Block vs. Blood

Verse

Concrete cracks where the summer sun used to sit

Same five still breathing though half of us split

Money talks louder than the block ever did

But I'm still hearing my mother's voice when it all went cold

The city built fences now, cut through the yard like a blade

Sold the lot where we built our fire circle trade

They call me

Success

I call it a choice between staying and leaving

Every block got its anthem that only the blood knows

Chorus

Block vs. blood — I'm still choosing my name

Money comes soft, loyalty answers the same

Concrete remembers before the billboards arrived

Blood holds the truth when the cash can't stay alive

Verse

Marcus moved uptown in a house that never had walls

Still sends me half his check on the first of each fall

Said the block's still paying him back for every debt he cleared

I said it don't work like that — you gotta live what you fear

Darnell's back now, got a job, got a family to feed

Same porch where we sat trading bars now stacked with deed

He says the money changed everything, made us all see different

I say the different was always there — just the city's the reason

Chorus

Block vs. blood — I'm still choosing my name

Money comes soft, loyalty answers the same

Concrete remembers before the billboards arrived

Blood holds the truth when the cash can't stay alive

Bridge

They say a man ain't loyal till he got something to lose

I lost the block already, just trying to find it through the noise

Every new chain that shine is just another wall they build

Every old crack on Fenwick Street's still singing my name — still

Chorus

Block vs. blood — I'm still choosing my name

Money comes soft, loyalty answers the same

Concrete remembers before the billboards arrived

Blood holds the truth when the cash can't stay alive