Concrete Kept Score — Curtis Ledger

Intro

Streetlight buzzing, cracked glass on the curb

Curtis Ledger back, every syllable a word that's earned

Three a.m., city breathing slow

Concrete kept score, yeah, I already know

Verse

Twelve-block walk with a hoodie for a halo

Steam from the grate like the city got a shadow

Corner store flickers, sodium and rust

Counting up the hours turned to counting up the trust

Momma at the window when the sun ain't rose

Praying for a son that the block already froze

Basketball echoes off the chain-link fence

Every make a memory, every miss a debt against

The rent that's due, the dreams that's overdue

Sirens on the boulevard, a bassline coming through

Pockets full of nothing but a notebook and a pen

Wrote my way from nothing to a name I can't defend

Corner boys watching, wondering which way I lean

Between the block and the booth, between the real and the dream

Kept the porch light burning like a lighthouse for the lost

Concrete kept the record of the years that it cost

Chorus

Concrete kept score, every crack got a name

Late nights taught me lessons that the daylight never claimed

Ten years deep and the pavement still remembers

City never sleeps but it counted every December

Concrete kept score

Verse

Coffee gone cold at the twenty-four spot

Waitress named Ruby knows the tab that I got

Talking to the ghosts of the block that raised me

Half of them in prison, half of them amazing

Rooftop views where the skyline gets honest

Building lights blinking like the city's making promises

Broke phone screen still got a hundred contacts

Half of them owe me, half of them I owe back

Bass in the trunk shaking loose the memories

Chevy on the corner where the block used to bury me

Now it's parked different, tinted, moving slower

Same block, different chapter, elevated like a tower

Grandma's kitchen table where the real deals happened

Cousins in the basement, whole crew rapping

Nothing but a candle and a beat machine humming

Prophesied the future when the future wasn't coming

Chorus

Concrete kept score, every crack got a name

Late nights taught me lessons that the daylight never claimed

Ten years deep and the pavement still remembers

City never sleeps but it counted every December

Concrete kept score

Bridge

Used to run from the block, now I'm running it back

Every scar on the sidewalk is a map that I track

Not bragging on the struggle, just remembering the price

Every dollar that I made got a memory attached like ice

This the sound of the city when the traffic gets quiet

This the pulse of the corner when the world tried to buy it

I'm still here, still breathing, still writing the score

Concrete never forgets and I ain't asking for more

Outro

Streetlight dimming slow, morning creeping in view

City wearing me like a jacket it always knew

Concrete kept score, and it's still keeping time

Curtis Ledger, out.