Listen, I'm here to help you, so calm down!
But I never said I needed a social worker!
So get out now!
Get out of my office right now, you ill-mannered person!
Ill-mannered? Were you there to feed me? You bitch!

I started living my life in the trash
In a burned-out neighborhood where cockroaches crunch under your soles
"Hi!" "Hi, how are you?"
Guys observe your new car, congratulating you
And screw you over whenever they can
Damn, it's crazy, ten-year-old kids
Already talking about making money, and you understand
When the neighborhood is the only example
Where they build statues for drug dealers or bank robbers
And on the walls, no extraordinary graffiti
Just piss stains and "policeman, your mother's a cunt"
I was thirteen when my career started
With the big fights in the street with hammers, box cutters, and U-locks
Willingly or not, I tried everything to get out of there
With a towel on my back, I headed to the beach to pick up girls
When they asked me where I lived, I answered
"Sweetie, just next door, the villa above"
"Excuse me, aren't the guys from your neighborhood
The ones who steal people's stuff when they go swimming?"
Busted! What made you come here?
This damn neighborhood follows me!
To prove myself, I had to steal
T-shirts, towels, bags, I left loaded
And when I wasn't in the projects sitting on a bench
The neighborhood came to suffocate me
Like a magnet

They sent us to summer camp
In alpine resorts to go skiing
Instead of separating us, they kept the neighborhood together
Individually, we weren't bad guys
But the group mentality exports as strongly as you feel it
We set the Alps on fire!
The return was rough, a shock
Produced an unbreakable block in my mind as hard as a rock
I'm just telling it, I don't want to absolve myself
I scraped plaster and sold it at the price of powder
Battery acid as a joke
If you didn't laugh, my guy, you were out of there too
Summer nights, I would watch the sky from the supermarket roof
I don't know why, suddenly I would start crying
In the palms of my hands "my God, my God, my God, my God"
On my 17th birthday
I dived in like a fool, four years
Inside, I saw the same faces again
And the same vices, the same beast
That attracts and attracts me relentlessly
And pulls me, recalls my memories endlessly
Like a magnet

Yes, I got out, not as well as they say
Happy to be able to see family and friends again
I came back and my brother went in
My parents would have liked a break
When I came down, the same beams held the walls
"Hi guys, I see you're still working just as hard"
"What do you want us to do? A job?
I earn in a day what they give me in a month in their thing
Listen, son, the business
That's what brings in money and girls quickly"
I chose another path, music
With my friend François, we played with records
At that time, I had a woman as beautiful as the day
The first one I called "my love"
Until she told me she was pregnant with me
Like a kid, I begged her to get out of there
Listen, listen, listen, please, you trapped me
So do me a favor and leave, twelve months later
I went to see the kid, it's crazy
I fell in love with that little nothing
And decided to take responsibility
Especially since deep down, I loved that girl
While avoiding going with her to the neighborhood
To ignore the taunts of the thugs who blocked us
Then our music went from the basement to the factory
Our faces on TV, on the front page of magazines
But never, oh never
Did we earn enough to get by
My parents were so proud
That I didn't have the heart to tell my mother how much I earned
We had become an example of success for the neighborhood
If they only knew!
With a family to support, I needed money, I dealt
And I got two years
No matter how open-minded people are, they can't understand
They talk about the projects like a trend
They play at scaring themselves, then get bored after six months
But I appreciate songs that talk about people like me
I'm not the only one, I don't want help anymore
I can't fall any lower, I'm stiff
Clinging to a magnet

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