[Nas:]
They wanna shine on it
Shine on it (repeated)

Yah
They dug me the soil of mines in the motherland
Now I've placed from one hand to another hand
Illegal smuggling, people struggling,
Wish they can just throw me back in the mud again
Yeh, this is how we got here
Slave trade and the diamond trade
Every childs afraid, when his mother or father gets sprayed
Forced in the army, young killer brigade
Gets a new name, then he gets his nose glued
His mind can't take what he's going through
Lookin' in the dirt for that ice ol' blue
Then the royal family the ice goes to
This thing has to change, feelin' half ashamed
As i rap with my platinium chain
When you shop for a gift for me
You think about the misery
The same way we made a part our history
We could do the same to the complect ice
But everybody wanna shine right?

Everybody wants heaven, but nobody wants dead
Everybody wants diamonds without the bloodshed
Everybody wants heaven, but nobody wants dead
Everybody wants diamonds without the bloodshed

They wanna shine on em [repeated]

Uh
My bbs glimmers on my chest
Two hundred thousand crested watch on my wrist
I wonder how people starve to death
When God blessed the land that lacks the harvest
Their stones are quality, but their homes are poverty
And the whole world ignores the robbery
I bought my girl pretty rocks and she is mad at me
Tear drop shaped uh, perfect clarity
It shocks so many are killed annually
Cause of greed, lust, and pure vanity
Stop talkin' and do something about it
Every holiday season, jewelery stores crowded
Kids snatched from their homes, mutilated alive
Husbands spreaded from wives
Keep a Jesus peace to be fly
But back in the day, there was a time they called us shine

Everybody wants heaven, but nobody wants dead
Everybody wants diamonds without the bloodshed
Everybody wants heaven, but nobody wants dead
Everybody wants diamonds without the bloodshed

They wanna shine on em [repeated]