Welcome to the Underground Lyrics – Nas, DJ Premier

Read the full Welcome to the Underground lyrics by Nas and DJ Premier along with the music video, song credits, release information and other details about the song. If you enjoy Nas’s music, you can also explore Git Ready and NY State of Mind Pt. 3, two other songs by Nas.

[Intro: Ralph McDaniels & Nas]
Okay, we gotta go deep-deep-deep, to the underground
Take every breath out of my body if I don’t stay real
For life, yeah, turn it up, turn it up, yeah

[Verse 1: Nas]
Welcome to the underground, that basement life
Way underneath the earth, dig up dirt, termites and baby mice, scatterin’
Below the surface, we deep in the soil, we jackhammering
To the core of it all, avoiding the laws
Outside the corner stores with the raw, take me back again
Before ice around me, on stage performin’ while they fighting around me
Later somebody gun pop, the good old days, we from the streets
Making plays, either you grind or you incomplete
Open the year, ’86 (??)
For the time that the team was confined to four walls and now we meet
How ’bout it for the real, now I could fly to Saudi
Do a deal, coming back, whole fam showered in souvenirs
If my kids are nepo babies, it was destined
And they blessed, let ’em go crazy
Healing is important, live it if you talk and children get the short end of the stick
Let’s make better choices and everything costs
There’s a price just to breathe, everything gets taxed, nothing in life’s free
So ain’t nobody stealing my peace, I’m still a beast
If I gotta put a peace, it’s somebody grillin’ release
Figure to speech, picture me a civilian packing heat
Back in the days, waves, immature naivate
By the tender age of twelve, around some men who made
Made it through situations that was inhumane
Eating twelve course dinners, look how the menu changed
But the men ain’t changed, yeah, welcome to the underground

[Chorus: Ice Cube]
“Coming straight from the underground”
“Coming straight from the underground”

[Verse 2: Nas]

A twenty-four karat gold award addict, manic
Way beyond boss status, I need a room with the walls padded about mine
Cops used to pat us down, old straps we got passed down
From old legends, let us hold they weapons
They saw in us the coldest, that was in they essence
Hear the street confessions, if you kill a legend now you a legend
The one who take out a legend, he next to be a legend, allegedly, yeah
Enamored, feel it, I channel through the annals of the life of Ali
My spirit animal, feel his ice grill ya camera crew
Epitomize, personify an open letter to multiple golden eras that ended
I go forever, official tissue, life changing masterpiece theater
Fu*k your candy-ass Grammy grabs
I open fire like Panthers behind sand bags, with my comrades
Onslaught, turn you corny n!ggas to cornstarch
I lead and you just go with it, the one who clash with the whole system
Since I entered the scene, I just roll different
Now they code switching, they soul missing
A Catholic priest appears in your mirror
Y’all awaited Preem and Nas like it’s Detox
Forget the drum machine when Preem could just do the beatbox
Or bang on the top of a table, let his house key knock
And I can freestyle, they can’t see Nas
Welcome to the underground

[Chorus: Ice Cube]
“Coming straight from the underground”
“Coming straight from the underground”