Artist: Royce Da 5'9"
Album:  Layers
Song:   Hard
Typed by: Nickolye16@aol.com 

[Intro: woman speaking]
Everything is hard, hard, hard
I mean life is hard, bills is hard
Shit, it's all hard (hard, hard, hard)
Gotta get that out your mind, I don't want you to think that hard
Don't do that to yourself, college ain't for you
In fact, I want you to take up a trade (trade, trade)
You know, become a carpenter
Did you know Jesus was a carpenter? (hard, hard, hard)
She don't want you, gettin that girl's drawers is hard
Remember that boy, hard (gettin that girl's drawers is hard)
Good luck baby (hard, hard)

[Royce Da 5'9"]
Teacher teacher, I don't understand what you even wanna talk for
Unless an interpreter's gon' come up there and talk for me
Because we don't speak the same language
You say shit like "Take up a trade and your thoughts bore me"
You don't teach me nothin, you just talk toward me
I'm gon' need yo' assessment and fast
Look around you, do I look anything like the rest of yo' class?
Can't you see that I'm special? I don't act like these fuckin crumb snatchers
I don't even breathe like 'em, I was born with my lungs collapsin
I walked right up to the drug dealer in my class and asked him
"How did you get such a bad bitch?"
He said "It was hard, and the best ones are the hardest to get"
And I went on to see the world, and he went on and started to trick
And now when I see his girl, she be on my dick!
I guess

[Chorus: Royce Da 5'9"]
Fuckin the baddest bitches around wasn't hard as I thought
Man, what the fuck was I thinkin? (Get money!) Jewelry and cars (cars, cars, cars)
Achievin the highest level of success ain't as hard as I thought (top of the world!)
What the fuck was I thinkin? (I was drunk!) I was drunk or I was lost (you was lost!)

[Interlude: Royce Da 5'9"]
(Yeah, yeah!) My people said it would be hard, hard, hard
My teacher said it would be hard, hard, hard {It's gon' be hard!}
What the fuck was she thinkin?
Why did I listen to y'all?
What the fuck was I thinkin?

[Royce Da 5'9"]
My finest hour is here, this is what I see in my prayers
This is me, though I'm facin all of my fears
Makin all my enemies look in the mirror
And see the meme, of the Jordan face with all of the tears
What most of you analysts ignore, is my explosive animal allure
I went away to get in the way of my wife plannin a divorce
Handled it and came back more talented than all of these rappers
Though I'm DiCaprio, all they have on me is the awards
I'm a Steinway grand piano, they're Casios, I will kindly pass them the torch
The day that one of them are able to hold a candle to my corpse
I'll put a hand on your whore, even if she ain't my type
And this song is inspired by a Broadway play
called "Hamilton" I saw that changed my life - right away
So my next move is to either screenwrite a movie, or write a play
I said

[Chorus]

[Interlude] - minus last line

{*instrumental break with animal sounds then a "ding"*}

[Royce Da 5'9"]
I'm lookin like a black Bond in Africa
Hotel room look like a beautiful crime scene, in fact it's a
spectacular Halle Berry, Vivica massacre, left behind by a serial bachelor
Fall back, y'all really don't fall back enough
You're not gon' not sound soft to us
The shotgun'll throw a box of black balls at ya like Count Chocula
That last line I was just on my Pharoahe Monch
Rappers kneel before me like I'm tryin to prepare a punt
I'll cut your body up and put it in two different cars
Put it in the river, have you swimmin in a pair of trunks
Momma askin when I'm comin to the church
My little brother askin for the Aston
I threw the keys to him like I'm frontin him some work
(Haha, good lookin Nickle!) I used to not be a trendy guy
Now I probably got more pair of Balmain jeans than Wale and Envy got
Ahh, somebody pinch me, pardon me

Teacher teacher, I'm so sorry I'm late
I'm Lyric Montgomery's father, I'm here for Career Day
(Hi, Mr. Montgomery!) Can I talk to the kids?
Hello children, how was your day? (Fine!)
I'm Royce Da 5'9', and over the years
I've been blackballed, I've been in jail, I've seen lives turned
But guess what I've learned?
I learned that

[Chorus] - end of last line "I was drunk and I was, lost"

[Royce Da 5'9"]
And you know what else?
Everybody askin me just because I'm a lyricist in this business
How come I haven't gone broke yet?
I tell 'em it's cause I'm the flyest backpacker ever, I'm flyer than Mos Def
In a Trump Tower surrounded by fo' chefs, fixin him some salmon croquette
with Kendrick, Cole and Kweli in Jidenna clothes, try me
You and your crew will bleed
Y'all bums ain't shot for the stars since New Year's Eve, nothin was given to me
I had to go upside heads just to get upside hills
Never over the hill though, so I don't strike when the iron is hot
I strike whenever the fuck I feel, I eat what the fuck I kill
I got this way from not bein allowed to eat dinner
If you knew how much I'd lost you'd have no problem with me winnin
How many times could I be reinvented?
Money is the deadlier of the five venoms
And my denim, definitively got a wad in 'em, garages with cars in 'em
Hangin out at bars to have menages with bartenders
God was an artist and Jesus was a carpenter
They put me together like an easel in the darkness of hell and lost it
Left me some loose screws but these are the nails to your coffin
These are the folk tales of a starvin, artist
battlin demons through his notepad like Adam and Eve eatin kale in the garden
Flyin private away from all charges