Shinin' Star

Yeah yeah, uhh, uh-huh

Brand Nubian, yeah yeah, check it

You don't have to drive a fancy car

Just for you to be a shinin' star

No matter who you are, no matter who you are

Uhh, now it started it off for me in apartment 6C

Project style, ate government cheese for a while

Pop Duke wasn't there cos he had to do a bid

so momma love stuck with these bad ass kids

She used to say keep your head up, always think positive

and never be ashamed of who you are or where you live

Teenage years I had to struggle doing that

Shorty say "Don't talk to him, girlfriend, look where he live at

Crib probably crawlin with roaches and rats

plus cats be in his hallways with the drugs and the gats"

I used to try and honeys used to walk on by

Now I'm damn near 20 and still ain't got no ride

Caught a record deal, now them same old chicks that used to walk on by

go out their way to say hi

But they gets none

That's why I'm with the same girl from the same projects that I come from

because.......

Chorus (x2)

Well this is that time that you've waited for

Three linked from what was said to be extinct

You say take my weed-smellin ass home, I'm grown

More thirst than if I swallowed sand bags

Not fiending enough to go out and grab bags from women

I swear if we don't hear this on the air

I'll be down at the station

Your broadcast from Monday has now been switched to no day

With the class team that I'm with, we stay fit

Just like the calm before the twister hit

Brand Nubian name is gonna blister shit

We raise the flags in three places

employ black faces from midnight blacks to light tan

Brand Nubian straight rate policy for the world

For your little man, for your little girl, from Cheryl to Earl

Watch how it all go down and unfurl

Mark this print, I feel like we've all been sent

It's more than gettin money and gettin bent

(Word life, cos you're a shinin' star)

No matter who you are, no matter who you are

Brand Nubian cats spread

A four-letter word seldom heard amongst my nation

Understandings highest elevation, the foundation

of creation of motivation, in my family there's no relation

They got us willing to be killing off our population, full-time occupation

We need to turn it around like oscillation

or watch it all burn to the ground from frustration

Lord Jamar, I'ma show love to all my people who show

To me that's how it's gotta be

Peace to Prodigy and Mobb Deep

God's working hard on the streets for the love of the peeps

Niggas bring their ass in the clubs every week

Walk right past the brothers and they can't speak

All hands meet to shake, for Pete's sake

Let's break the ice, life livin love, love livin life (Yeah)