I've lost 2 sons to the prison system for life.
(Listen to "Dedicated to Justice")
Buried enough blood family to populate a major city.
(Listen to "Happy Birthday Jimel")
My wife and I try to set a living example for family unity and
unconditional love. Then we travel across the nation and testify.
Everything we have we've given away freely. Everything we've
ever needed was given to us freely.
In my lifetime I've marched, fought, bled, cried and sacrificed
for the causes.
A blessing I cherish is that I have walked and talked with people
who gave their lives to bring truth to this world. Ultimate
sacrifices. Real revolutionaries. Not some hair, music or book
revolution bullshit. The kind where blood runs thick in the
streets and tomorrow is far from a certainty.
I've fought so long for this that my children were born on the
front line and in harms way. We've suffered kidnap attempts
and political/religious/social persecutions you only hear about
in folk songs.What kind of revolution are we looking for this
time? I know a few people who can help find it. The Last Poets had something relative to say about revolution.
"don't speak of revolution until you are ready to eat
rats to survive" Gil Scott-Heron had a few choice
words about it too. So did Nikki Giovanni, Tracy Chapman,
Amiri Baraka, Tommy Bottoms, Legacy Leonard, Tribal
Raine and a million other poets who knew what the truth
cost and what the price really was. So
where does the revolution begin now? What line should we stand
in to register online with a chance to win a free i-pod and
a signed copy of some ones latest CD or Book?
Am I a traitor to the cause if my name doesn't start with "FREE
THE JENA SIX!!!!!!"?
How about if I don’t sign a petition for reparations that
I've been told I’m not black enough to cash in on? Ask
Obama bout it. Will my “passes for black” visa be
revoked completely without my name on the dotted line? I’ve
been to Martin’s tomb and seen the crack heads still there
on that same street and even at the tomb itself.
You want a revolution? Start by cleaning up the street named
after one of the greatest civil rights activists in history.
Start right there. In Atlanta GA. You can re - evolve
from there.
Jena six is important. But so are a thousand other daily battles
we fight and die in. What they face today, my sons have already
received at the hands of this system. I didn’t see a “Free
Max’s sons” bulletin/petition going around. There's
a billion sons like mine. You'd better know this fight is so
much bigger than any one person or event.
If you're going to start a revolution then do it now. Write
now. Don’t talk about it. Nike that shit. Just do
it. Don’t stop doing it either. When the crowd goes away
and the camera turns off -you had better still be revolutionizing
everything around you. Otherwise your just profiting on other
people's miseries. Getting a little fame because you wrote the
Jena six theme song they play on the made for TV miniseries.
Get a clue and see who the real down ass soldiers are before
you play god and judge them on MySpace
Slavery is real and happening right now. Genocide, oppression,
starvation, segregation, plague, death, war and inequity. It’s
like pages out of The Book of Revelations and you're complaining
about one battle in a global-temporal war on humanity.
Be real warriors. Pick up your weapons of choice and
fight a real war. I choose the word sword. What will
you choose? Don't get distracted by a single skirmish either.
This fight is bigger than you thought it was and closer to home
than you ever expected. Now I understand why Kamal Imani called
them armchair revolutionaries.
People are a damn trip.
You wouldn’t know it if you saw it.
Too busy hatin’ your brother to build him up
And when Martin died
Our get up and go got stuck
You don’t trust nobody
And don’t wanna learn how
And the only time we come together
Is when it’s in your town
Re-evolve from what?
From where?
With who?
I wanna know.
Cause every day in the USA
There’s a war with casualties
That’s laying us low
Separated so much
We must be Willy Lynches grandkids
And most of us take any little piece of bullshit
That we’ve been handed
What’s the phrase?
“I gotta feed my fam”
Bills to pay, and I’m a responsible man
What are you willing to risk?
Is it flesh,
Blood and bone?
To get freedom, equality, education, and a home to call your own
We believe the hype
And stay stuck in the leash and chain
And until we truly learn to love our brother
Not a damn thing is gonna change
So ask for a revolution all you want
Then go to work, punch your card and pay your taxes
And watch our kids get locked in cells
While the wardens grind the axes
Exercise your vote
Vocalize your opinion
But if this is our revolution
Then we damn sure aint winnin’
Gotta have something worth dying for
For life to be worth living
And there’s gotta be something we cherish
For it to be worth giving
So you say you want a rev o lution…
Well ya know…
(Dain Brammage)
It’s been staring you in the face for years
But you been too busy looking out for number one
To take a look or even begin to care
Yeah, you may have marched on Washington once
Or maybe even twice
But then you go back home to the same ole same ole
Not changing one damn thing in your daily life
For a revolution to take root
The seed must be planted in fertile land
Not in the arid plains of apathy
Or the I’m to busy now desert sand
Our government is running rampant
Trampling out rights and lefts
At every single turn of a corner
It is reminiscent to the rise of Hitler
Just open your eyes a little wider
It is hiding in plain sight
The commonalities are uncanny
But you won’t even look Here, lemme show you
Nazis burned the Reichstag building,
And successfully blamed the fire on the Communists,
Claiming it marked the beginning of a widespread terrorism
And unrest threatening the safety of the German "Homeland."
Hitler’s Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution
Permitted the suspension of civil liberties
During national emergencies
All of this led to the Enabling Act
Sound Familiar?
When Bush said he was making a pre-emptive strike
You acted like those three little monkeys
Who see hear and speak no evil
When he said he wanted to enforce peace
You turned the other cheek just like most of our people
And when Rumsfeld had to backpedaled
Regarding the weapons of mass destruction
You apparently felt that the ends justified the means
All the while our rights here on our own soil
Have been trampled under foot in the rush
To steal foreign oil and line the pockets
Of corporations whose conflicted interests
Are swept under the rug of foreign policy injustice
History tends to repeat itself
Do you willingly want to be party to this
You can sit on your ass and do nothing
But these issues will persist
So there’s you damn worth dying for
That makes this life worth living
It’s also your cherished something
To make this fight worth winning
So you say you want a rev o lution…
Well now ya know…
Go out and do something about it
