Akala - Find No Enemy lyrics

Apparently I'm second generation
Black Caribbean
And half white Scottish whatever that means
See lately I feel confused with the boxes
Cause to me all they do is breed conflict
It's not that I've lost
Touch with the reality
Racism, sexism and nationality
Just to me it all seems like insanity
Why must I rob you of your humanity
To feel good about mine?
It's all about crime
Dehumanizing is how I justify it

So I must keep on lying
About the history of Africa

So I can live the with massacres

And repeat my mantra of Muslim and terrorist
So I can sleep at night as bombs take flight
Eyes open wide but I'm blind to the sight
Too busy chasing the perfect life
And the working class keep them uneducated
Truly educated men could never be a racist
To educate is to draw out what is within
Are we not all the same under the skin?
I got a heart like yours
That pumps blood and oxygen
And insecurities are a whole lot of them
I'm scared like you deep down
I really do care that world
Is not fair like you

But I don't even believe my
Own prayers like you

Chasing career going nowhere like you
Lost in a fog of my own insecurities
I hold myself up as an image of purity
And I judge everybody else
By the color of their skin or
The size of their wealth
But it's not good for my health
As the only one I ever really judge is myself

The oppressor must suffer like the oppressed
Though I pretend I'm in control of this mess

By inflating my ego, puffing my chest
I see my weakness, and need to show strength
Or what we think strong is
Because if we're honest?
True strength is the strength to be honest
And if I'm honest I am just tired
If I'm honest I am just tired

Tired of everyday filling up my
Car and knowing that
I'm paying for the bombs in Iraq
Tired of pretending like it
Don't hurt my heart
Of wanting change but not
Knowing where to start
Tired of listening to all the conditioning
And all the forms they got me filling in

Next time you see what is
A thug and despise him
Please know I was just like him
Cause I was like eight the
First time I saw crack

Same time I first smoked
Weed choking on blowbacks

First time I saw knifes penetrate flesh
It was meat cleavers to the back of the head
As I grew and teenage years passed
Many more knifes pierced and the shots blast

And I not saying I had the worst upbringing
But there's a million young men
Just like me in prison
We complain about racism and elevate clowns
With their trousers down swinging
Their dicks round

Maybe that is not quite literal
But everything they do is
Just as stereotypical

To my real fans I feel your pain
And I get the messages, but don't complain
That we ain't got more fame
For paying our part
They can keep the charts all
I want is your hearts
They can keep the charts all
I want is your hearts
They can keep the charts all
I want is your hearts
Calling it black radio, don't make laugh
So is black music all about tit's and arse?
You don't represent nothing
You're just pretending
When was the last time
You ever played Hendrix?
Or Miles Davis or John Coltrane?
Or Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday?
We can call it urban to me that's cool
If urban means street, that includes jazz too
And rock for that matter
Go ask Mick Jagger or Jimmy Page what
They were listening to - the blues
Not discrediting, love Zeppelin too
Just giving credit where credit is due
That blood soaked word rappers still use
All it really shows is that
We still self abuse
That was the word that was used to
Kill Kelso Cochrane and Emmett Till
That was the word that the conscience eased
And made people pleased to
Hung you from trees
That was the word that let the whips crack
No matter what you say you can't take it back
And I can say their black so
I feel their pain easier
But 1915 look at Armenia
If the whole world is human stupidity
Though we choke ourselves to
Death quite literally
And I can talk with my comfortable mouth
With my comfortable clothes and
My comfortable house
The tables will turn, we can but stall them
Every empire on this earth has fallen
So unless we can find another way
Maybe not today, but it will come one day
It may sound like I'm bitter but in fact
Truth be told I am quite the opposite

I wake everyday and am overwhelmed
Just to be alive and be like no one else

And the sheer weight of the thought of space
Is enough to keep my little ego in place

All that we chase and try to replace
All along it was right in our face

The only way we can ever change anything
Is to look in the mirror and find no enemy
The only way we can ever change anything
Look in the mirror and find no enemy