1. |
The Storm
03:39
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Please unclutch your pearls
As you survey the damage and the mess
And if this makes you hurt
Think of all the pleas you ignored before this
Don’t blame the fires of rage
When your silence fanned the flames
There’s no point in getting angry at the storm
Cause a storm is here and then it’s gone.
Whether caused by climate change
Or by injustice of race
The reasons for the storm still carry on
Riots are the language of the unheard
How lucky if you’ve not become fluent
If you want to hear another tongue - listen and learn
Even when it’s not words you expect
Direct all your complaints
Towards complacency towards other’s pain
There’s no point in getting angry at the storm
Cause a storm is here and then it’s gone.
Whether it consists of rain
Or is made of a mother’s pain
The reasons for the storm still linger on
There’s no point in getting angry at the storm
Cause a storm is here and then it’s gone.
When you do not try to change
What made the storm so devastating
The reasons for the storm still inger on
The reasons for the storm are what must stop
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2. |
Do As You're Told
03:54
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The answer is always the same
From Till to Tamir Rice
You say that boys will be boys
Til you learn the boy’s not white
Then whether they stay or they run
Whether they’re beaten or dead
Soon afterwards your shoulders shrug
As these words run through your head
Why don’t they do as they’re told
When we come out with phones and signs
It’s bullets and tear gas
But armed occupation’s alright
If whites pick up some trash
It seems that you confuse
Which of these two are really thugs
Let me give you a hint: it’s not the ones with melanin
It’s the ones who carry the guns
Why don’t they do as they’re told
Before the epidemic hit
You had your smug refrain
Regurgitating on repeat
Til it burned in our brain
But when the chips fall done
Your words are drowned out by your acts
Black Americans die but the crime you decry
Is your right to not wear a mask
Why don’t you do as you’re told
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3. |
The System
05:43
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To serve and protect
Means more than making arrests
So why are there quotas
Is this how it was
When they dispensed law
In the days of the Wild Wild West
Too much of this trade
More matches catching runaway slaves
Prisons for profit
Today don’t pick cotton
But still demand bodies
By the fistful by the day
Aren’t you here to help
Those who can't protect themselves
So why are you missing
When there is a lynching
Why’s your suspicion
The dead are victims of suicide
Would this story fit
If we were to flip the script
If Titi Gulley
Was as white as a sheet
Would you conclude as quickly
There was no larceny of life
The problem turns out to be
Not good or bad apples individually
It’s the crate and the cart
And the orchard and trees and the roots
Upon which you still keep grafting
Out to the street
You toss the ones who rat out your bad seeds
You teach them to rot
To shoot first not get shot
And keeping the bigots
Won’t complicate keeping the peace
The system is not down
The system is up keeping some of us down
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4. |
Say It
03:08
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Day after day we hear folks
Say it’s not okay
That is if they’re not afraid to
Say it’s not okay
Every time we use our voice
We make ignoring it not a choice
So it’s time to say that this is not okay
If you do not see in color
That is not okay
It means you don’t see the other
Ways you’re causing pain
Any kind of colorblindness
Leads to a multitude of crisis
And if you would see it then you’d see it's not okay
I’m sorry it took so long
To see it’s not okay
And that it took even longer
To say it
To say it’s not okay
To say that I’m ashamed
To say things need to change
To find another way
To say I’m not okay
With knowing that my race
Might make a difference
With where it is I’m placed
To say I’m not okay
With debts we cannot pay
From livelihoods we stole
Back then and still today
To say that we will say this
Again and again
And we will try to change it
We will try to change it
We will try to change it
As best as we can
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