As Long as the People Got Something to Say (2015)

Of knowledge your ancestors starved me, 

But nowadays my stanzas are deep, 

As I avoid drinking the poisons served by the local barkeep, 

Too many are enslaved while the stars eat, 

Are we close to equality, 

Hardly, 

Too busy consuming nonsense along with all that other malarkey, 

Why spark heat on your own continuously, 

No way can you ever rationalize gang banging as behaving sensibly, 

Such horrendous beliefs 

When another race’s hatred only sees fit for the law to merely 

Suspend the police 

After they needlessly murdered another poor brother in the streets, 

If pressed, 

My heat will put heathens in retreat, 

They’re breathing in deceit, 

As the hate mongers conjure up more hate within their speech, 

I’ve seen dreams scattered on the concrete, 

The crimson that you can’t wash away with bleach, 

It leaves a permanent mark on your psyche, 

Ever since we’ve arrived they’ve slaughtered millions that look like me, 

Whether mashed together in a cell with the other black males 

Because I was blackmailed, 

Or packed in like sardines on one of those slave ships 

That the author of “Amazing Grace” knows all too well, 

I tell this tale regardless of if it sells, 

Our history shall prevail, 

It goes beyond the horrible smells and bloody entrails of hell you’ve subjected us to, 

My rhymes resurrect the truth, 

Never could evil wash away our African roots, 

With these verbal tools I’m a King battling spooks, 

Rallying troops, 

As ignorance continues to cock, aim and shoot, 

What is a Blackman to do, 

Just wait for another “Dynamite Bob” to see things through, 

And those bigots that laud these actions need to be put in the very noose 

They’ve concocted for my black ass, 

Some claim I should look ahead to the future, 

But there is truth in my past, 

And I’ll be damn if I skip class, 

I flipped fast,    

Back when Becky called me a “nigger,” 

It gave me whiplash, 

Stereotypes like the size of my penis making snow bunnies strip fast, 

Fast running, 

Slam dunking, 

But alas, 

I’m myth debunking, 

Into smashing pumpkins, 

Not watermelons, 

And I’m no more a felon than St. Helen, 

I once heard that two wrongs don’t make it right, 

But it damn sure makes us even, 

Yet another Klansman gives me a reason 

To ponder when hasn’t bigotry been in season?   

Through all the blood spatter we say Black lives matter, 

Then you come back and say all lives matter, 

Well no shit, 

For goodness sakes we all want to exist, 

But you hypocrites should be more considerate, 

It’s not your people being targeted and killed at the flick of the wrist, 

So carry on with your cartoon skits, 

It would be as ridiculous 

As you bum rushing one of those rallies raising money to defeat cancer, 

And spreading propaganda about raising money to fight HIV and AIDS, 

This is such a simple age, 

Where many are misguided with a lack of manners,   

My point is that there is a time and place for everything, 

My ancestors were lynched so I have a right to sing, 

Or would you rather I swing (noose), 

At your hands or from the hands of my own people, 

Because evil comes in all shades, even see through…