My hermanas and my hombres just the same, because the concrete jungle has us singing a collective blues, feeling the same pain. About this disconnection what should we do?
I say we leave our lairs to go outside and breathe deeply fresh air. Say a universal prayer that recognizes our collective worth and dignity. As the reflection in the mirror looks back at me, I contemplate Black Lives Matter and the plight to include other beings.
Possibly creating new language in complex times when people of color find our voices still not being heard. The animals, our relatives, have feelings too. A polluted and warming planet they share with us. The climate is changing fast so we need to organize, react. We need to create policies and solutions that benefit people and our fellow beings. How about conversations that leads to Unitarian Universalist legislation that honors every being without creating a segregation of life?
I think we have it in us if we crafted it right. There is anxiety in America, a deep unease after the presidential election. The selection of Donald Trump has many scared, nervous, or down in the dumps. America is in a funk; Americans who are confused are singing a brand new blues; a blues with heavy woes as we continue to be divided, political foes.
Who knows what this new administration will bring?! As women, immigrants and people of color sing the saddest of songs. The division and separation is strong. Conversations and debates are taking place about who belongs here — leaving many in fear.
Canada is a location where some of us want to take up residence. Hesitant about what this new administration will bring. How will community organizers, activists, and leaders sing a new song? How will we react to the coming wrongs of newly selected political leaders?
How we will fix political wounds that may only get deeper, and deeper, and deeper? There is anxiety in America. For this new administration many of us are not prepared. Our girls and women are scared. Daring to travel to DC are a million women who will march with justice, equality, and togetherness in their hearts.
The Arts is in danger, I saw it in the subject line of an email. What will your new tune be? Will you choose to fight harder for the rights of you and me? How will we make sure the future of our children is not filled with worry?
The work is just beginning. Our time has just begun. I have a confession to make: In one of my earliest days as a spoken word performer, I smuggled poems across the boarder to Canada. I told a white lie to get in, those words needed a stage, freedom.
That was the beginning: knowing the poems I was penning were taking me across interstate lines was the most ultimate of times, of times. Lines on paper traveling on buses and airplanes to arrive to be unpacked, spoken, or slightly rapped. These are poems with miles on them — frequent flyer miles where they received applause, praise, smiles. They are packed, packaged, unpacked. Poems, rhymes, rhythms, raps packed, packaged, unpacked. Poems, rhymes, rhythms, raps Tucked neatly inside of my bags.
Traveling vocab. Poetry written, but born to be wild. Experiencing long bus rides, just as tired and worn as I am. Just as tired and worn as I am. I open the bag, then let them breathe. They have come to achieve. Smuggled consistently ready to please. Four and a half hours your body laid there flat on hot summer concrete untouched, unmoved, not cared for.
Your people in Ferguson started crying and fighting back, fighting back and crying. Your tragic story is all too commonplace in the thick of the hate and inequality of the United States. We are remembering you Michael. We are remembering the lies, the pain, the struggle, the voices that followed in those Ferguson streets. We have yet to find justice and peace. Black Lives Matter is not yielding! Marching with the masses in what is a state of emergency.
We are fighting, igniting, engaging, and conversing about race. We are taking over space after space to be heard. And the name Mike Brown sits proudly our tongues as we fight and fight until we have won. Until we have won. I am remembering you lost soldier who died with your hands up in submission. Because of what happened to you, we are making sure the world listens.
I want to help save this nation from killing itself; Fight off the racism, classism, sexism, and all other forms of isms that will be the end of this poisonous country still stuck in an unpromising past. Black Superman I can be. Black Superman let that be me. Black Superman let that person be me. I want to show up at every traffic stop of every Black person who has been pulled over by an angry cop. Here I come flying through the sky with my eyes on places like Ferguson, Baltimore, Chicago, Houston, Cleveland, and New York City with the ability to apprehend the women and men who are corrupt across the states with hate and disrespect in their hearts: Black Superman!
