Institutionalized lyrics

[Intro: Kendrick Lamar]

What money got to do with it

When I don't know the full definition of a rap image?

I'm trapped inside the ghetto and I ain't proud to admit it

Institutionalized, I keep runnin' back for a visit

Hol' up, get it back

I said I'm trapped inside the ghetto and I ain't proud to admit it

Institutionalized, I could still kill me a nigga, so what?

[Interlude: Anna Wise]

If I was the president

I'd pay my mama's rent

Free my homies and them

Bulletproof my Chevy doors

Lay in the White House and get high, Lord

Who ever thought?

Master take the chains off me

[Verse 1: Kendrick Lamar]

Life can be like a box of chocolate

Quid pro quo, somethin' for somethin', that's the obvious

Oh shit, flow's so sick, don't you swallow it

Bitin' my style, you're salmonella poison positive

I can just alleviate the rap industry politics

Milk the game up, never lactose intolerant

The last remainder of real shit, you know the obvious

Me scholarship? No, streets put me through colleges

Be all you can be, true, but the problem is

A dream's only a dream if work don't follow it

Remind me of the homies that used to know me, now follow this

I'll tell you my hypothesis, I'm probably just way too loyal

K Dizzle would do it for you, my niggas think I'm a god

Truthfully all of 'em spoiled, usually you're never charged

But somethin' came over you once I took you to the fuckin' BET Awards

You lookin' at artists like the harvests

So many Rollies around you and you want all of them

Somebody told me you thinkin' 'bout snatchin' jewelry

I should've listened what my grandmama said to me

[Hook: Bilal]

Shit don't change until you get up and wash your ass nigga

Shit don't change until you get up and wash your ass

Shit don't change until you get up and wash your ass nigga

Oh now, slow down

[Bridge: Snoop Dogg]

And once upon a time in a city so divine

Called West Side Compton, there stood a little nigga

He was 5 foot something, God bless the kid

Took his homie to the show and this is what they said

[Verse 2: Kendrick Lamar]

What I'm s'posed to do when I'm lookin' at walkin' licks?

The convicts talk 'bout matchin', money and foreign whips

The private jets and passports, presidential glass floor

Gold bottles, gold models, sniffin' up the ass for

Instagram flicks, suck a dick, fuck is this?

One more suck away from wavin' flashy wrist

My defense mechanism tell me to get him, quickly because he got it

It's the recession, then why the fuck he in King of Diamonds?

No more livin' poor, meet my .44

When I see 'em, put the per diem on the floor

Now Kendrick, know they're your co-workers

But it's gon' take a lot for this pistol go cold turkey

Now I can watch his watch on the TV and be okay

But see I'm on the clock once that watch landin' in LA

Remember steal from the rich and givin' it back to the poor?

Well that's me at these awards

I guess my grandmama was warnin' a boy

She said...

[Hook]

[Outro: Snoop Dogg]

And once upon a time in a city so divine

Called West Side Compton, there stood a little nigga

He was 5 foot something, dazed and confused

Talented but still under the neighborhood ruse

You can take your boy out the hood but you can't take the hood out the homie

Took his show money, stashed it in the mozey wozey

Hollywood's nervous

Fuck you, goodnight, thank you much for your service

• Artist:Kendrick Lamar
• Album:To Pimp a Butterfly (2015)