Beats like this remind me of '96

School days, when dookie braids were looking good on some chicks

Especially the girl next to me in my only yearbook flick, on picture day I ditched

I was that rapping kid, always on the roam alone, bailing with his headphone on

Relatively well-known but kinda on his own zone

Just sitting round like I had it all figured out

Just counting down the days till I could bounce

Of course that was back when the homey was anybody who knows me

We didn't know love so we didn't know lonely

My skin was too thin for anyone to get under

A tin man, blundering through an urban Wonderland

See there's certain things you just gotta roll your sleeves and discover firsthand to truly understand

And some more than others, so it seems

So while I smoked weed and roamed the streets many of us ended up in some sobering scenes

Waiting rooms with a baby due, operating rooms, masked ladies draining .380 wounds

Interrogation rooms, looking at a case or two, cuz either end of a .380's the wrong end to be facing

Looking for the palace, still no sign of Alice

And my hands are catching callouses handling all this baggage I gathered in transit

And I don't mean the ones on my eyes, so since you're asking

I don't talk to that girl I was with, and yeah, it hurts like a bitch

And certain people ain't my homeys no more, and it stinks

Don't cut your toes off to fit someone else's shoes, but sometimes all our nails need clipping

Remember how we used to say our time would come someday?

I guess that day ain't today, we're still on the runway

And remember how we used to say we'd make it together?

I guess along the way some ties got severed but whatever

Everything's perfect... everything's perfect

It's all about how you work it

And for better or worse, it was all worth it