We still need justice and protection in the dirty south! The way some of these police act threatens all of our humanity. All of our humanity! Black Superman: here to bring us some safety and sanity. He mentions the young and the old as he drops and drops. New people will learn of his legendary status and people like me who knew about him will love he is getting the credit he deserves and be happy for organic hip-hop music.
Hip-hop needs to know that there are lyricists, poets like Black Thought still around and are the people who make up the backbone of rap music. Black Thought is only the reincarnation of Kool G. Rap and Big Daddy Kane. If anything Black Thought has re-energized rap music for the good. I know, like myself, other rappers will be studying what he did and stepping our game up or listening and listening to be inspired by Tariq Trotter a.
Black Thought, a Philadelphia-born MC who still stays true to the City of Brotherly Love by mentioning it whenever he gets a chance to. The grittiness of Philadelphia is very evident is his galactic flow. His verse will change how we look at delivery, breath control, and what it means to be live spitting on a verse that people are anticipating. His verse on Hot 97 is a blue print that MCs will follow in their own way. We will either build on it or use it to better our bars and verses as we write or freestyle.
I hope the young people are listening and taking notes. I bet a lot of you are and have. Black Thought is a universal MC who has connected with the young and the elders of the Hip-Hop community. We need an MC, a storyteller, a griot who can bridge our generations to educate, inform, and inspire us. Black Thought has done that with his epic verse. What I do want to focus on is some of the most revolutionary verses in the freestyle that is helpful to the Black Lives Matter Movement.
These in particular, should encourage us to think or act on:. These words should not be overlooked. They are some of the most important lines in this rhyme. Black Thought has always been known for writing and reciting rhymes that attacked racism, inequality, and poverty. He should be respected and commended for this. I listen to the verse like a sermon, like a meditation. Born into a world of injustices, harms, hindrances, limitations People of color are slapped in the face from nation to nation.
We all have voices. We all have minds. We all know what bigots and dictators are, especially in these political times.
We dream, we hope, we unite, we fight For the liberties that come along with the power of human rights. The youth are becoming educated the elders are getting strong. We sing a song crafted by the trials in our paths. Justice is a love word that will always last. Power to the people in Africa, in Haiti, in Palestine. Power to all the people who have been in shackles for lifetimes. We need compassion, resources, and loving-kindness shared with the downtrodden.
Human potential is the best weapon against those who have been overlooked, forgotten. We collectively, virtually sit by the camp fire at night. The sound and sight of people of all races and classes coming together, means, human rights will be that much better. In the inner city, the concrete jungle, we are animals inside a cage surrounded by hate and rage. We are engaged in activities that call for peace, unity, civility. The concrete jungle adjusts to whoever is in office. I many ways, it is just us.
No real justice. My hermanas and my hombres just the same, because the concrete jungle has us singing a collective blues, feeling the same pain. About this disconnection what should we do? I say we leave our lairs to go outside and breathe deeply fresh air. Say a universal prayer that recognizes our collective worth and dignity. As the reflection in the mirror looks back at me, I contemplate Black Lives Matter and the plight to include other beings. Possibly creating new language in complex times when people of color find our voices still not being heard.
The animals, our relatives, have feelings too. A polluted and warming planet they share with us. The climate is changing fast so we need to organize, react.
We need to create policies and solutions that benefit people and our fellow beings. How about conversations that leads to Unitarian Universalist legislation that honors every being without creating a segregation of life? I think we have it in us if we crafted it right. There is anxiety in America, a deep unease after the presidential election. The selection of Donald Trump has many scared, nervous, or down in the dumps.
America is in a funk; Americans who are confused are singing a brand new blues; a blues with heavy woes as we continue to be divided, political foes. Who knows what this new administration will bring?! As women, immigrants and people of color sing the saddest of songs. The division and separation is strong. Conversations and debates are taking place about who belongs here — leaving many in fear. Canada is a location where some of us want to take up residence.
