Damn you doing it Brother you're a true Educator

Please visit http://phd.aydeethegreat.com for better quality audio download of this dissertation project.

Owning My Masters: The Rhetorics of Rhymes and Revolutions

[Yes, yes. 
This is a topic that’s near and dear to my heart. 

I’m just try’n’a eat.]

[Hook]
I ain’t had dinner,
and I ain’t ate a thing all day.
Lord, forgive me…
Lord, forgive me…
the thing that I’m trying to say 
is I think I should eat alone.
Bitch, don’t steal my fries.
Bitch, don’t steal my fries.

I can see you eyeing them, but get up off my tray, 
I got my drink, I got my food, and I would share them, but today I’m hungry,
Bitch, don’t steal my fries.
Bitch, don’t steal my fries.
Bitch, don’t steal my fries.
Bitch, don’t steal my fries.

[1]
We just went through the drive-thru, and when I asked you if you want food,
you replied all politely and you denied it like it was cool. 

I can feel the hunger. 
I could have guessed that you would just assume I would prob’ly wanna
share with you, but how dare you to, because I am not yo’ momma,
and I ain’t here to feed ya.
I’m sorry, but 
you’re shit out of luck, 
and I ain’t trying to tease ya,

but a second ago when we was in the car
you should have said, before I got my straw,
“You know what? I’m hungry. I should get a burger.”
And said it loud enough so I could’ve heard ya.
I’d hate for my dinner to turn to a murder.
You can’t get a piece, and you can’t get a third of
my food, and it’s rude and it’s kind of absurd, I
wish you would have knew and just made you a purchase.

I can feel the hunger. 
I could have guessed that you would just assume I would prob’ly wanna
share with you, but how dare you to, because I am not yo’ momma,
and I ain’t here to feed ya.
I’m sorry, but 
you’re shit out of luck, 
and I ain’t trying to tease ya.

[Hook]
I ain’t had dinner,
and I ain’t ate a thing all day.
Lord, forgive me…
Lord, forgive me…
the thing that I’m trying to say 
is I think I should eat alone.
Bitch, don’t steal my fries.
Bitch, don’t steal my fries.

I can see you eyeing them, but get up off my tray, 
I got my drink, I got my food, and I would share them, but today I’m hungry,
Bitch, don’t steal my fries.
Bitch, don’t steal my fries.
Bitch, don’t steal my fries.
Bitch, don’t steal my fries.

[2]
I’m try’n’a keep myself calm 
and not just respond because I’m pissed off,
but fact is that shit is backwards; 
can’t warm it up, and you ain’t Kris Kross.

And I’m looking right past you.
You can get mad, but you can take that shit down to White Castle.

I know you got cash, and they make it fast, so it ain’t a hassle.
Get off yo’ ass and get you some food of your own to eat,
‘cause you ain’t getting none of mine [for real!]
You ain’t getting none of mine [for real!]

So spare me the pitiful look.
If you could cook you could make something that took
minimal time, but you can’t have none of mine.
I’m sorry, but no, not this time.
Burger King, Jack In The Box, Panda Wok—so many choices you got.

Get you a Happy Meal; ask for a box.
Get you a Happy Meal; ask for a box.

I can feel the hunger. 
I could have guessed that you would just assume I would prob’ly wanna
share with you, but how dare you to, because I am not yo’ momma,
and I ain’t here to feed ya.
I’m sorry, but 
you’re shit out of luck, 
and I ain’t trying to tease ya.

[Hook]
I ain’t had dinner,
and I ain’t ate a thing all day.
Lord, forgive me…
Lord, forgive me…
the thing that I’m trying to say 
is I think I should eat alone.
Bitch, don’t steal my fries.
Bitch, don’t steal my fries.

I can see you eyeing them, but get up off my tray, 
I got my drink, I got my food, and I would share them, but today I’m hungry,
Bitch, don’t steal my fries.
Bitch, don’t steal my fries.
Bitch, don’t steal my fries.
Bitch, don’t steal my fries.

