This track is an introduction to folks who have never heard my music and a reminder to those who haven't heard it in a while of what I do on the mic.  My moniker is "The Catalyst" and this song exemplifies why I chose that title to embody my approach as an artist.  The track is also produced by me and is the first of of my productions that I have chosen to rhyme over.

This is a primer for my new album "Bridges" that will be released September 25, 2014.

Listen and love it...share it...comment, alladat

Here are the lyrics
Anticipated, like precipitation, in a drought/
I could be condensation, I could be contemplatin,
how to get Mumia out/

How to carve my freedom out,
of mountain faces/
traces of my my lineage, reflection of my pilgrimage, 
I'm takin space/

soul glows like Harriets, Flows dope like Heroin(e),
but in a world where girls objectified so they aint hearin it/
i claim to be the light that God shined, they call me heretic/
and pray to God five times a day they call me terrorist/

had it on my mind so now im airin it, like aerosol/
sprayin what im sayin, spittin sikly smooth calligraphy/
thoughts in mind takin shapes sublime to form epiphanies/
smoothen out the wrinkle thats in time and change positioning/

cause Black madonna's proof that,
melanated people ruled the earth/
now europeans claimin shit they wasn't even doin first/
the truth inverts, masses get misled in the pursuit of purse/
but ME,
I'm a vessel for the lesson, with the weapon nestled,

let the truth exude through her/
muse to make the movement work/
gospel mule she move the he(a)rd/
amused the way she choose her words/
jewels to make the fools confer/
impugn the rules til coup's occur/
payment on the dues deferred/
no lose because she choose to serve/

why?
cause I'm an artist,
for the people, fukk the money, put the music first/
the truest hue will shine through,
even if the fuse get burst/
blind so minds eyes gotta squint to see the truth, it hurts/
but I been sittin sharpenin the skills, I got the tools to work/

do it for the ones that qualify for aid, but choose to work/
first day sober folks that wake up and rebuke the curse/
those workin just to settle debts,
pay em off wit nothin left for self,
those livin check to check,
I been there so I know the stress/
like pro-choice supporters know, 
its more complex than life and death
and soldiers heavy hearted,
cause their choices might hurt someone else/

for little girls,
told they're ugly cause their skin aint bright enough/
and little boys,
not allowed to cry and told to toughen up/
to sum it up, our children's beauty tainted by our framin/
like the broken window pane that let the rain in/
but yo, despite that radiation, they still radiatin
lets teach em who they're meant to be,
and how to pilot spaceships...cause they the future

and its power in my language/
so let it seep into the souls of those whose minds is vacant/
and let my word cut like a sword so ignorance is vanquished/
they brought us on a slave ship,
but we no longer servants, so we gon enjoy the banquet/
mutiny my niggas, kill the captain, drop the anchor/
revolutionary movements just a level up from bangin/

so yo...where you slangin at/
and who you aimin at/
to take a life, but let the hierarchy stay in tact/
the devil do the biddin of republicans and democrats/
the gentrified the votin bloc(k) we aint never welcomed back/
they boast to the brighter side of genocide and drink to that/
and toast to the ones who make a pact to never face the facts/

so cheers...but my cocktail, be a molatov/
I'm Fannie Lou'n tryna get this freedom party popped off/
Sister Betty, starin at her husband with his sawed off/

I'm Zora, to a beat/
I'm Billie's intervention,
I'm Ida B's Anti-Lynchin speeches put to rhythm/

I'm...Charity Clay...The Catalyst

Catalystic

This is the B-Side To 80s Babies Grown Up. Again I asked Dreek for an Aretha Franklin track and he sampled Young, Gifted and Black, a song originally from Nina Simone as a tribute to the great playwrights Loraine Hansberry (who wrote A Raisin in the Sun). The track placing my understanding and experiences of Hip Hop within the tradition that those like Nina Simone and Loraine Hansberry and others who used their arts as a way to resist oppression

lyrics
verse 1 
I used to wanna rock the mic like mc lyte 
and say that salt n pepa nice what my mic sounds like 
I used to write to beats rhymes and life tribe tracks 
Trapper keeper kept the rhymes organized in my back pack 
pen in my pockets, old school mixtapes stayed in my walkman 
recognized the samples, from the soul joint played in the days I was crawlin 
and to the boom bap I was raised into walkin 

hat to the back, one overall strap 
on the tlc tip with the condom eye patch 
I catch the rhyme scheme studying the greats 
Freestyle to the beats/ boogie down to the breaks 
Whether doin the butt or the humpty hump 
Or writin fresh on my knock off reebok pumps 
Just a youngen in the culture that the people called a gimmic 
A trendy epidemic we’d be through with in a minute 

Hook… 
Like raisins in the sun seekin shade
descendants of the slaves that made a way
so everyday I wake up and I pray that the ancestors let me stay
{samples says} young gifted black
YOUNG GIFTED AND BLACK

I'm hoping that this music that we play
is gonna be the tools we used today
so generations later on can listen in and know that they are
{samples says} young gifted black
YOUNG GIFTED AND BLACK

Verse 2 
my generation is the ripening fruit 
Picked for the feast to give the people all a bite of the truth 
cores carrying the seeds that will enliven in the youth 
And then return to dirt to strengthen up and widen the roots 
That been growin since the 60s 
sprouts germinated during great migrations at the turn of the century 
strange fruit harvest, rotten, 
and bloody bodies hangin from the branches had the soil all sodden 
trod into our souls by the word of the authors 
and spread through the songs that were heard from the marchers 
blues from the jook plus the gospel from the churches 
made the music for the movement that was more than lip service 
inspiration for the living and the mourning for the murdered 
made its way through the airwaves and everybody heard it 
till the system tried to crush it pushed it underneath the surface 
where it bubbled underground and in the 80s it erupted 

Bridge 
the fashion and the function 
the flashin and the stuntin 
the taking what they said we couldn’t have but always wanted 
from nothing to abundant 
the styles that we come up with 
the voice of revolution and conspicuous consumption 
the window to our world that everybody used to peek in 
the mirror of our selves and the conditions that we be in 
like the old slave hymns with hidden messages of freedom 
backspun and cross faded so we could receive em 

Hook… 
Like raisins in the sun seekin shade
descendants of the slaves that made a way
so everyday I wake up and I pray that the ancestors let me stay
{samples says} young gifted black
YOUNG GIFTED AND BLACK

I'm hoping that this music that we play
is gonna be the tools we used today
so generations later on can listen in and know that they are
{samples says} young gifted black
YOUNG GIFTED AND BLACK




Hasnberry Legacy

This is the Rerelease of my 2010 project "The Smokey Winston Project" Because the original wasn't professionally mixed, I used the redux to have that done, change the tracklist and add a few additional tracks to give it a whole new feel.  The overall purpose of the project was to develop my songwriting skills after putting out a whole mixtape of freestyles.  I teamed up with my homie Smokey Winston, and he sent me a bunch of joint that fit my style perfect.  This version even has brand new artwork. If you heard the original and thought it was dope, this blows that out of the water. If you didn't hear the original, this is a great project.

charity clay

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