I won't be afraid

I won't go astray

I won't be afraid

You won't catch me running

You're ruling the way that I move

This is my prayer

The pool of blood is cherry red

The chariot's on fire, the Mercedes is filled with lead

But I'm still alive, oh my God, God bless the dead

Heavy is the crown, so where this one lay his head?

I'm headed for redemption 'cause

I've been embedded with henchmen

Entrenched in evеrything that was opposite of Princeton

Nothin' but resеntment, bridges burnin' like incense

It made sense then, but then you come to your senses

You see pain, you smell fear

you taste death, you hear screams

You sleep what you sow, you wide awake, but you feel dreams

And that's the beat that Ye gave me to give the culture

Came in with a pure heart and it was ate up by the vultures

La Costra Nostra, hangin' over my grandmother's sofa

Got replaced by my Lil' Kim poster

'Cause I idolized Hova when him and Nas went shoulders

And the day that Ether dropped, I told myself that

I won't be afraid of the trigger or the blade

I won't go astray like a bullet bein' sprayed

So I wouldn't be afraid when it's time to run a fade

You won't catch me runnin' unless it's to the stage

The rules to the way that I move never change

I come from where the people pray

for everything (This is my prayer)

Yeah, whoever put a wish in the air

Then turn around and put a fist in the air

I pray you listen, yeah

I was still breathin' with bullets lodged in my chest

Talkin' to death, regurgitated blood is hard to ingest, uh

The karma for me miscalculatin' my steps

For breakin' my mother's heart

just obeyin' what she suggest, uh

No welcome mat on the porch, but I welcomed threats

When opposition was parked in position to intercept

With no internet, so caught in the web, can't disconnect

Survival stirred inside of a pot of gumbo with intellect, uh

Judged by twelve, carried by the gurney, you pick

Out the Ice Cube on Higher Learning

As the world keeps turnin', only God can determine

How many turns we get before it's ashes in that furnace

So pardon me if I'm earnest

and the fact I'm not concerned with

Other people's remains that I

will be trapped in that urn with

And if I die of natural causes, then I have earned it

A life of discernment and I promise you

I won't be afraid of the trigger or the blade

I won't go astray like a bullet bein' sprayed

So I wouldn't be afraid when it's time to run a fade

You won't catch me runnin' unless it's to the stage

The rules to the way that I move never change

I come from where the people pray

for everything (This is my prayer)

Yeah, whoever put a wish in the air

Then turn around and put a fist in the air

I pray you listen, yeah

If I somehow knew the moment I would perish

Like Malcolm at the Audubon or Martin on the terrace

If Heaven'll have my spirit, hope it ain't no interference

Angels upon appearance like Miss Jacqueline and Clarence

Tappin' into courage, that's if knew when I'd surrender

To a burnin' ember for the world to partially remember

I just pray I've earned my membership

when I return to sender

Don't let 'em do me like Sam Cooke at the Hacienda

That shit got me tender, I guess whenever I get somethin'

The way that I be runnin'

probably chillin' with my woman and my youngins

Tellin' them how I'd already seen it comin'

'Cause ain't no way Allah gon'

give us everything for nothin'

When God press the button

and I go from flesh into the essence

I'll quest for every message meant for

me during my presence on this rock

Separate my life from my profession like in Severance

No lyrics, no numerics, just the ones I hold the nearest

I won't be afraid of the trigger or the blade

I won't go astray like a bullet bein' sprayed

So I wouldn't be afraid when it's time to run a fade

You won't catch me runnin' unless it's to the stage

The rules to the way that I move never change

I come from where the people pray

for everything (This is my prayer)

Yeah, whoever put a wish in the air

Then turn around and put a fist in the air

I pray you listen, yeah