Little Ghetto Boy (Prelude) Lyrics Meanings
by John Legend, The Roots
ft. Malik Yusef

You know you ghetto, boy
When you got a face with a scar
And your highest aspirations is a place and a car
Shorties pull out and bust like a money shot
Now he on the run, he hot
And he hurtin' his Granny and she the only one he got
The hood so shady
You give up hope, of ever even tryin' to find a sunny
Spotlight, they caught him at the
Stop light, but if he woulda run that yellow
Then he coulda run the globe
But instead with speed
They put one in the middle of his frontal lobe
Like a unicorn
I'm just tryin' to keep you informed
To my little ghetto soldiers in they gold
Green, red, and blue uniforms, church
But I'm feeling like the loneliest monk
So I pull me a Thelonius Monk and blew the horn
That we don the monikers of goons and gangsters
And are trained to conduct ourselves true to form
So we add a "Shorty," a "Money," a "Mack"
A "Lil'," a "Eazy," or a "Young" to our name
So all the big ballers grab rims and hung in the game
And there's a degree of difficulty
To make it from the ghetto boy into the manhood
Especially when you know that your fresh greens
Will help eliminate a canned good
Can good, and bad coexist
In a place with plenty of off ramps but no exits?

You know you ghetto, boy
When you got a face with a scar
And your highest aspirations is a place and a car
Shorties pull out and bust like a money shot
Now he on the run, he hot
And he hurtin' his Granny and she the only one he got
The hood so shady
You give up hope, of ever even tryin' to find a sunny
Spotlight, they caught him at the
Stop light, but if he woulda run that yellow
Then he coulda run the globe
But instead with speed
They put one in the middle of his frontal lobe
Like a unicorn
I'm just tryin' to keep you informed
To my little ghetto soldiers in they gold
Green, red, and blue uniforms, church
But I'm feeling like the loneliest monk
So I pull me a Thelonius Monk and blew the horn
That we don the monikers of goons and gangsters
And are trained to conduct ourselves true to form
So we add a "Shorty," a "Money," a "Mack"
A "Lil'," a "Eazy," or a "Young" to our name
So all the big ballers grab rims and hung in the game
And there's a degree of difficulty
To make it from the ghetto boy into the manhood
Especially when you know that your fresh greens
Will help eliminate a canned good
Can good, and bad coexist
In a place with plenty of off ramps but no exits?