[3]
Bitch, don’t steal my fries.
I ain’t try’n’a front, though.
I would prob’ly share, but I ain’t even had no lunch, so
thinkin’ you can prob’ly get a nugget out my ten piece,
an onion ring, or my hush puppy might be tempting, 
but I ain’t try’n’a share my entrée or dessert with you.
That Dutch Apple Pie is all mine, so stop staring, boo.

Bitch, don’t steal my fries.
Bitch, don’t steal my fries.

Walk out that door, get in the car and take that drive. 
My New Year’s resolution is to not make this confusing,
if we’re in the drive-thru, then order something that’s for you, 
I’m saying, 
Bitch, don’t steal my fries.
Bitch, don’t steal my fries.
Bitch, don’t steal my fries.
Bitch, don’t steal my fries.

[I suppose…

now that you know better you can do better.

<Aha-ha>

It’s A. Dot…

That’s real talk….]

Bitch, Don't Steal My Fries

Intro [Yes, yes.

And so the journey begins.

You know how it feels, 
and I’m pretty sure you understand, too…

Yeah…

Ha!

Good looking out, Truth!

I finally made my move, 
and I figured I’d give you an update
on where I’m at right now.]

[MALCOLM X (as portrayed by Denzel Washington): 
“What would you call an educated Negro with a BA, or an MA, or a BS or a PhD?
I’ll tell you. You call him a Nigger! That’s what.”]


[1]
They say History is written by the victors,
so when you see my picture
in the book it’ll be consistent with my memory, 
my victories, my tendencies that tempered me and wintered me.
Cold, like those Chi City winds, ‘cause they’re blistering.

It’s in my DNA.
It’s in my bloodline.
What I do is much deeper than a punchline.

Where I’m from crime
is the norm.
Bullets hail—we stay calm amidst the storm.

I say ‘we’ because
when I say ‘me’ it’s us.
When I say ‘you’ it’s me, too, and vice versa.
It’s not much that needs to be proven in nice verses.
Write cursive—scribble out—print it like I meant it.
My people *closed* minded—
wear it if you fit it.
Rarely niggas get it. If they did it would be critically acclaimed.

But still the same A. Dot.
Still focused on my vision at a rate they not.

[Hook]
Still hoping for some healing from this place I got to,
and knowing niggas feel it when I say ‘I got you.’

is enough to keep me cool for the moment. 
School in the mornings,
teach in the evenings and be decent. 

No time to sleep in;
just create these
statements like a dissertation for a PhD

[“What would you call an educated Negro with a BA, or an MA, or a BS or a PhD?
I’ll tell you. You call him a Nigger! That’s what.”]

[2]
So, I finally made my move to the South, and as I’m moving about
I get a better understanding what my roots is about,
because my people from here, and though I can’t see ‘em from here
they’re reflected in my expressions
so you’re hearing ‘em clear.

They ask me, “Why would you leave?”
I ask ‘em, “How could I stay
and be limited on the shit I have the power to say?”

I’m thinking years in the future.
They’re thinking now and today,
like getting showered with flowers, 
not in the aisle at your grave.

It’s hard to make it make sense.
My momma proud as can be, 
but says, “I thought you left before to get a college degree?”
And as I tell her, “I did, but I’m going back in the summer.”
it kind of makes me wonder what the fuck I’ll do with another.

It’s nothing more than a question—rhetorical one, at that.
I mean, the fact is all of this shit started off with a rap.
And if I’m still doing that
I think I’m doing okay.
If it ain’t complimentary, then you ain’t got shit to say [to me].

[Hook]
Still hoping for some healing from this place I got to,
and knowing niggas feel it when I say ‘I got you.’

is enough to keep me cool for the moment. 
School in the mornings,
teach in the evenings and be decent. 

No time to sleep in;
just create these
statements like a dissertation for a PhD

[“What would you call an educated Negro with a BA, or an MA, or a BS or a PhD?
I’ll tell you. You call him a Nigger! That’s what.”]

