Krs-One & Greenie – It's All Good lyrics

VERSE #1
When I'z 13, the beatdowns were horrible...
The pain was intollable, the beef unresolveable...
I hardly saw my own mother, then I developed a stutter
... that was so fuckin' bad I couldn't talk to no others...
I was always left out so I had so much self doubt...
Kids would ask me my name—and... nn... nn... nnn.nn.nno... nnothing'd come out...
If saying one word could make you struggle 10 minutes
... then on the streets of NY, who u think'd let you finish!
How would you make friends if you couldn't say "WHAT UP?"
--as a kid I decided I would just stay shut up...
But then I found out—that when I rapped I was fluent...
But this was the 80s, I was white AND I'z Jewish...
It ain't matter that I'z dope, no one cared that I'z live...
White kids weren't allowed to rap back in 85...
But hip-hop broke my silence... then punks came at me with violence...
--all over Queens and even parts of Long Island
I'z gettin' beated and cheated—every time that I rhymed...
Cuz I was white and rhymed tight—emcees would kick my behind
They couldn't take me in battles so punks would rattle my crown
I was barely 13 on the ground ---beat down...
Over and over—but I'd get up every time...
25 years later – I'm still writing these rhymes...
So get yerself up and hang on a lil' longer...
'Cuz whatever doesn't kill ya'z gonna make u stronger...

CHORUS
When you know it's all good, y'all it's really all good...
When you say it's all good... do you mean it's ALL good?
Iz you a victim or a hero, would you choose if you could?
'Cuz you can, y'all you can—when you know it's all good...

VERSE #2
I'm not gonna lie to sound ghetto and try to say I knew poverty...
We wuz lower middle class and it was like they'd forgotten me...
Our apartment was empty so the pain would tempt me...
To pull the kinda shit that would always send me...
To the police station, my vacation from loneliness--
An—escape I'd create from all my family's phoniness...
They was too lazy—they got my sister to raise me...
--she was 13 years older—but she went crazy...
The way she wound up found cut—OD'd on the floor...
She went to rehab forever... lef' me alone and whas' more...
'This couldn't get fixed, I'z six tryin' to find...
Why the woman who raised me—tried suicide nine times...
My brother left early, a girly—saved him from the screamin'
My sister married a crackhead who was constantly beatin...
... her down so now we wuz both hidin' bruises...
But I could waste my whole life bitchin' bout who wins and who loses...
--but see if all 'dat ain't happened, I wouldn't be here now rappin...
I wouldn't be who I am—I wouldn't have what I'm havin...
A bad childhood and great life IS possible--
Cuz what I lived through has made me unstoppable...

CHORUS
When you know it's all good, y'all it's really all good...
When you say it's all good... do you mean it's ALL good?
Iz you a victim or a hero, would you choose if you could?
'Cuz you can, y'all you can—when you know it's all good...

VERSE #3
So what in yo—life—you think is unfairness?
Did your spouse turn out to be jus' like your parents?
I married this girl thinkin' she's well-adjusted...
For a decade I trusted, then wound up disgusted...
When she got busted with an alleged pedofile...
Talkin' trash about me, I was scared for my child...
An' she was jus' like my sis, she mutilated her wrists,
But I kicked her out bcuz I wouldn't live dissed...
And she couldn't see that, so she went to rehab,
And I got to choose if this wuz all good or all bad...
But it was all good y'all—and happenin' properly...
In the end I got to keep both the kids and the property...
And what I learned from my beatdowns made me a (multi) millionaire...
Never coulda done that shit if the stuttering wasn't there...
Cuz back when I stuttered, I said fuck entrepreneurs...
Instead I used my head—became an entrepreneur...
I'm sure thachu can bitch about the shit you been through...
And call me a white boy with ridiculous issues...
Maybe your dad was a dealer and he shot your mother...
Your sister's a crackhead and you hate your gay brother...
Your cousin got shot in the head by some gang...
And you hadta kill some old man just to hang...
But ask yo self this: even if your life sucks...
You still where you at now—so who's keepin you stuck?
Learn from your past or be condemned to repeat it...
Struggle with your problem or rise up and beat it...
If there's strife in yo life, if there's crap you afraid of...
GO THROUGH YOUR SHIT, SHOW THE WORLD WHACHU MADE OF...

CHORUS
Cuz when you know it's all good, y'all it's really all good...
When you say it's all good... do you mean it's ALL good?
Iz you a victim or a hero, would you choose if you could?
'Cuz you can, y'all you can—when you know it's all good...
Whether you live in the suburbs or you hang in the hood...
When you say it's all good—you gotsta mean it's ALL good...