Brown and White Van

[Intro]
Y'all kids, come on, you know how this van is when it get hot like this
Yeah, there it is
Got this motherfucker running now though
Come on, baby
Keep running, keep running
Don't short out in front of my kids
Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, motherfucker
Come on, yeah
Aw, come on
Fuck this van
Damn
The First Team Collection

[Chorus]
Brown and white van turned me to a man
We had to sleep in the car where we all layin'
The seat in the back turned to a bed
Me, my siblings, and my mama sleeping foot to head
With my daddy in the front seat reclining
When we called on family, they declined it
Still can't see how we made it through it all
But that brown and white van, hell yeah, it made it all

[Verse 1]
Was just a pup, papa was shit out of luck
Had to pack up our stuff, couldn't hustle the rent up
Was never the type to dot his I's, cross his T's
Now we drive around in the house like an RV
A 1983 Ford Econoline
The brown and white van my daddy had in 1995
Our address was the van's VIN number
Supposed to get from A to B, not live in that motherfucker
When my daddy went to work
We in American Airlines' parking lot with no shirt
You burning gas out if you blow the air conditioner
So you better not dare start that engine up
That's why I had drive since day one
'Cause I lived on the road and felt every bump
Taking shits in plastic bags and throw it in the dump
Shit I went through, got this shit goin' up

[Chorus]
Brown and white van turned me to a man
We had to sleep in the car where we all layin'
The seat in the back turned to a bed
Me, my siblings, and my mama sleeping foot to head
With my daddy in the front seat reclining
When we called on family, they declined it
Still can't see how we made it through it all
But that brown and white van, hell yeah, it made it all

[Verse 2]
I didn't have much of a relationship with stability
Before we lost our house, they cut off the utilities
First the lights went
So we used candles to light the night with
Pops borrowed money to get the power back on
Turned the water on and now the shower is cold
(Man, you fucking can't be serious)
Now we back to borrowed money for the gas bill
But he ain't pay him back for the last bill
The type of shit he would do would pay the minimum due
Gambled the mortgage on the horses 'til they gave us the shoe
Imagine tryna stay afloat where you can't swim in
There's no life jackets and you burnt your bridges
We slept in vans, cramped in family friends' and motels
As a kid, I hid it from my peers so well
It made me work harder, with my money, be smarter
That's nothin' I ever wanna experience with my daughter

[Chorus]
Brown and white van turned me to a man
We had to sleep in the car where we all layin'
The seat in the back turned to a bed
Me, my siblings, and my mama sleeping foot to head
With my daddy in the front seat reclining
When we called on family, they declined it
Still can't see how we made it through it all
But that brown and white van, hell yeah, it made it all

[Verse 3]
We spent the night at my G-ma's crib
Only the kids and my daddy, mama can't come in
My daddy mama don't like my mama, I don't know why
Out the window, saw my mama all alone and I cry
Now that I'm grown, I can see why she left, whole lot of stress
Tried to stay long enough to see her young leave the nest
In retrospect, the effort my parents gave was they best
Yeah, life was hard, but we knew they loved us to death

[Outro]
Shit was crazy, bro, we used to ride around, like, try to figure out where we was gon' sleep that night, right?
So we would ride to Venice Beach
Watched a dude step on the glass with his feet
Split a twenty piece of wings and fries then weep
Slid the door upen to listen to the ocean and let that rock us to sleep
And sometimes, my dad would ride down Sunset Boulevard at nighttime and make us feel like a star
Or even take us to play miniature golf
It's crazy because the van was cool, it had like a VHS tape in it
My daddy would go to Blockbuster and rent movies and never return them motherfuckers, man
Crazy times, but it made us who we are
I feel like my siblings all had different experiences with it and they feel different, but, you know, it molded us into better people
RIP my pops, you know, when he left, it kind of got shaken with us 'cause he was the glue
But we kept that shit together, pops
Mama, we still here, I love you, mama