Lyrics Wyclef Jean

Wyclef Jean

Next Generation

Hold on now, don't die now, be strong now

He said, I was born a crack baby

In a plastic bag in the alley

Raised in a foster home

With no mother to love and I never knew my papi

Back in the days of Bobby McFerrin

Used to sing don't worry, be happy

Lord how can I be happy

When I don't even know my own family tree Lord

We are the next generation, we ain't scared to die

The only thing I fear is the after life

'Cause I don't know what's there on the other side

But I pray the Lord forgives me, gives me one more try

Gang poppin' things, doing drive-by's and angers

Kids going to school putting fears in their teacher

The teacher let them know that it ain't all good

'Cause the gang was created to protect the neighborhood, now

All you red now, all you blue now

All you yellow now, follow me now

To that place of righteousness

Where the only thing that matters is your consciousness, he said

We are the next generation, we ain't scared to die

The only thing I fear is the after life

'Cause I don't know what's there on the other side

But I pray the Lord forgives me, gives me one more try

In my father's kingdom there are many mansions

All the rooms are free, there is no tax collection

I can see Biggie, Tupac, Moses and Abraham

Jason, the one and two's, jamming with the sun of man

I've been kicked, I've been stabbed

I've been shot, I've been ? by a

Person that I thought I trusted, where I live

It's a war at the cribs, walk with a strap

Myself 'cause I don't want nobody's son on my back

My mind playing tricks ?, to really ?

Me out in five unless I take another hit

I done seen the sun set on the other side of town

Now I'm drifting in the darkness, Heaven hold me down

? but I know I'm born dying

Feel the tears of the angels looking down on me crying

For a lying ass but yo forgive us in a while

And I'm sorry, never let me forget that I'm your child

While I'm locked up in this basement staring eye to eye with Satan

In this cold dark world with no patience

We get plotted on by agents with talks of replacing

The Africans, Jamaicans and the Haitians in this next generation

We are the next generation, we ain't scared to die

The only thing I fear is the after life

'Cause I don't know what's there on the other side

But I pray the Lord forgives me, gives me one more try

Whoa, we the next generation, look at what we facing

The kids raise themselves, all kind of temptation

Flowers and candles decorating all the pavements

No, the perpetrator ain't seeing no arrangements

Nobody cares about the feelings of the poor

Man they suffer while we spending eighty billion on a war, uh

Cutting school budgets, US stockmarket plummets

Condition's only worse and I wonder what become it

Metal detectors replace music classes

Angry little kids want to beat their teacher's asses

The red and blue's, somebody gotta lose

Reality TV be reality for who

I don't question what the Lord found in me

I just pass it on to folks with no boundaries

Got a long road ahead of us, AIDS already gettin' us

Now we got stars, how many will there be left of us

We are the next generation, we ain't scared to die

The only thing I fear is the after life

'Cause I don't know what's there on the other side

But I pray the Lord forgives me, gives me one more try