[3]
Because you read it in a book,
thought that it was true;
saw it on the television—thought that it was you.
Self-fulfilling politics get taught to you at school.
Brolic ‘cause you brought with it a positively rude
mind state. I keep mine like a blind date:

I can be objective, 
I can be accepting, 
but I’d rather be selective.
If I’m not respected I’m the wrong nigga to f’ with.
If you saw my checklist
you knew this was next. It’s 
not a matter of simply rapping.
I really happen to have a strategy being enacted.

If you know, you know I ain’t afraid of spittin’
what I know is true ‘cause I’m south of the Mason-Dixon.
If I know the Truth it’s my duty to make revisions;
showing my peoples’ beauty and skewing what They envision.

I make my living off the things that I think.
Therefore, I am. 
I’ll give that a minute to sink [in].

[Hook]
Still hoping for some healing from this place I got to,
and knowing niggas feel it when I say ‘I got you.’

is enough to keep me cool for the moment. 
School in the mornings,
teach in the evenings and be decent. 

No time to sleep in;
just create these
statements like a dissertation for a PhD

[“What would you call an educated Negro with a BA, or an MA, or a BS or a PhD?
I’ll tell you. You call him a Nigger! That’s what.”]

Dissertation [Part 1: The Introduction] Prod By Truth

[Huey P. Newton: “One of my principles is that contradiction is a ruling principle of the universe, and everything—and phenomena, whether it’s the physical world, or the biologic world, or the social world, has its internal contradiction that gives motion to things—that internal strain. And much of the time that we homo sapiens don’t realize that no matter what sort of conditions we establish, no matter what government we establish, at this point, there also will be that internal contradiction that will have to be resolved, and resolved in a rational, just way. And, of course that leads us to somewhat—it’s very vague on how to deal with it. And many times we claim actions are revolutionary, when really they’re not.”]

[1]
They want rap, not a tap dance minstrel show
so they can’t help but wanna follow where my pencil go. 
I’m like the ghost of Wu Tang’s Bobby Digital’s analog catalog
trapped inside your stereo.

Not mercurial, but open to change.
Came during the drought when you was hoping for rain,
praying to HOV. I was opening lanes
on the right side, solo, joking and playing. It’s like

‘Beat Street’ meets Oscar The Grouch—
traditions that used to exist, got argued about
and took over—consumerism hollowed ‘em out.
Now everybody’s scratching heads, like “What’s the problem about?”

If you can’t see the boogey man but you spooked,
and you can tell a lot about a tree from the roots,
then it don’t really matter what you do to the fruit,
‘cause you ain’t eatin’ what you thinkin’ is like venom to you.

I represent niggas that been in the booth—
spittin’ truth, so our peers call us venerable. 
Ladies get disrespected, and dinners are few, 
so they all *bear a tone* like a *ten or a two,*

but be careful who you mention it to, 
‘cause I got sisters, a mother, and living is proof
that they’re queens, no borough, and itching to prove 
that I’ll put you Down Under like a didgeridoo.

Murder metaphor, red caped matador.
Niggas kill niggas every day, why battle for a title,
‘cause if you look like me, you’re my rival, 
but mix it with some ignorance, and you can be my idol.

I’m ‘bout to remix 'America the Beautiful'
to ‘The Takeover’ beat, I’m sure it’ll be suitable, 
write three rhymes, solidify me undisputable, 
start a revolution, have ‘em play it at my funeral,

and print my name on they t-shirts, black, solid with
prophecies spoken by Socrates with politics 
that’s paradoxical—on a beach somewhere tropical
sippin’ daiquiris with Tupac, Scott LaRock and Obama. 
*Solemn*—alaikum is the statement. 
Peace to the people, pray you never be complacent, 
and never strive for parallel if you were born adjacent.  
Simple statement:  I’m saying always strive for greatness. 

Yes, yes.

[Reporter: “Are you not, perhaps, afraid of what might happen to you as a result of making these revelations?”

[Malcolm X: “Oh, yes. I probably am a dead man already.”

“No. I don’t worry. I tell you, I’m a man who believed that I died twenty years ago. And I live like a man who is dead already. I have no fear whatsoever of anybody or anything.”]

