Yeah, it?s like wakin? up from a bad dream   (America)   Just to figure out you wasn?t dreamin? in the first place      If all I saw was gangsters comin? up as a youngster   Pussy and money the only language I clung ta   Claim ta, I bought myself up to become one   Ain't ya happy I chose rap, I'm amongst tha?      Streets deceivin?, can't believe my achievements   Cultural strata, persona's that of a non-needer   Because I don't need nada except for Prada beaver   For cold winters, tattoos got my summer's sleeveless      To my G's on the flee from the coppers   Stiff bodies on freeze in funeral parlors   From the slums I come up a phoenix caked up   Tryna take what I'm eatin? ?n? came up a dismissive kid      You lucky if you allowed to witness this savvy mouth   Wild? Hardly, a man's man who would?a knew   The beach houses and wild parties   Jezebel's and Stella McCartney's      For years all that, how can I not be dead?   This old German said I was a thug with a notty head   Looked at my Benz and called that a Nazi sled   With a face like he wonder where I got my bread      Probably all these stones he see   From my shows overseas   From crime to rhyme, my stories is   I'm from the home of the thieves      America, pay attention   (America)   Wake up, this is not what you think it is   (America)   America, pay attention   (America)   This is not what you think it is      Blessed, the Lord is a G, he gotta be   Who's the God of suckers and snitches? The economy   Lipstick from Marilyn Monroe blew a death kiss to Fidel Castro   He?d want me to spit this      Only the strong survive, Nas bear witness   The hypocrisy is all I can see   White cop acquitted for murder, black cop, cop a plea   That type of shit make me stop and think      We in chronic need of a second look of the law books   And the whole race dichotomy   Too many rappers, athletes and actors   But not enough niggas in NASA      Who give you the latest dances, trends and fashion?   But when it comes to residuals, they look past us   Woven into the fabric, they can't stand us   Even in white tee's, blue jeans and red bandannas      America, pay attention   (America)   Wake up, this is not what you think it is   (America)   America, pay attention   (America)   This is not what you think it is   America   (America, this is not what you think it is)      Assassinations, diplomatic relations   Killed indigenous people built a new nation   Involuntary labor, took a knife split a woman naval   Took her premature baby, let her man see you rape her      If I could travel to the 1700's   I'd push a wheelbarrow full of dynamite through your covenant   Love to sit in on the Senate and tell the whole government   Y'all don't treat women fair, she read about herself in the Bible      Believin? she the reason sin is here   You played her with an apron like, ?Bring me my dinner, dear?   She the nigger here, ain't we in the free world?   Death penalty in Texas, kill young boys and girls      Barbarity, I'm in the Double-R casually   Buggin? how I made it out the hood, dazzle me   How far we really from third world savagery?   When the empire fall imagine how crazy that'll be      America   (America, America)   America   (America, this is not what you think it is)   America   (America, this is not what you think it is)   America