The name Cumania originated as the Latin exonym for the Cuman-Kipchak confederation, which was a Turkic confederation in the western part of the Eurasian Steppe, between the 10th and 13th centuries. The confederation was dominated by two Turkic nomadic tribes: the Cumans (also known as the Polovtsians or Folban) and the Kipchaks. Cumania was known in Islamic sources as Desht-i Qipchaq, which means "Steppe of the Kipchaks"; or "foreign land sheltering the Kipchaks", in the Turkic languages. Some Russian sources have referred to Cumania as the "Polovtsian Steppe" (Poloveckaja Step), or the "Polovcian Plain" (Pole Poloveckoe).
The Golden Horde was also referred to as "Comania" by Armenian chronicler Hethum (Hayton) of Korykos. "Cumania" was also the source of names, or alternate names, for several smaller areas – some of them unconnected geographically to the area of the federation – in which Cumans and/or Kipchaks settled, such as the historic region of Kunság in Hungary, and the former Roman Catholic Diocese of Cumania (in Romania and Hungary). Hethum of Korykos described Cumania as "wholly flat and with no trees".Ibn Batutta said of Cumania, "This wilderness is green and grassy with no trees, nor hills, high or low...there is no means of travelling in this desert except in wagons." Battuta's contemporary, Hamdallah Mustawfi, eloborated, "This is of the Sixth Clime, its plains bear excellent pasturage...but there are here few houses or towns or villages. Most of the inhabitants are nomads of the plain...Most of the lands here are swamps...The pasturage, however, being excellent, horses and cattle are numerous, and the population for the most part subsists on the produce thereof. The climate is cold, and their water comes from springs and wells."
Ghetto to ghetto, backyard to yard
We tear it up y'all, bless the mic with the gods (come on)
Precious metals round our necks and arms (yea)
We tear it up y'all, bless the mic with the gods
Ghetto to ghetto, backyard to yard
We tear it up y'all, bless the mic with the gods (come on)
Precious metals round our necks and arms (yea)
We tear it up y'all, bless the mic with the gods
(Hook: Anthony Hamilton)
Whatever in your heart is where you want to be
My hood is the ghetto
Even when you look
Its never what you see
My hood is the ghetto
I've been down before up is just a reach
Cause my hood is the ghetto
Catch a second wind
Then begin again
My hood is the ghetto
(Verse 1: Common)
Black magic in the hood, its tragic but understood
Crack addicts, crack windows, crack wood
Even whats bad becomes good, status becomes stood
Upon the pedestal welcome to the ghetto show
Federal buildings, pissy hallways filled with children pushing children
Fiends lips peeling, shit seems real and
What's real is the estate of mind that we're in
The situation feels great
My man peels weight, so he can fill plates
You might get love but you still feel hate
Through and chain plates, we communicate
Chicago to brooklyn nigga real ones do relate
(Verse 2: Talib Kweli)
If lyrics sold then truth be told
I'll probably be just as rich and famous as jay-z
Truthfully I wanna rhyme like common sense
Next best thing I do a record with common sense
Cause its the music, its blues, its jazz, its acoustics
Soul, rock and roll the hip hop we be producing yea
It's the gear, it's the flare, it's the stare
Nowadays they'll shot you where they used to shoot the fair
Remember the lost soldiers, pour a beer, shoot the air
We got our own elected officials, no matter who the mayor
I know you know what I'm talking about
From New York to the South, take off your shoes when you walk in the house
(Hook)
(Verse 3: Talib Kweli)
I grew up where they're playing skele in the parking lot
And sell paintings of Aaliyah, BIG and Pac up in the barbershop
Buildings too big so you don't really see the stars a lot
But rapping, drinking, and going to prison you see them bars a lot
I feel the spirit in the dark and hear it in my heart
And always keep my ears to the block till I dearly depart
Hip hop is really the art
We have to express the part of ourselves that make us want to martyr ourselves
It ain't harder to tell when somebody stick you up and put the hammer to you
They want them dead presidents like Stickman and Mutulu
With a gun to your jaw, these kids don't run anymore
Kicks is a hundred or more
(Verse 4: Common)
A man in front of the store, begging for money and mercy
I told him say a prayer under his breath, he cursed me
Niggaz is thirsty, I heard it's a drought
Up early, serving from their grandmother's house
Sometime the ghetto feels desolate, yo the eyes of the hood yo is desperate
Effected by the deficit, times and lessons get hard
Either get by or get god, but but you try to get by
It's like the block keep blocking
You try to make moves, its like the car just keep stopping
We shorties in the court, need cochran yea
I tell them why the weed seeds popping, in the game you need options
No time for feet watching, me and kwe keep rocking for the ghetto