Internal Contradiction [The Showdown] Prod By Preme

I'm Back

"[1]
They want what’s similar to what’s been on the radio.
Say it’s no big deal, but if I’m for real, it is, but pay me no
credit, cash, debit, slash, let it pass, with no assist.
No resistance, know a listener can tell the difference.
I really wish I gave a fuck about what other people do. 
I really don’t, but want you to feel like I wrote this song for you. 

But it was writer’s block that prompted it, and me, who wanted it.
My promise is my narcissistic nature won’t be charmed by which-
ever one’s opinionated statements about how I made it.
I’m elated if you hate it. I’m complacent if you love it.
I put myself way above it—see it like an ant farm.
Can’t harm what you can’t touch. And I’ll give it up
before I let it be perverted, you heard it from me directly.
It’s silly if I ask you to, but I don’t respect me. 

Let me make myself real clear here—you niggas coonin’ and buffoonin’ 
and doing more damage to you than who you 
think is your enemy. Foolish, to think that men’ll see you
and then emulate your example. You see it clear like a sample. 
The opportunity’s ample, so you don’t put up a fight. 
Just sell what’s already there, ‘cause it’s your copy to write.
Rite of passage is the massive misinformation you faced and made believe 
you understood—that was the ace up your sleeve. 
So you sat down at the table to play. They made it look fun. 
You thought you had the high card, they told you you were the one.
And you were. 

Sometimes you play a game and win, but despite
your winning at it, somehow you find something missing in life.
Like for me? I’ll take the L before I take a few dollars
if I gotta endorse a product that I know to be harmful. 
Where’s the honor in a nigga being a nigga for sell?
May as well put on your heavy chain and work in the fields. 
How do you make a slave stay a slave? Tell him he can make a slave, 
and make some money while he’s at. It’s simple and tragic.

[2]
If Willie Lynch was just a myth but his invention still persisted
would it matter if we saw ourselves as chattel and we battled one another?
I was raised to hate my brother, so I hate him, 
and I hate the woman who created him. And maybe from
a certain angle,  if you strain to see the truth, then you could see
that what it really is I’m dealing with has more to do with me, 
but I’m afraid of truth, and hate that you remind me who I am, 
and that’s related to the way I grew up trying to understand
how I could make it through this place and do what I was meant to, and
face the fact that I was snatched from home and brought to tend the land.
‘Cause that’s the complicated kind of truth America the Beautiful
would hate to help me deal with, plus I feel it’s kind of mutually
beneficial if I’m killin’ niggas and she want ‘em dead
as much as she wants me to go away. A bounty’s on my head.

So they can ask for gun control and more restrictions, 
they can’t satiate the hunger that she has for hanging niggas.
I’m a proxy and a peon; a patsy taking orders; 
Apache scout attacking scalps and trying to save my borders;
a hoarder on a hunt for blood, I’m crippled by the thirst, 
so I’m riffin' over turf and bitches bitchin’ it gets worse
because my women wanna curse a cursed nigga. I am first 
A man who ain’t a man, but kind of mannish so it hurts
to think about it, be surrounded by it, even be convicted; 
to see it and believe it, talk about it and bear witness.
 
Fuck til death do us part, wellness or in sickness. 
I wanna see your thickness—twerk something—be my mistress, 
be my bitch. I’ll treat you like the bitch you is, and we’ll be living. 
Then we can have some children…and you could raise them brilliant…
or you could raise them feeling how I feel about us all…
the strangest kind of fruit to ever fall…

You could raise them how I feel about us all…
the strangest kind of fruit to ever fall."







