Ice T, Original Gangster, 1991
"The Tower"

I'm rollin' up in a big gray bus
And I'm shackled down, myself that's who I trust
The minute I arrived some sucker got hit
Shanked ten times behind some bullshit
Word in the pen the fool was a snitch
So without hesitatin' I made a weapon quick
If found a sharp piece of metal, taped it to a stick
Then a bullhorn sounds, that means it's time for chow
My first prison meal, the whole feeling was foul
It wasn't quite my style, but my stomach growled
So I flushed the shit down and hit the weight pile.
The brothers was swole, the attitudes was cold
Felt the tension on the yard from the young and the old
But I'm a warrior, I got my ground to hold
So I studied the inmates to see who had the power
the Whites? The Blacks? Or just the gun tower!

In a blink of an eye, a riot broke out
Blacks put their backs to the wall cause it was north and south
A gun man shouts and everybody had doubt
Until the bullets started fly'n, took two men out
Then they rushed everybody back to their cells
Damn the pen is different than the county jail
I'm in a one man cell, I know my life's on a scale
I wonder if that gunman is goin' to hell
This is my second day, I got a ten year stay
I learned my first lesson, in the pen you don't play
I saw a brother kill another cause he said he was gay
But that's the way it is, it's been that way for years
And when his body hit the ground I heard a couple of cheers
It kind of hurt me inside, that they were glad he died
So I ask myself just who had the power?
The Whites? The Blacks? Or just the gun tower!

You see the Whites got a thing they call White pride
The Blacks got the muscle, mexicans got the knives
You better be wise, you wanna stay alive
Go toe to toe with a sucka no matter what size
A fool tried to sweat me act'n like he was hard
I stuck him twice in the neck and left him dead in the yard
It was smooth how I did it cause nobody could see
With my jacket on my arm and my knife on the side of me
Bam bam, it was over, another one bites the dust
I went crazy in the pen with nobody to trust
Bench'n ten quarters, so I'm hard to sweat
Used a tat gun, and engraved my set
They call me a lifer cause I'm good as dead
I live in the hole, so the floor's my bed
And I ask myself again who has the power
The Whites? The Blacks? Or just the gun tower?

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