Trips Down Memory Lane Lyrics

[Intro]
I had to go to hell and back
Just so I could bring hip hop back

[Intro (Full Version)]
I hope all you niggas really shut the fuck and hear me
Cause with that bullshit you talking, don’t even come near me
Don’t even come near me
I had to go to hell and back
Just so I could bring hip hop back

[Verse 1]
Back in the day, I really had nothing to say
Cause I was too out the circle for anybody to pay any attention that I’d hope to have
So I never tried to do anything out the ordinary in front of the eyes of anybody looking
But then I started rapping
Then e’rybody knowing my name
Niggas started dappin' me up like they knew me previously
Like everybody cool with me now, like seriously?
Okay, I lied
Not everybody, but almost everybody
I’m exercising my lyrics like I’m doing pilates
People don’t believe in God, but believe in Illuminati
Ain’t causing no trouble, ain’t hurting nobody
Lodi dodi
Start to focus your life on money, you go insane
If you ain’t hear shit about me, don’t be speaking my name
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I could make a change in the past
The shit I go through on Memory Lane
[Hook 2x]
Let me take a trip down memory lane
Growing up when hip hop was really making the scene
I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death
And when I rap, I’ma rap until I run out of breath

[Verse 2]
Better than everybody that I see in my lane
I’m tryna do better for myself
Tryna make a name
Other rappers is dispensable
Like it’s incredible just to see how stupid they are
To not know the principle of rap and rap the game
From letting your gat bang to letting your chain hang
Now it’s in the trap game
I’m going back to the way that it used be, back in the ‘90s
I don’t mean the violence, just the hip hop
That’s where you’ll find me
And now these rappers be switching up
Just like they did with the Democratics and the Republicans
Back in the 1960s
Back when we was fighting for equality
Back when integration was a fantasy
Now some people struggle to face reality
That black people are strong and proud and smarter now
You cannot be fucking us over cause we'll find a better route
[Hook]

[Verse 3]
How many rappers can really say they finished school?
Not just all the way to high school, but also college, too
Always a reason to be vagabonds and leave the home
And leave your wife and kids at home and then be living alone
To me, that’s a coward who cannot finish what they started
Now they tryna go fuck up some more shit, even larceny
Shit don’t never change, no matter what decade, no matter what century
Act like animals in a cage
(Full Version:
It’s strange that these niggas claim to be real, but they fake as hell
You can’t really trust too many hoes, they kiss and tell
Everybody be killing for money, because Satan controls them
Niggas is pawns in the war, nobody told them)
Shit, I guess shit will stay the same
While we take in more substance to intoxicate our brain
I guess it really is a pain when you go down Memory Lane

[Hook]

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About

Genius Annotation

This entire track is influenced by Nas’s first and most influential album in hip-hop history: The Illmatic.

The instrumental is a reproduction of the original one for “N.Y. State of Mind”, and the first line of the hook is sampled from the hook of “Memory Lane (Sittin' in Da Park)”. K. Jayz took the liberty of listening to the album in its entirety .

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