Willie Revisited [Prod. by Preme]

Somebody in the crowd yells, 
“Impeach the DJ!” 
and almost on cue 
he places the needle tip down on the record
and the break-beat begins, 
“Ladies & Gentlemen…” 
immediately following a 
boom…bap…boom-boom-boom…bap…

At that exact moment 
I know that we can have our own political party—
That we need 
our own political party.
boom…bap…boom-boom-boom…bap, “Ladies & Gentlemen…”

Right next to the DJ booth is the voting booth, 
so right after you vote 
you can request your favorite song…
boom…bap…boom-boom-boom…bap, “Ladies & Gentlemen…”
but you have to be registered 
to vote, 
which means you have to be registered 
to make any other requests…

“Ladies & Gentlemen…”

And the dress code is ‘Sunday’s Best’
boom…bap…boom-boom-boom…bap, “Ladies & Gentlemen…”
and after you request your favorite song, 
you can elect to not be enslaved by the legislation, 
which the DJ will read over the beat…
boom…bap…boom-boom-boom…bap, “Ladies & Gentlemen…”
…bap…boom-boom-boom…bap…Please pay attention to the hook…
boom-bap…Please pay attention…boom-boom-boom…bap, “Ladies & Gentlemen…”
…bap…boom-boom-boom…bap…

Then, he slaps the crossfader, and says, 
“This is a paid advertisement from your sponsors…”
slap—boom-boom-boom—slap
“Hennessey Very Special Cognac & The Jordan Sneaker Company…”
slap—boom-boom-boom—slap
“You’re encouraged to vote with your wallets…”
slap—boom-boom-boom…bap, “Ladies & Gentlemen…”
…bap…boom-boom-boom…bap…

And the people are in a trance, dancing, drinking and carrying on. 

The line at the DJ booth is bustlin’
because the hustlers want to hear Hustler Music,
and somebody wants You’re Only A Customer.
So the DJ says, “I do customized mix tapes for almost pennies a song.”
Then, Biggie’s Dead Wrong is mixed in, 
and just when you think it can’t get any liver
the crowd almost rises in unison, 
and I’m thinking dude can spin whatever record he wants and have them
moving to it, 
so I’m pretty sure he could lead our political party 
with slide dances 
and chants of “Do my ladies run this muthafucka?”

Now, “Do my fellas run this muthafucka?”

“I said the roof…the roof…the roof is on fire.  
We don’t need no water…”


And before last call, everybody who wants their voice heard 
has their song played, 
unless the DJ decides it would interrupt the mix, 
in which case you get a mix tape at a considerable discount…
and your song goes to the top of the list next time around…

“No guarantees,” 
the DJ says as the lights come up, 
“We don’t want to ruin a good time.”

And the people leave, satisfied. 

And the DJ goes to the back room to collect his check. 

The club owner smiles, 
tosses him cash, and they have a good laugh

about Politics As Usual.

Impeach The President

"Performed by The 2nd Carolina String Band/Loius Farrakhan. 

According to Wikipedia, ""Dixie", also known as "I Wish I Was in Dixie", "Dixie's Land", and other titles, is a popular American song. It is one of the most distinctively American musical products of the 19th century, and probably the best-known song to have come out of blackface minstrelsy. Although not a folk song at its creation, "Dixie" has since entered the American folk vernacular. The song likely cemented the word "Dixie" in the American vocabulary as a synonym for the Southern United States.

Most sources credit Ohio-born Daniel Decatur Emmett with the song's composition; however many other people have claimed to have composed "Dixie", even during Emmett's lifetime. Compounding the problem of definitively establishing the song's authorship are Emmett's own confused accounts of its writing, and his tardiness in registering the song's copyright. The latest challenge has come on behalf of the Snowden Family of Knox County, Ohio, who may have collaborated with Emmett to write "Dixie".

The song originated in the blackface minstrel shows of the 1850s and quickly grew famous across the United States. Its lyrics, written in a comic, exaggerated version of African American Vernacular English, tell the story of a freed black slave pining for the plantation of his birth. During the American Civil War, "Dixie" was adopted as a de facto anthem of the Confederacy. New versions appeared at this time that more explicitly tied the song to the events of the Civil War. Since the advent of the North American Civil Rights Movement, many have identified the lyrics of the song with the iconography and ideology of the Old South. Today, "Dixie" is sometimes considered offensive, and its critics link the act of singing it to sympathy for the concept of slavery in the American South. Its supporters, on the other hand, view it as a legitimate aspect of Southern culture and heritage and the campaigns against it as political correctness. The song was a favorite of President Abraham Lincoln: he had it played at some of his political rallies and at the announcement of General Robert E. Lee's surrender."

