Lyrics Wake Up - LowKey

Wake Up

Yeah
The year 2007 marks the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery
These are my views
Hear my words
Listen, listen
I woke up this morning so I had to make a new track
This is the difference between true stories and true facts
This right here is what waking up feels like
This is the difference between real talk and real life
It’s a treacherous road so mind the GAP
Because they try to blur the lines between lies and facts
They told you, it was finished, but that’s all a lie
'Cos there’s children in them sweatshops, some as young as four or five
Check the tongue on your trainers
These slave-made products are brought here to get endorsed by somebody famous
So we think it looks cool
While slaves are stitching footballs in Pakistan
I break it down in a way that other rappers can’t
It’s hard to stop sleeping and wake up, 'cos it’s too real
But if karma doesn’t get you first then the truth will
We’re living in some wild days
According to Unicef there’s 246 million child slaves
So…
Wake up
Open your eyes and listen to this
Cos little innocent kids are stitching them kicks
I’m ticked off, cos we’re living this myth
The devil’s biggest of tricks was convincing the people he didn’t exist
So.
Wake up
You think it ended but it never did
It put the chocolate in our mouth
The logos on our freshest kicks
The logos on our backs, the coffee we drink, almost everything
There’s more slaves on earth right now than there’s ever been
You’re listening to the wrong rappers
Companies use child slaves then blame it all on their subcontractors
Don’t need to guess who sewed those jeans, but who’s buying these clothes
Who gives us cocoa beans from the Ivory Coast?
The answers are Mars, but you don’t need to search the skies
They’re in Asian sweatshops making Mickey Mouse merchandise
Nowadays it’s less to do with the colour of your skin, fam
It’s more to do with the country that you’re in, fam
Won’t stop spitting until there’s a change
Every purchase that we make, keep the children in chains
It’s so twisted and strange to me
Some parents are so poor they sell their own kids into slavery
It’s an ugly state of affairs
Slaves used to pick cotton but now they stitch ticks on the trainers we wear
When they tell you it’s finished, don’t let them
'Cos it’s still here, even though it got abolished in 1807
This is for those who kept faith
And all the children around the globe getting sold as sex slaves
Back in the day it was bad but this is the next phase
Nowadays everything’s in our hands fam, let’s change
In these tragic times, we gotta analyse these rappers rhymes
The fact is they’re blind, and they glamourise a pack of lies
The powers that be got us distracted but we have to fight
'Cos these days it’s not as simple as being black or white
We need to fix our lives and get some unity
'Cos 'til the feds get their weapons, shoot-executing me
Putting me back to sleep is something you could never do to me
Yours truly, Lowkey, the rapper slash revolutionary
Do your research if you don’t believe it still exists
It’s just a matter of how long can we live with it
You could call me a hypocrite
'Cos if you look at my shoe on my foot right now, you’d see a little tick on it