Hesitant about what this new administration will bring. How will community organizers, activists, and leaders sing a new song? How will we react to the coming wrongs of newly selected political leaders? How we will fix political wounds that may only get deeper, and deeper, and deeper? There is anxiety in America.
For this new administration many of us are not prepared. Our girls and women are scared. Daring to travel to DC are a million women who will march with justice, equality, and togetherness in their hearts.
The Arts is in danger, I saw it in the subject line of an email. What will your new tune be? We are remembering you Michael. We are remembering the lies, the pain, the struggle, the voices that followed in those Ferguson streets. We have yet to find justice and peace. Black Lives Matter is not yielding!
Marching with the masses in what is a state of emergency. We are fighting, igniting, engaging, and conversing about race. We are taking over space after space to be heard. And the name Mike Brown sits proudly our tongues as we fight and fight until we have won. Until we have won. I am remembering you lost soldier who died with your hands up in submission. Because of what happened to you, we are making sure the world listens. I want to help save this nation from killing itself; Fight off the racism, classism, sexism, and all other forms of isms that will be the end of this poisonous country still stuck in an unpromising past.
Black Superman I can be. Black Superman let that be me. Black Superman let that person be me. I want to show up at every traffic stop of every Black person who has been pulled over by an angry cop. Here I come flying through the sky with my eyes on places like Ferguson, Baltimore, Chicago, Houston, Cleveland, and New York City with the ability to apprehend the women and men who are corrupt across the states with hate and disrespect in their hearts: Black Superman!
We still need justice and protection in the dirty south! The way some of these police act threatens all of our humanity. All of our humanity! Black Superman: here to bring us some safety and sanity.
The ghost of Sandra Bland wants us to understand That the lives of Black people in the United States are fragile; are for the taking; are worth nothing when a cop is confronting you. The ghost of Sandra Bland haunts me in the day time, and even in my sleep. She creeps among us fresh from a suspicious hanging — her life physically not remaining. The ghost of Sandra Bland watches us watch what happened to her on social media and on the evening news. She watches her devastated family sing the blues.
Sing the blues. The ghost of Sandra Bland is just as strong as the young black woman who knew her rights; who lost her life; who went down in a fight just because she was black and determined. Black and educated. Black and situated hoping for a better life. Black churches are burning down in the south. Black connections to African roots are being threatened and uprooted in the Deep South.
Even where people gather, pray, seek lives of purpose. Black churches are burning. Black people are hurting. Black people are worrying. Black people are not forgetting.
We are not forgetting about similar times. We are not forgetting about the same kinds of wicked minds that contain hate. Even in we can relate.
Black churches are burning down. Burning down in old southern towns. Black churches; Black memories; Black gatherings that have happened for centuries. Black people praying and swaying; Swaying and praying. What is this new hate saying? What is it conveying? Black churches burn.
Black churches are burning in the Deep South. They want to burn away our history. They want to burn us into misery. Will the burnings have an ending? As Black churches burn who is winning? Black churches are burning, burning in the Deep South. Black man down His blood is spilling out on the ground The Universe makes another sad sound. The Universe makes another sad sound His blood is spilling out on the ground Black man down.
Down in the dumps Down Black man slumps in the ghettos of the States Black man down, how many of you can relate? Black man down Black man has no job Black man looks for others to steal from or rob. Black man has been taught that the dollar is God. Black man down His blood is spilling on the ground The Universe makes another sad sound.
This art was used for an article written for The New Orleans Times. I know that I can speak for other artists who have labored putting together what they hope to be a project that will take their career to the next level, and feed the fans that help keep them going. Completing a new project and anticipating its release is quite the feeling, and something to look forward to as an artist. I wanted this project to be different.
It feels and looks different than my previous projects and compilations. A balance in life I think we all strive for. Myself, I can often be the serious type. Those of you who know me for my activism will appreciate these songs. They represent the signs of the times, and where we are in this country when it comes to race relations, immigration, and local people fighting for water rights and the like.
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