(Black &) Blues People - Akua Naru, Christian Scott

Black people unite

Black people unite

Black people unite

Black people unite

Uh, uh

Fathom a people, fracture rattle in bones of West Africa

Trapped in the burden that’s chained to the diaspora

Middle passenger, captured and framed and named hazardous

Tackled by catastrophe, tragedy paved a path for us

Lost on the shores, who but us could draw a map for us?

Chorus when that caged bird sing another sad story

Pastor told me Lord see our plight, won’t forsake us

Though his face favors the same snakes that enslaved us

Tobacco in Mississippi, sugar cane in Jamaica

A European crave for acres

An array of shots fired at a Audubon stage

Malcolm falls to his death before a crowd of black faces

As his wife wept, life crept from this plane, joined the angels

Four little girls left, a set of twins gestatin', behold

A shining prince eulogized by Ossie Davis

Huh, take it

Black people unite

Black people unite

Black people unite

Black people unite

Yo, uh

Fresh pressed shirts, be the that

Till the doors skiddin', my blood could stain white linen

of the Queen’s English, flawed, uneven

A radical king’s dreams, a Hallmark greetin'

Blues confronts the awful war even more so

Black limbs ripped from a Congolese torso

No media blitz, so you could text on that iPhone

Applause for Lupita Nyong’o

beauty exotic

They won’t stop till they kill us all

41 rounds, make it 44

Mama told my brother not to leave the porch

Panic every time he open the door

How many Trayvons walk the streets at night?

Renisha McBrides groomed in the state that don’t respect black life

When we bleed, do it amuse the knife?

Huh

Facebook like, too to fight

Black people unite

Black people unite

Black people unite

Black people unite

Call us a blues people the blood, the breath, and every handshake

That head wrap, stretch of the tongue, how we translate

In the plantains, that vast, creative landscape

That viral hit on some old shit that we been made

Dreadlocks and braids, them greens you just ate

That «hotep», that «asé», «ago», «ame»

Police fire shots and drop you out all day

Another officer walk, no love lost, full pay

Baseline crossed, that low-frequency

shells hit the ground, the sound of

Another new black in the old trap, a

Won’t wake up unless they the next to catch a court case

Cornel West said it best, «Fuck what you all say»

Got Kenny G and the world looking for Coltraine

Self-love supreme, get free and watch the game change

Gotta start out with this one thing

Black people unite

Black people unite

Black people unite ()

Black people unite (Justice, justice, justice, justice, justice)

Uh, justice

Justice, justice

Justice, justice, justice, justice

Justice

Black and blues people, uh

Black and blues people

Justice, justice, justice

Black and blues people

Justice, justice, justice, justice, justice, justice, justice

Justice, justice, justice

Justice

Justice, justice, justice

Justice

Justice

Huh

Black people unite, huh

With my people tonight

Justice, justice, justice

Black and blues people

Puppets most prominent, rape of a continent

Neo-colonial debt and paid parliament

Cultural products unknown and foreign profited

Every djembe that that palm get

Every note of that guitar lick, distraction’s obvious

Corporate domination of conscience

Surface seem harmless

Who pause to applaud at the Oscars?

A radio keep playing that garbage, constant

Assata Shakur most wanted by congress

Cash cow be the black and brown convict, logic

Every choir harmonize the pain of their profits

Let the light be the judge of the darkness