Hustlers Convention

This record is dedicated to Kool Herc

Rrrrhh!

[Spoken Exchange]
Three-card monte is the name of the game, we play in New York but it was made in Spain. Who said red like the rooster head? You pick the red you get all my bread, black you get no money back. Who see the red like that?
It's the one in the middle
Alright, my friend you got the red so you get all the bread, you see black you get no money back. We gonna try it again my friend 'til it has no end because the red card you win, the black card you lose, it all depends on the card that you choose. Alright, ten to get you twenty, twenty gets you forty, forty gets you eighty, then you can go out and get you a lady
Well I paid forty man I need a pretty lady
Okay it's the red card you win, the black card you lose. You see the hand is quicker than the eye so you must follow my hand my friend and not the card, how much you win?
It's that one right there
Okay, that's black you get no money back, get my money
[?], no man you cheated me! [?]
I could never cheat because I can't repeat the hands that you see
You get nothing! Nothing!

It was a full moon in the middle of June
In the summer of '79
I was young and cool and shot a bad game of pool
And hustled all the chumps I could find
Well now they called me Sport cause I pushed a boss short
And loved all the women to death
I partied hard and packed a mean rod
And could knock you out with a right or a left
I had learned to be cool while playing hooky from school
At the tender age of nine
And by the time I was eleven I could pad-roll seven
And down me a whole quart of wine
I was making it a point to smoke me a joint
At least once during the course of a day
And I was snorting scag while other kids played tag
And my elders went to church to pray
I've pitched pennies and downed bennies
And played the horses at the track
I've won at cards against tremendous odds
And my favorite game was Blackjack
I seldom lost cause my game was so boss
I mean I had my shit down pat
And I was running through freaks eight days a week
'Cause that's where my heart was at
Yes I was a down stud's dream, a hustler supreme
There wasn't no game that I couldn't play
And if I caught a dude cheating, I would give him a beating
And I might even blow him away!

Stick-ups, muggers, drugs, in the ghetto

I grew up running wild, I wanted to be public enemy number one!

Little kids used to want to be like me but I always told them:
"Kid, if you live like me, you die like me"

I had so much money I didn't know what to do
I bought up everything and everybody I wanted
And when I got it I just choose to abuse it
[?] Sometimes wanting is better than having: You want it, you got it!

Yo, yo, who got it good?
Yo, I got it. I got joints, nickels, dimes, half-ounces, ounces, pounds, what you want? cocaine? I got twenty-fives, fifties, grams, eighths, quarters, ounces, kilos, what you want? dust? acid? I's got ups, downs, 'ludes dope, mescaline, what you want, man, what you want?
Yo, you think I can get a loose joint?
Oh, man...
All you want?

We took a hundred seventy-two grand
Between me and my man
And we was ready to retire for the rest of the day
But just when we was about to split
Four stick-up kids and Grit
Had plans on takin all our money away
So then I fire five rounds
And two dead bodies hit the ground
And I felt two slugs strike my bulletproof vest
And all that Grit would get
Was a bullet hole on his neck
To match the one I had blasted in his chest
Me and Spoon fled the scene
And they chased us in a limousine
'Til we realized some cats was chasing them and us
And them the flashing lights on top
Told us all that it were the cops
With the intentions of making a bust
I gave Spoon the vest
And fired shots at the rest
On the hopes that Spoon could get free
But the cops shot him in the face
And hit me twice below the waist
And then they started beating the hell out of me
When I came to I was all black and blue
In the hospital ward in jail
I was handcuffed to the bed
With a belly full of lead
And a two hundred thousand dollar bill
When I went to see the judge
The man's eyes didn't budge
He just looked me in my face and said this here
He said: "Boy, all you gonna be is a menace to society, and that's why we gon' sentence you to the electric chair"
Before I was dead and my eyes popped out my head
I realized what type of petty hustler I had been
Because the real hustlers steal billions
From the unsuspecting millions
That's programmed to think they can win