Lyrics:

[Spoken intro: Kendrick Lamar]
Nah, what you get outta, outta not writing your stuff down on paper, you get the more-you know the...expression, the feeling yourself. You know what you want to say; instead of reading a paper that sounds read, it sounds narrated. Unless you wanna do it narrated...

[Hook: Kendrick Lamar]
What if a dream was reality and reality was a dream?
And as complicated as it seems, if things we imagined actually happened?
And real life situations was artificial
They say we only living to, die
Imagine if we're already dead, waiting to live, living in hell
Trying to cross over to heaven we're confusing ourselves
Planet earth's like Oceans 11, we're plottin' for the getaway

[Verse 1: Kendrick Lamar]
When my childhood friends get sent away to prison on their first offense
It's fucked up but listen, we study God but don't know him
Criticize people that work on Sundays, two jobs just to feed their kids
Well, momma's scratching lottery tickets knowing that it's just a fairy tale
Cus' we ain't gonna win
Every time that she's bubblin' in, it feels like the devil's holding a pen
(shit)
Don't mind me I'm just thinking again
Thinking out loud, thinking the opposite of proud
Cus' I'm disappointed at my self sometimes
Self-esteem gets lower than night strippers
Hard to motivate the right rhymes, inspired by true crimes
It's not a game, it's nothing to play with
Turn it off then come back the next day, it's here to stay
Struggle that is
I'm so infatuated with knowing something that's waiting after this life
That means what I'm thinking is right
Punch, loop the beat for a minute
Moment of silence for J. Dilla, he on his way home
Know he see me spillin' my heart, hope for it soon
Wait a minute K. Dot! you said turn it back on, bring it back
If dreams was reality
If it was cool for you to be a casualty
The only way that you can escape poverty
Say that I'm weird but obviously you didn't get it when I said it the first time
You're listening too far if you hear this part
I suggest you go back and press rewind
I fast forward to common thoughts of a human
Deep in my thoughts like Patrick Ewing in the paint
Look what I brought to my state that they can't bring - the industry need a fix
Stick heroin needles inside politics, this is crack music
O-pi-um, inside the veins of them, I don't abuse it
Capture each moment like film, photo-shooting all my enemies moving
Direct them to a casket
Give it to 'em only if they ask for it, if they want...
If they wanna see reality [haha]
I'm losing you again ain't I?
Ain't I, the perfect candidate to represent the fifty states?
Black President, they don't wanna see that
It's evident...pain is pain
We only love to hate each other that's striving for great-ness
I swear to God that we live in a Matrix
Take that blue pill then we start seeing spaceships
Kanye, west-coast niggas do it the best
Bring each other down, crab in a bucket effect
We learn to live with it I guess
I mean die with it, since we're already dead
Trying to cross over to heaven, that's what I said the first time
Get it? Now little boy I gotta sit you down
Teach you about the things that we live around
Materialistic things that we buyin' now means nothing later when the dream kick in
Fade me out, fade me out, fade me out, fade me out, fade me out, fade me out, fade me out, fade me out...

[Verse 2: Punch]
When the dreams was reality and money was love
What would we do for a buzz to maintain our sanity
Chasing the wind, striving after this vanity
Traveling, no direction, the aimless casualty
American dream or Scarface fantasy
Kilos of coke and the arms of black families
We use to it, our hearts draped in stone
A mother's dreams for her baby boy to come back home
Cus' he out pushin' that chrome, pursuing that cash
End another niggas dreams when the fo-fifth blast
Now another mother screams picking out his casket
Harsh reality, it seems like it's simple mathematics, it's not
It's trigonometry (trigganometry) divided by some real life
And he'll do it again just to get a mill' twice
The streets mowed him, can't make past that
It's not a dream it's reality, look where it's at [ugh]
What happened in Manhattan happens all the time
In the hood, conspiracy to cover up crime
No nickel and dime, one shot pettiness
I wrote it in my mind as a letter to the president
World trade happened on the world stage
Same stage look at us as some educated apes
On video stations women gyrating
Parading around, mind-raping the youth
Fade me out, fade me out, fade me out, fade me out, fade me out, fade me out, fade me out, fade me out...

[Hook: Kendrick Lamar]
What if a dream was reality and reality was a dream?
And as complicated as it seems, if things we imagined actually happened?
And real life situations was artificial
They say we only living to, die
Imagine if we're already dead, waiting to live, living in hell
Trying to cross over to heaven we're confusing ourselves
Planet earth's like Oceans 11, we're plottin' for the getaway

[Outro: Denzel Washington]
I'm the man up in this piece! You'll never see the light of da..
Who the fuck d'ya think you fuckin' with? I'm the police!
I run shit here, you just live here!