What's the price you've gotta pay when you were born in the dirt
The only things your parents cover
Is a shoe and a shirt
A couple kids they've gotta feed
So it's just sleep for dessert
But through the night you keep awake Your stomachs starting to hurt
You're walking hours just to drink
The nearest well is in miles
And from the village even going school is buried in trials
So if you didn't then it's normal cos your family's poor
And that Nigerian kinda poor
Is not just normally poor
You get the grades to go to college
That's the first in the house
That's even though your mother died your dad is missing a spouse
You told your mother that you'd make it
Be the doctor at home
Because your dreams were always bigger than the dirt and the loam
And with the way you loved your mother
That's a promise you'll keep
Because the night before she died she called her son to her side
She told you son it's good to work because the talking is cheap
The bible says it's what you sow that you reap
So even though your fathers proud
To give you money isn't something he can
Your scholarship made him the happiest man
You go to uni in the city
All your taking is a bag and pan
It wasn't long before the hustle began
Cos all the scholarship had paid was just
The route the books and a school
A couple mates have got a house and a pool
Without the money needing food
You're going car to car and begging the fuel
It's not a thing of who's looking a fool
You made a promise to yourself that
When it comes to grades you're putting your best
So that just meant that you would work when you're stressed
And everybody knows that anything with medicine at uni is hard
It takes another level aceing the test
So in the nights when all your friends
They wanna party putting drinks on their card
You put your feet inside a bowl in the yard
To keep you woke because you're tryna read your books
Your friends they think you're possessed
And that's just how you got the best in the west
So graduating what's the price you gotta pay
When you were born in the dirt
The only things your parents covered is a shoe and a shirt
You finished uni that degree is like a trophy you own
You paid the price and yeah you suffered alone
And now you've got the job
You're living in the city with a car and a house
You've found a partner that you're calling a spouse
Your luck is changing
So the second that you get to put a ring on her hand
You look to God and blow a kiss from your mouth
It's like your mothers looking down just saying son
I see the route that you took
You took the road with opposition and look
You made a promise when I died you'd work the hardest work
Be the doctor at home
So in the desert I provided a brook
That's how it goes she told him
God was always watching when he put in the work
He had to see that he could work as a clerk
That's how it goes she said she's happy
That he took the fighting spirit from her
Cos if you fail you couldn't handle the perk
So as it goes he kept on working at the job
He had some kids of his own
So in his house he's now the man on the throne
He held his daughter for the first time
And told his wife I promise she won't
Have to suffer like i suffered my own
Cos all the working that he's doing now
Is just to make it better for the future
And such is life his wife gets tumor
Said he felt it coming said the good times end
Because it's good times that hell finds Humour
Getting better
What's the price you gotta pay when you were born in the dirt
To give your kids a better future not a shoe and a shirt
You're moving countries to a place where there is no one you know
Because the options where you come from is low
You didn't know that that degree
You got from uni in this country is void
You only get a visa when you've got a job and employed
You're left alone so now you're lonely
No degree so you're a phoney
In this country all you built was destroyed
So as a job you're now a cleaner
Scrubbing toilets but you study at night
You wear your suit to clean the toilet despite
All the kids and teachers laughing at you
Thinking that you're crazy in here
It's only you that sees the vision you see
You're going home and when you sleep
Is in a zone they call a council estate
A couple nights it's gun shots or a fight
They're tryna tell you that you're nothing
But a cleaner in a council estate
But when you look you see a doctor in sight
You finish uni do the tests in flying colours get
Another degree
Once a cleaner now a doctor they see
You get a job that makes it easy putting money on a house of your own
And bring the rest of all your family to see
You made a promise to your kids
You said they'll never have to struggle like you
And now they're settled living over the sea
And now they're grown you tell a story of your life
And all the things that you've seen
And with their ease it's hard for them to agree
You ask the question
What's the price you gotta pay when you were born in the dirt
The only things your parents gave you was a shoe and a shirt