(Now brothers and sisters)

(The revolution will not be televised)

(Let us have something black

Let us have something black we like

Let us have some black merchants

Let us have some black stores

Let us have something black in a black community)





A revolution of the mind is at hand

These are trying times for the blackman

Reaganomics, economics didn't benefit me

Federal funds are cut so minorities suffer

So wake up cause things could get rougher

See, we the people have enough of

The stereotypes, media hypes

Pieces and bits (Yeah Rob, I'm hip)

Police brutality brings another casualty

Thought the kid had a gun so he bust one

What a way to die

Reachin for an ID, the cop said, "Try me"

Age 12 in the Amsterdam



Now there's a riot, officers deny it

And they wish it was quiet

But it's not, when will the bloodshed stop?

A cop gets shot, now everyone's in shock

Tension's on the rise

Do the Right Thing was no surprise to me

Thank God for a brother like Spike Lee

Who tells the truth just like me

(People, people) Don't you know it's time?

(What time is it?) For a revolution of the mind



(Now brothers and sisters)

(The revolution will not be televised)

(Oh mercy, mercy me)

(Oh mercy, mercy me)





Some brothers don't wanna go to school

If you cut it's cool, an unwritten rule

Among your peers, chippin in for quarts of beer

Smoke vapes in a Phillie, then you're straight

Won't stay in your school 

(Brothers and sisters) It's your own doom

Get your diploma and one day you'll own a

Mansion or a yacht, so please don't mock

My words, I'll never steer you wrong

Master Rob (Too black, too strong)

Take a look at the fold

School text books are forty years old

Or the fed bureaucracy

Straighten up so I can see

Black, white, Puerto-Rican, Dominican

Our schools are diminishin

Gang violence on the rise, 25 to life

Shanked with a knife, takes a brother's life

Just because he's not from the block

Now you wanna be a hardrock

People press charges and now you're in a fix

So take a trip to see 76

Neighborhood thug with a picture of your mug

You almost caught a slug cause you wanted to bug

Respect your own kind

But it's gonna take a revolution of the mind



(Brothers and sisters

In the name of Allah the all-wise true and living God

The one to whom all praise is due

We thank you together in unity and harmony)





Mr David Dinkins made a speech

Still I'll never buy a slice in Howard Beach

And if I get rolled up the brother won't fold up

I reach for the steel and say, "Hold up"

Seen a lotta things in my days

And that's why I'm set in my ways

Won't turn the other cheek, to me that's weak

Whatever's on my mind I'll speak

400 years over here

Made more contributions than Shakespeare

Still genocide is the scheme

Martin Luther King had a dream

Things ain't always what they seem

That's why Malcolm X was more extreme

Both were killed durin the fight

Because the man doesn't want us to unite

Floods our community with crack

Shatter your dreams front and back

Steal money from your moms, take gold from a baby

Yo my brother, that's crazy

Revolutionize your priorities

And you'll see the joy that life brings

Reach for the sky, hold your head high and sing

(Don't you worry 'bout a thing)

(Don't you worry 'bout a thing)



(And 

That when he said, "Please don't hit me"

Do you think that they said, "Oh gee, he's not a black American

We won't beat him

They kept kicking his butt

Those people have to remember that they are still black people

On a dark street in a white neighborhood you are still black

It's a shame that black folks are still rewarded for betraying their own community

And we're the only group of people that is rewarded for that

White people do not respect other white people who turn on their community

They may say they do because it's the right thing to do and all

But in the back of their minds they do not respect it)