Louis Farrakhan, according to Wikipedia, "is the leader of the syncretic and mainly African-American religious movement the Nation of Islam (NOI). He served as the minister of major mosques in Boston and Harlem, and was appointed by the longtime NOI leader, Elijah Muhammad, as the National Representative of the Nation of Islam. After Warith Deen Muhammad disbanded the NOI and started the orthodox Islamic group American Society of Muslims, Farrakhan started rebuilding the NOI. In 1981 he revived the name Nation of Islam for his organization, previously known as Final Call, regaining many of the Nation of Islam's National properties including the NOI National Headquarters Mosque Maryam, reopening over 130 NOI mosques in America and the world. The Southern Poverty Law Center describes Farrakhan as antisemitic and anti-white. Farrakhan himself, however, disputes this view of his ideology."

Intro [I'm Doing The Talking]

Walking Revolution (feat Dee-1 & Mama Sol)

The site of “the most exciting 25 seconds in college football”
was made possible by profits from the most shameful centuries in America’s history,
but come to the campus of Clemson University,
and you’d hardly be able to tell it from looking around. [i]

Solid Orange, you’ll see. [ii]

The grounds are perfectly manicured—alluring—
and monuments to the greatness that creates such institutions
stand as reminders from whence we came,
and since we gain so much from what we see,
we smile,
proud of the great tradition of which we have the benefit of saying we are now a part.

Solid Orange, we are.

And it’s easy to buy in—
it starts with “The Song that Shakes the Southland”
and a sea of solid orange—‘Tiger Rags’ that kind of grab you and say,

“You are now a member of this family!
You are now a Clemson Tiger.
Wear your orange proudly.”

but
it’s a pretty well known fact that tigers have stripes,
and almost as well known is the reason they do,
yet, Clemson University—home of the Tigers—
doesn’t do much acknowledging of
those dark marks it knows to be so integral a part
of its existence.

“Solid Orange,” we say…

at this university that was once a plantation,
slavery being “a positive good” according to Master Calhoun,
whose house sits, still,
on a plot atop a hill
overlooking the football field
—open seven days a week,
and I can even enter through the front door.

What I cannot do, however, is depend on the tour guide to give me the whole history
of the foundations of my university, because—
for some reason or another—
it’s uncomfortable for some people to talk about
slave owners, supremacists and segregationists on those terms,

or

it’s unknown to the individual responsible
for the dissemination of that information
about this place,
but

twenty score
and many more years ago
our forefathers brought forth on this continent
our forefathers and our foremothers
and exploited them for hundreds of years,
which led to our being
conceived in captivity
and “dedicated to the proposition”
that history is a matter
of telling the story that makes us look best.

“Solid Orange,” I think,

and that forces me to confront my active participation in
not only the crime, but the cover-up—
the whitewashing, with orange, of the dark parts of a
history meant to be instructional, lest we repeat it,

and
I repeatedly walk past the
Strom Thurmond Institute of Government and Public Affairs
and wonder, “Was it there that our ancestors were whipped?”
Because it happened.

Slavery was big business,
and
being black meant
you made profits to keep your master in the black,
and
if the master went into the red,
he’d see red and you’d be likely to wear
red stripes across your back—

fact.

And if that
is an uncomfortable truth for the institution, so be it.
These are the stripes we bear,

so see them.

Slavery, sharecropping and convict labor
paved the streets and sidewalks of this “high seminary of learning,”
and earning a degree from here tethers me to the legacy of that
and John C. Calhoun, Strom Thurmond, Thomas Green Clemson and
“Pitchfork” Ben Tillman, who,
with his henchmen, killed black members of a militia,
never to be convicted, but elected to public office—Governor—
to have statues and buildings erected in his honor, eventually. [iii]

The one on this beautiful campus houses the Calhoun Honors College
and the School of Education.

So be it, if it’s uncomfortable to bear those stripes.

