"It started with slave ships...
There are more records of slave ships than one would dream. It seems inconceivable until you reflect that for 200 years ships sailed carrying cargo of slaves.
be non...
be non...
be nonviolent...
in the face of the...
violence that we've been experiencing for the past 400 years
is actually doing our people a disservice
in fact, its a crime
its a crime
Confusion!
Here come the drums
Confusion!
Here come the drums
Alright Alright"
Public Enemy
"Can't Truss It"
Apocalypse 91...The Enemy Strikes Black
1991
This is a diary mash up of a terrific graphic and the bombastic rhymes of Public Enemy. Listen to the song while you read over the graphic and think about how far we have come.
Bass in your face
Not an eight track
Gettin' it good to the wood
So the people
Give you some a dat
Reactin' to the fax
That I kick and it stick
And it stay around
Pointin' to the joint put the Buddha down
Goin' goin' gettin' to the roots
Ain't givin' it up
So turn me loose
But then again I got a story
That's harder than the hardcore
Cost of the holocaust
I'm talin' 'bout the one still goin' on
I know
Where I'm from, not dumb diddie dumb
From the base motherland
The place of the drum
Invaded by the wack diddie wack
Fooled the black, left us faded
King and chief probably had a big beef
Because of dat now I grit my teeth
So here's a song to the strong
'Bout a shake of a snake
And the smile went along wit dat
Can't truss it
Kickin' wicked rhymes
Like a fortune teller
'Cause the wickedness done by Jack
Where everybody at
Divided and sold
For liquor and the gold
Smacked in the back
For the other man to mack
Now the story that I'm kickin' is gory
Little Rock where they be
Dockin' this boat
No hope I'm shackled
Plus gang tackled
By the other hand swingin' the rope
Wearin' red, white and blue Jack and his crew
The guy's authorized beat down for the brown
Man to the man, each one so it teach one
Born to terrorize sisters and every brother
One love who said it
I know Whodini sang it
But the hater taught hate
That's why we gang bang it
Beware of the hand
When it's comin' from the left
I ain't trippin' just watch ya step
Can't truss it
An I judge everyone, one by the one
Look here come the judge
Watch it here he come now
I can only guess what's happ'nin'
Years ago he woulda been
The ships captain
Gettin' me bruised on a cruise
What I got to lose, lost all contact
Got me layin' on my back
Rollin' in my own leftover
When I roll over, I roll over in somebody else's
90 F--kin' days on a slave ship
Count 'em fallin' off 2, 3, 4 hun'ed at a time
Blood in the wood and it's mine
I'm chokin' on spit feelin' pain
Like my brain bein' chained
Still gotta give it what I got
But it's hot in the day, cold in the night
But I thrive to survive, I pray to god to stay alive
Attitude boils up inside
And that ain't it (think I'll every quit)
Still I pray to get my hands 'round
The neck of the man wit' the whip
3 months pass, they brand a label on my ass
To signify
Owned
I'm on the microphone
Sayin' 1555
How I'm livin'
We been livin' here
Livin' ain't the word
I been givin'
Haven't got
Classify us in the have-nots
Fightin' haves
'Cause it's all about money
When it comes to Armageddon
Mean I'm getting mine
Here I am turn it over Sam
427 to the year
Do you understand
That's why it's hard
For the black to love the land
Once again
Bass in your face
Not an eight track
Gettin' it good to the wood
So the people
Give you some a dat
Reactin' to the fax
That I kick and it stick
And it stay around
Pointin' to the joint, put the Buddha down
Goin', goin', gettin' to the roots
Ain't givin' it up
So turn me loose
But then again I got a story
That's harder than the hardcore
Cost of the holocaust
I'm talin' 'bout the one still goin' on
I know
Where I'm from, not dumb diddie dumb
From the base motherland
The place of the drum
Invaded by the wack diddie wack
Fooled the black, left us faded
King and chief probably had a big beef
Because of dat now I grit my teeth
So here's a song to the strong
'Bout a shake of a snake
And the smile went along wit dat
Can't truss it
I found this very moving and thought I'd include it here:
From "Alex Haley Tells The Story of His Search For Roots"
Haley ended with this: "And then I reflected about how it seems to me that all of us, everyone of us, it does not matter who, have a stake in something that I thought to be one of the most stirring, moving dramatic, heartrending things I came upon in the study of the culture of Afrika for the book, ‘Roots’. And that was the thing that had to do with how babies were named.
"In this land that we have all heard about as heathens, savages peopling it. That in this land 200, 300, 400 years ago in any little village when a baby was born the people of the village would not see much of the father for seven days because he was occupied with going about keeping pretty much to himself, thinking up a good meaningful significant name for this infant. And bear in mind these ‘heathens’ and ’savages’ we’ve heard so much about, that these babies are the ancestors of we Black people here in the United States today.
"On the eighth day the people of the village would gather at that particular little circular mud wall home with the thatched roof and there would be a stool sitting just outside. The people brought with them, in the Mandinka culture anyway, a jaliba, a drummer, who brought a cylindrical drum called the tan-tan. And then they had another man there, the equivalent of our minister, they called him the alimamo. And the jaliba would give a roll on his drum and the people would stand rigidly at attention. A second roll on the drum and the mother who had been inside waiting for that signal now would step out and sit herself on this stool. Holding the little eight day old infant – these ‘heathens’ and ‘savages’. The third roll on the drum and the alimamo would step forth and bless the gathering because this had happened to everybody there when they were eight days of age. And then the next roll, the father would come from the bush where he was waiting somewhere, just for this signal. And now this father would walk over with every eye on him – his fellow villagers, his neighbours, his tribesmen – and he would walk over to where the mother sat holding this little eight-day-old infant. And the father now would bend and he would lift up this infant and he would turn it so that one of its ears was very close to his lips and into that tiny ear that father would whisper the name he had selected three times. And the thinking of these alleged heathens and savages in doing it this way was that the individual thus named always would be the first to know who he was.
"Those are the ancestors of us, as a people. And it seems to me that the symbolism for us all having nothing whatsoever to do with our race, whatever race we maybe, but just us people as human beings. It seems to me the potential of us and the symbol for us is contained in the second part of the baby naming ceremony. And that was that night when the father now alone would take his infant a distance away from the village. And he would hold it up so that its face, its eyes, looked up towards the firmament, the stars and the moon. And the father would speak to his infant, again the symbol for us all and our potentials, the quote: ‘Behold, the only thing greater than thyself!’"