| I do it for the people, I do it for the love
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| I do it for the poet, I do it for the thug
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| This is for victory, and this is for the slaughter
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| I do it for my mother, I do it for my daughter
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| Promise I’ll always love ya, I love to kiss and hug ya You and your brother should be lookin out for one another
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| I’m so blessed, man, y’all the reason I got up Somebody put his hands on you I’m gettin locked up
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| I’m not playin, that’s the prayer I’m sayin for Diani
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| And if I die then she’ll be protected by Amani
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| That’s her bigger brother and I love the way he love her
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| She a girly-girl, she love to imitate her mother
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| But she a Gemini, so stay on her friendly side
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| She’ll put that look on you, it’s like somebody’friend just died
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| My pretty black princess smell sweet like that incense
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| That you buy at the bookstore supporting black business
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| Teach her what black is; |
| the fact is her parents are thorough
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| She four reading Cornrows by Camille Yarborough
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| I keep her hair braided, bought her a black Barbie
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| I keep her mind free; |
| she ain’t no black zombie
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| This is for Aisha, this is for Kashera
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| This is for Khadijah scared to look up in the mirror
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| I see the picture clearer thru the stain on the frame
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| She got a black girl name, she livin black girl pain
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| This is for Makeba, and for my mamacita
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| What’s really good, ma? |
| I’ll be your promise-keeper
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| I see the picture clearer thru the stain on the frame
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| She got a black girl name, she livin black girl pain
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| My mama said life would be so hard
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| Growin up days as a black girl scarred
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| In so many ways though we’ve come so far
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| They just know the name they don’t know the pain
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| So please hold your heads up high
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| Don’t be ashamed of yourself know I Will carry it forth til the day I die
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| They just know the name they don’t know the pain black girl
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| This is for Beatrice Bertha Benjamin who gave birth to Tsidi Azeeda for Lavender Hill for Kyalisha
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| ALTHLONE, Mitchells Plain, Swazi girls I’m reppin for thee
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| Mannesburg, Guguletu where you’d just be blessed to get thru
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| For beauty shinin thru like the sun at the highest noon
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| From the top of the cable car at Table Mountain; |
| I am you
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| Girls with the skyest blue of eyes and the darkest skin
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| For Cape Colored allied for realizing we’re African
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| For all my cousins back home, the strength of mommy’s backbone
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| The length of which she went for raising, sacrificing her own
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| The pain of not reflecting the range of our complexions
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| For rubber pellet scars on Auntie Elna’s back I march
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| Fist raised caramel shinin in all our glory
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| For Mauritius, St, Helena; |
| my blood is a million stories
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| Winnie for Joan and for Edie, for Norma, Leslie, Ndidi
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| For Auntie Betty, for Melanie; |
| all the same family
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| Fiona, Jo Burg, complex of mixed girls
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| For surviving thru every lie they put into us now
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| The world is yours and I swear I will stand focused
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| Black girls, raise up your hands; |
| the world should clap for us My mama said life would be so hard
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| Growin up days as a black girl scarred
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| In so many ways though we’ve come so far
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| They just know the name they don’t know the pain
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| So please hold your heads up high
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| Don’t be ashamed of yourself know I Will carry it forth til the day I die
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| They just know the name they don’t know the pain black girl |