See them,

because it’s not uncomfortable to reap the benefits of the labor that went into
building the buildings or tending the land,
but very much so
knowing the buildings and the land are stained with
years upon years of
the blood, sweat and tears
of slaves and sharecroppers and so-called criminals
who were lent to the institution to do the work that needed doing.

“Solid Orange,” they say.

And I say
The Tiger cannot survive without its stripes.

We cannot ignore
the troubling history that brought us to this,
our glorious institution,
with its memorials and monuments to “honorable” men,
and call ourselves a family.

And we’re damned if we think we’re doing ourselves any favors
coloring the history one hue.

One you,
one me,
one he,
one she,
one them,
won’t be
one us
‘til we strive to
see those stripes

The Tiger cannot survive without them.

The site of “the most exciting 25 seconds in college football”
was made possible by profits from the most shameful centuries in America’s history.

Those are the stripes we bear,
and before you decide to wear
that orange tee, or that painted paw,
think,
for a moment, about those stripes,
think
of the backs of the slaves,
think
about the strips of land,
and the sharecroppers tied to it after so-called emancipation,
think
of the uniform of that 13 year old boy ,
a slave of the state,
forced to help build the first buildings at this place, [iv]
think
of the dark matters that matter more than you know—
the difference between willing ignorance and active participation,
complicit denial and abject perpetuation—

before you
think
“Solid Orange,”
think
of how ridiculous a Solid Orange Tiger would look.
Think
of seeing its stripes,
think
of being its stripes,

and think
of how terrible it is
to not be seen,
to not be acknowledged,

think
about never being doomed to repeat
an atrocious history,
and being better
because of knowing better
and doing better

because as things are now,
we are The Tigers,
built on a legacy of slavery, sharecropping and convict labor,
by slave owners, supremacists and segregationists,

but come to the campus of Clemson University,
and you’d hardly be able to tell it from looking around.

And it’s a shame.

We’d be a beautiful Tiger…

if only

we could
see our stripes.

-------------------- 

[i] Quote credited to ESPN and ABC broadcaster, Brent Musburger, in reference to the team’s pregame ritual of rubbing “Howard’s Rock” before running down The Hill onto Frank Howard Field.

[ii] From the ‘Solid Orange’ page on Clemson’s website: “Solid Orange goes far beyond orange T-shirts. It’s thinking and acting like a winner, knowing that everything we do reflects on every other Tiger. It’s just part of what makes Clemson uniquely Clemson.”

[iii] The Hamburg Massacre occurred July 4, 1876, and resulted in the deaths of seven men.

[iv] The boy’s name is Wade Foster. More information on his and other stories about the “Convict Labor” at Clemson is available in Dr. Rhondda Thomas’s essay, ““Slaves of the State”: Convict Labor and Clemson University Land and Legacy” in The South Carolina Review, Volume 46, Number 2, Spring 2014.

The picture used in the video is of 14-year-old George Stinney, Jr., who, in 1944 became the youngest person legally executed in the United States in the 20th century. He was executed by the state of South Carolina.

See The Stripes [A Poem by A.D. Carson] [Music by Preme]

Vintage OneShadow
Chicago Illinois Hip Hop 
West Side of Chicago

Whatimsupposedtodo

The second release from Will Sessions’ newly launched record label is the  first collaboration between Will Sessions and Elzhi since the critically acclaimed mixtape, Elmatic. The A side features an explosive extended verse from Elzhi, on top of an anthemic beat performed and produced by Will Sessions. The B side is an instrumental edit that takes you deeper into their production style.

http://www.fatbeats.com/products/will-sessions-feat-elzhi-knowledge-of-12th-b-w-instrumental-7

7" Single

Knowledge of 12th (7")

Knowledge of 12th (feat Elzhi)

elevate

Mickey Factz & Daylyt take on the persona of Candyman and Jigsaw as they tackle Jadakiss and Fabulous's Soul Food record off Freddy & Jason. Lyricism at its highest level.

See The Stripes [A Poem by A.D. Carson] [Music by Preme]

A.D. Carson

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