
So, in the barrel we goin’ act like we act.
We can easily get out the barrel if we stand on each other’s back.
Whoever gets on top as long as they stay attached,
They can pull everybody out. I was doing just that.
I told Neighborhood Nipsey, “Stay close.” ‘Till $100 million on your schedule, lay low.
Tell your team to be on point in the places that they go.
I never dreamed that he’d get killed in the place that he called home.
How we gonna get the power, we kill the source?
But y’all like to run off on the plug, so of course.
That ain’t lit. That’s a means to an end.
Me and my team was playing the plug and had a plan.
Sometimes we was just making $1,000 a joint. That ain’t no money but
That ain’t the point. So, those 92 bricks was only $92,000
So, y’all can close your mouth, that ain’t nothing for y’all to “WOW!”
But it is something to study. We was chasing our goals, not chasing money
N***as chasing hoes. We find that funny. I pull up in the Rolls-, that ho goin’ want me
But I don’t want no ho, I want a wife. Somebody to bounce these ideas off at night
I be going to sleep hoping B.I.G. visit me. That young king had a lot of jewels to split with me
And we ain’t got to leave the ‘hood physically. But we gotta leave that shit mentally.
Somehow, some way.
Photo: PRNewsfoto/Moët Hennessy
