Black

Look, black is beautiful, black is excellent

Black is pain, black is joy, black is evident

It's workin' twice as hard as the people you know you're better than

'Cause you need to do double what they do so you can level them

Black is so much deeper than just African-American

Our heritage been severed, you never got to experiment

With family trees, 'cause they teach you 'bout famine and greed

And show you pictures of our fam on their knees

Tell us we used to be barbaric, we had actual queens

Black is watchin' child soldiers gettin' killed by other children

Feelin' sick, like: Oh shit, this could have happened to me

Your mummy watchin' tellin' stories 'bout your dad and your niece

The blacker the berry the sweeter the juice

A kid dies, the blacker the killer, the sweeter the news

And if he's white you give him a chance, he's ill and confused

If he's black he's probably armed, you see him and shoot

Look, black is growin' up around the barbershop

Mummy sayin': Stay away from trouble, you’re in yard a lot

Studying for ages, appreciatin' the chance you got

'Cause black is in your blood, and you ain't even got the heart to stop

Black is steppin' in for your mother because your father's gone

And standin' by your children when you haven't proven karma wrong

Black is doin' all of the above then goin' corner shoppin'

Tryna help a lady cross the road to have her walkin' off

Black is growin' up around your family and makin' it

Then being forced to leave the place you love because there's hate in it

People say you fake the shit, never stayed to change the shit

But black is bein' jealous, you'd be dead if you had stayed in it

Black is strugglin' to find your history or trace the shit

You don't know the truth about your race 'cause they erasin' it

Black has got a sour fuckin' flavour, here's a taste of it

But black is all I know, there ain't a thing that I would change in it

Look, black ain't just a single fuckin' colour, man there's shades to it

Her hair's straight and thick but mine's got waves in it

Black is not divisive, they been lyin' and I hate the shit

Black has never been a competition, we don't make this shit

Black is deadly

Black is when you're freezin' in your home and you can't get sleep but never feelin' empty

'Cause you got 20 cousins in your country living stress-free

Walkin' for their water, daughter wrapped inside a bed sheet

Black is distant, it's representin' countries that never even existed while your grandmother was livin'

Black is my Ghanaian brother readin' into scriptures

Doin' research on his lineage, findin' out that he's Egyptian

Black is people namin' your countries on what they trade most

Coast of Ivory, Gold Coast, and the Grain Coast

But most importantly to show how deep all this pain goes

West Africa, Benin, they called it slave coast

Black is so confusin', 'cause the culture? They're in love with it

They take our features when they want and have their fun with it

Never seem to help with all the things we know would come with it

Loud in our laughter, silent in our sufferin'

Black is bein' strong inside and facing defeat

Poverty made me a beast, I battled the law in the streets

We all struggled, but your struggle ain't a struggle like me

Well how could it be when your people gave us the odds that we beat?

I mean, fuckin' hell, what about our brothers that are stuck in jail?

That couldn't bust a bell, they held a bird and gotta live with it

Black is bein' guilty until proven that you're innocent

Black is sayin': Free my fucking niggas stuck inside in prison cells

They think it's funny, we ain't got nothin' to say to them

Unconditional love is strange to them; it's amazin' 'em

Black is like the sweetest fuckin' flavour, here's a taste of it

But black is all I know, there ain't a thing that I would change in it