Hold on now, don't die now, be strong now He said, I was born a crack baby In a plastic bag in the alley Raised in a foster home With no mother to love and I never knew my papi Back in the days of Bobby McFerrin Used to sing don't worry, be happy Lord how can I be happy When I don't even know my own family tree Lord We are the next generation, we ain't scared to die The only thing I fear is the after life Cos I don't know what's there on the other side But I pray the Lord forgives me, gives me one more try Gang poppin' things, doing drive-by's and angers Kids going to school putting fears in their teacher The teacher let them know that it ain't all good Cos the gang was created to protect the neighborhood, now All you red now, all you blue now All you yellow now, follow me now To that place of righteousness Where the only thing that matters is your consciousness, he said We are the next generation, we ain't scared to die The only thing I fear is the after life Cos I don't know what's there on the other side But I pray the Lord forgives me, gives me one more try In my father's kingdom there are many mansions All the rooms are free, there is no tax collection I can see Biggie, Tupac, Moses and Abraham Jason, the one and two's, jamming with the sun of man I've been kicked, I've been stabbed I've been shot, I've been ? by a Person that I thought I trusted, where I live It's a war at the cribs, walk with a strap Myself cos I don't want nobody's son on my back My mind playing tricks ?, to really ? Me out in five unless I take another hit I done seen the sun set on the other side of town Now I'm drifting in the darkness, Heaven hold me down ? ? ? But I know I'm born dying Feel the tears of the angels looking down on me crying For a lying ass but yo forgive us in a while And I'm sorry, never let me forget that I'm your child While I'm locked up in this basement staring eye to eye with Satan In this cold dark world with no patience We get plotted on by agents with talks of replacing The Africans, Jamaicans and the Haitians in this next generation We are the next generation, we ain't scared to die The only thing I fear is the after life Cos I don't know what's there on the other side But I pray the Lord forgives me, gives me one more try Whoa, we the next generation, look at what we facing The kids raise themselves, all kind of temptation Flowers and candles decorating all the pavements No, the perpetrator ain't seeing no arrangements Nobody cares about the feelings of the poor Man they suffer while we spending eighty billion on a war, uh Cutting school budgets, US stockmarket plummets Condition's only worse and I wonder what become it Metal detectors replace music classes Angry little kids wanna beat their teacher's asses The red and blue's, somebody gotta lose Reality TV be reality for who I don't question what the Lord found in me I just pass it on to folks with no boundaries Got a long road ahead of us, AIDS already gettin' us Now we got stars, how many will there be left of us We are the next generation, we ain't scared to die The only thing I fear is the after life Cos I don't know what's there on the other side But I pray the Lord forgives me, gives me one more try