Project Windows

[Verse 1: Nas]
Black hoods, cops and projects, sewers flooded with foul blockage
The gutter's wild and every child watches
Chains in top locks get ripped off hinges
Doors kicked off, drunks stag off Smirnoff, wipe your beard off
Crippled dope fiends in wheelchairs stare, vision blurry
'Cause buried deep in they mind are hidden stories
Bet he's a mirror image of that '70s era
He's finished for the rest of his life, 'til he fades out
The liquor store workers miss him but then it plays out
So many ways out the hood, but no signs say out
Mental slave house where gats go off, I show off
Niggas up north, prison-ology talk, 'til they time cut off
You should chill if you short, prepare deep thought
To hit the street again, get it on, get this paper and breathe again
Plan to leave somethin' behind
So your name'll live on, no matter what the game lives on

[Chorus: Ron Isley]
Lookin' out of my project window (lookin' out)
Oh, I feel uninspired
Lookin' out, lookin' out of my project window
(Oh, I'm lookin' out)
Oh, it makes me feel, so tired

[Verse 2: Nas]
Yo, if this piano's the cake, then my words are the candles
Light it up, make a wish, and them angels will grant you
Impatient once tried, but in those angels and bamboo
They lit it up {*puff puff*}, hit it up {*puff*}, now they dismantled
Think the whole world is crazy, got a nine, watch where you walk Two dollar fine, sign of the times here in New York
Hire Satan, United Nations quietly taken, toll on your soul
Take it or leave it, just my evaluation
Stack loot and guns, teach the girls karate, school your sons not to hate
But to stay awake, 'cause the scars a razor make is nothin' in comparison
To the gash left on this whole mass, if we don't get it controlled fast
Might as well be, laughin' with Malcolm X's assassin as we die slow
Perishin', brain dead from a Ericsson
Words are the medicine, two teaspoons for goons
A cup of it for those thuggin' it, y'all sing the tune, uhh

[Chorus: Ron Isley]
Lookin' out of my project window (lookin' out)
Oh, I feel uninspired
Lookin' out, lookin' out of my project window
(Oh, I'm lookin' out)
Oh, it makes me feel, so tired

[Verse 3: Nas]
Another day, another dollar, my mother will holla
She said, "go and see the world for myself, and my brother should follow"
Pops was smooth, from his top to his shoes
Sang the blues, guitar strings he played smokin' his Kool
Duke Ellington hat, picture this yo, seventies cat
He wrote his music in the back of the crib, I did my homework
At night the windows were speakers, pumpin' life out
A fight, people screamin' 'cause somebody pulled a knife out
So I look at this room, I'm hooked to this tune
Every night the same melody, hell sounded so heavenly
But jail was ahead of me, was speedin' like amphetamine
Reading's what I should've done, 'cause my imagination would run
I was impatient to get out and become part of the noise out there
I used to stare, five stories down, basketball courts, shot up playgrounds
And I witnessed the murders and police shake-downs
Yo, the hustla's and hoes, drugs and fo'-fo's
This was the life of every kid, lookin' out project windows

[Chorus: Ron Isley]
Oh, outta my window
Lookin' out of my project window (lookin' out)
Oh, I feel uninspired
Lookin' out, lookin' out of my project window
(Oh, I'm lookin' out)
Oh, it makes me feel, so tired
Lookin' out of my project window (lookin' out)
Oh, I feel uninspired
Lookin' out, lookin' out of my project window
(Oh, I'm lookin' out)
Oh, it makes me feel, so tired

[Outro: Ron Isley]
Starin' out of, out my window
Oh I, feel so tired
Oh yeah, outta my window
Oh, lookin' out, lookin' out of
Lookin' out my window, oh yeah
Makes me, feel so tired
Lookin' out of my project window
Oh, it makes me feel, so tired