Concrete Still Remembers

Intro

Dust off the needle, let it hiss before it hit

Eleven Fenwick Street, that's where the tape was split

(Cassette) still spinning, yeah, the crew still living

Verse

Back when the porch light was the only streetlamp working

Six of us on milk crates, watching corner boys keep circling

Tariq had the boombox held together with a shoelace

Mookie kept the rhythm on a mailbox like it owed base

We split a single Sprite between four thirsty throats

Traded verses like we're trading war notes

No man left behind, that's the code we wrote in chalk

Concrete still remembers every step and every walk

Ten years deep, I got the calluses to prove it

Every scar's a receipt, every rhyme's how I move it

Kept the same numbers, never switched my phone up

Rather starve with my people than eat alone up

Bricks don't forget who laid 'em in the winter

Concrete holds the heat long after summer's finished

So when I'm platinum, I'm still pulling up on Fenwick

Same crate, same porch, same hands that never bent it

Chorus

Concrete still remembers where we started

Same five, no we never been departed

Rain wash the block but it won't wash the loyal

Concrete still remembers, that's the soil

Verse

Darnell got locked up, we kept his mama's lights on

Passed the hat around the block till the debt was write-gone

Wrote him letters full of jokes to keep his mind off

Told him hold the fort, we coming, don't you sign off

Now he home, got a job, got a kid on the way

I still see that porch light every single day

Marcus caught a break, signed a deal, moved uptown

Still pulls up Sundays just to sit and pass the crown

We don't do the envy, we just multiply the plate

Success ain't real until you bring the whole crate

Every name I mention got a story I could tell

Every crack in that concrete got a name as well

Ain't about the flash, it's about who answered

When the phone rang midnight, who showed up like cancer

Cutting through the doubt, cutting through the static

Concrete don't lie, the loyalty's automatic

Chorus

Concrete still remembers where we started

Same five, no we never been departed

Rain wash the block but it won't wash the loyal

Concrete still remembers, that's the soil

Bridge

Some of us got money now, some of us just got peace

Some of us still living where the porch light never leased

Don't matter what the zip code, don't matter what we drive

The block's inside the blood, keeps the whole thing alive

I could sell a million records, lose the flash and the fame

Long as five of us still answer to the same

Same name, same crate, same porch, same key

Concrete's got a memory longer than history

Outro

Dust settles back down, needle lifts up slow

Same five on the porch, that's the only thing I know

(Concrete) remembers, so we never let it go