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 Godforbid 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, socalled 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 bold that they casted of you