Brother (Watching) - SHAD

I try to hold some hope in my heart

For these African youths

Coming up where I’m from

Many traps to elude

Surrounded by Mostly white and affluent dudes

And somehow, you expected to have

Mastered this smooth

Swagger and move

With the right walk, the right talk

Fashion and crews

Souls subtly attacked and abused

And what’s funny’s being black wasn’t cool

Where I’m from til suddenly

You started hearing rap in the school

Hallways

Admist this madness I grew

With knack for amusing through this little skill

For rappin at dudes

An' we all like to laugh at the truth

But when you young and same facts

Pertain to who you rappin em to Well, I opted not to bring

That to the booth

But after a while, it sort of starts naggin at you

The crazed infatuation with blackness

That trash that gets viewed

And the fact that the tube only showed blacks

Actin the fool and I was watching…

(saturated with negative images and a limited range of Possibilities is strange…)

And it’s sad cause that naturally do Sort of condition your mind and over time

That’s what’s attractive to you

So young blacks don’t see themselves in Scholastic pursuits

Or the more practical routes

It’s makin tracks or it’s hoops

Or God-forbid movin packs for the loot

Even with this music we so limited — it’s rap or produce

And that narrow conception of what’s black isn’t true

Of course, still we feel forced to adapt to this view

Like there’s something that you’re havin to prove

Now add that to the slew

Of justification the capitalists use

For the new blaxploitation

Many actions excused

In the name of getting cash

That’s adversely impactin our youth

With mental slavery, the shackles is loose

And it’s hard to cut chains when they attached at the roots

So what the new black activists do For our freedom is just being them

Do what you’re passionate to Not confined by a sense that you have to disprove

Any stereotypes, so-called facts to refute

Or match any image of blackness

They’ve established as true

Perhaps we’ll break thru the glass ceilings

Shatter the roof and emerge

From these boxes that they have us in cooped

And grow to smash the mould that they casted of you

I’ll keep watching…