Yeah, ahh yeah  Back in the days (3X)  Back in the days (2X)    Back in the days of eighty-three  Breakdancin at the crib with my man Dupri  When the Saturday nights was LIVE in the West  When honies were fly, the flavor was good but  on the burnt side, was where it took place  On the cheap sound system without no bass  Coolin with my man DayDay, the DJ Machete  I want a record deal, but I knew I wasn't ready  But back then I still had more fun  I even rode around my guy the rookie named Michael Jordan  Long before Tag Team and 95 South  Real Planet Rock shit used to funk the house  But the schoolyard Crips and PPD's were too rowdy  Some of them started rollin to the ?dotua? parties  My dance group called the Frat Boys was winnin  The parties was live cause General Lee was spinnin  When the summer came I was off to the Ridge  With my pen and my pad, I met new kids  Marty Mar, a.k.a. the Big Mo  Big Ben, Af Rock, yo we stole the show  Makin tapes all the time, it's like I couldn't quit  But when I listen to em now I'll admit  That it wasn't alla that in fact we was wack  But every now and then, huh, I wanna go back    Back in the days  I wanna go back in the days (4X)  I wanna go back (2X)    Spring eighty-seven, down with the four man crew  Kool Kat, Disco, and my man Steve Blue  No record deal, but I was still rhymin  Big Mo hooked me with a kid named Diamond D  Not the one from the East he went to school in Arizona  said he liked the way I rocked the microphone-a  We knew our, producer, but he was a flake  That lived in the projects, said we had to wait  Sittin in the car for hours at a time, buckin bullets down  But that's how bad I wanted to rhyme  Back when the hip-hop shit always had the airplay  The best station in nation which was KDAY  I got serious about my flow  Hooked up with a brother that they call Domino  And Diamond quit and left the twelve, over at my crib  I hooked it up to my cassette player, tell you what I did  I would pause mix breaks, whatever it would take  I only had three records couldn't dig in any crates  And there was times when I wanted to stop flowin but my  best friend and lover Ajay, yo, she said to keep goin  When all we had to eat was cup of noodles in the six pack  Cause I went and spent all my ducats on the six track  On the real, no food in the fridge  But when I won the rap contest at Northridge  Everybody flipped, yo we didn't know how to act  Daaam, I wanna go back    I wanna go back  I wanna go back in the days (6X)    Bill Duke, a well known deep brother  Hooked me with the soundtrack on Deep Cover  That's how I met Belial, from the Bronx  He had more beats that house niggaz got conks  Showed me all kind of beat makin tricks  Just like Machete showed me how to pause mix  and I was married to the shit like a husband to a wife  But when I tried to rhyme up at the Good Life  Yo I got dissed I couldn't buy no respect  But in two years I came back to catch wreck  On the set and jet, cause that's how it had to be  And my man Tragedy became amazed at me  So he put me inside, the Cadillac  The chaffeur drove off, and now I can't go back  Hahaha, back in the days    I wanna go back in the days (6X)  I wanna go back (4X)