[singer wails for first 0:59 of song]
[Big Daddy Kane]
It's hard enough for a black man tryin to make it today
Strugglin to find the right way
So I say, times is hard, word to God
Recessions, depressions, the whole nine yards
That itself makes a brother wanna break
But bein an entertainer puts the icin on the cake
Cause I can remember when I looked up to Kurtis Blow
and said that's where I gotta go
So here I am, paid in the rap trade
But still gettin played, for my darker shade
That's not the only P-R-O-B-L-E-M
Man, that's just the beginnin of them
For example, I can't walk the streets alone..
.. without bein known
Don't get me wrong, cause deep in my heart I do love it
But I can't even dig up my nose in public, huh
MC Rell couldn't have said it no plainer
Yeah, that's the life of an entertainer
And the times are so hard to understand
that it makes me a troubled man
* Mister Cee cuts up Chuck D saying "I got so much trouble on my mind" *
[Big Daddy Kane]
I like women, but I hate womankind
Love can be just too much for the mind
Cause I've toured the world from state to state
and wouldn't lay down tonight without havin a mate
Married girls in tight miniskirts
that left they husband waitin at the concert
I don't discriminate with girls that I talk to
I take em Mello-Yello to Chocolate Yoo-hoo
But now I couldn't find the right girl to fit me
Not even if she walked into my face and bit me
You see it's hard to make a woman your wife
when you've been humpin married woman the most of your life
You better believe that's true, word up
cause if it happened to me, then it can happen to you
I'm not tryin to say that a woman is scandalous
I'm just showin you who the troubled man is
* Mister Cee cuts up Chuck D saying "I got so much trouble on my mind" *
[Big Daddy Kane]
Brothers from the past..
.. in the streets of Bed-Stuy or my ?Sara J? class
Some of them are cool, some of them at times can be a bother
Thinkin I got jobs to give like Roy Rogers
I try to explain I'm not on tour yet
And they say, "You think you're all that? Yeah, I bet!"
So when I see em on the solo tip
I gotta throw joints to prove my point
Just when I thought that I had the neighborhood support
here comes another battle to be fought, huh
You know they even tried to start a AIDS rumor
Diggin the kind of life, that would maybe doom a
brother of my priniciple, you'd think some of these people
would be more sensisble, because a lie like that
didn't bring my sex flow to an end
Maaaaaaaan, I'm still gettin skins!
And the beat goes on until the thrill is gone
And life is the same old song
And maybe one day you can understand
What it's like to be a troubled man
* Mister Cee cuts up Chuck D saying "I got so much trouble on my mind" *