Akala - Knowledge is Power lyrics
[Akala - Knowledge is Power lyrics]
We claim we’re lovin’ this Hip Hop
Are we ready to understand it
In it's fullest cultural state
Beyond it's useless branding
Beyond the story that keeps us
Feeding us the common myth
People started rapping in the 70’s
What a bunch of shit done with the talk
Im lovin New York for impact in my heart
But lets not pretend there was
No foundation to this art
Because KRS-ONE and Bam would be
The first ones to say
Birth of Hip Hop runs far
Deeper within our veins
Before Kool Herc came to New
York pumping 100 watts
Before the Watts Prophets
Last Poets and Gil Scott
Before there was Jazz before there was Blues
Before there was Cab Calloway
Before the whips the ships
And all the tragedy
Before we were stripped of Knowledge
Of our cultural anatomy
You could be apart for
Generations you’re still family
Before there were slaves
Fuck the bullshit about slave music
You must have had a cultural
Base to even produce it
The schools of Timbuktu they already knew
The cycles of the planet and
The motion of the moon
150 years before Galileo, check it
And medieval Benin’s in the
Guinness book of records
And all of them cultures there
They had a Griot speaker
A storytelling musician poet
And history keeper who had to memorise a
Couple thousand oral epics
The tradition still exists today but
It could get neglected
And Hip Hop? Needs to be understood
In it's fullest context not just as
A product of the hood
Cos Miles Davis was rich and still
Played with the same feeling
It’s that cultural memory go and ask Steven
Ella Fitzgerald scatting's basically rapping
When we know we lost our language
Then you know what has happened
So when you hear somebody’s rapping
The base of it is African
It ain't about excluding no
One it's just accurate
Knowledgeispower!
Don't let them tell you 'bout yourself
Never that's your wealth knowledgeispower!
If you don't feed your mind how
Can you live in health? Knowledgeispower!
Don't let them tell you 'bout yourself
Never that's your wealth
Look around hip hop’s becomes
This global voice
But we must understand it's roots so
We can have a choice
What we should do with it how to use it
How to teach our students
Cos Viacom is not our cultural institution
But it will use this
Culture for it's prostitution
And our destruction, anything but a solution
The ghetto dilemma's as bad as it's ever been
People are dead, just ain't rememberin'
Roots of the rhythm and bass
Thing is as good as the
Parts that assemble it
Hamlet is writing, we think the pencil is
People are sacred, we think the Temple is
If i'm uncomfortable you shouldn't mention it
Im superior so watch your sentences
Don’t disturb my privileged pensioners
Living off ignorance of all the members of
Every one of all the people we severed off
Never one of all the people we’re never soft
Any gun or the better we sell it off
Any sum of all the cheddar we level off
Cultural suicide is a necessity
To get you to worship celebrity
Cos people with a strong sense of themselves
Could say that we’ll never be
Knowledgeispower!
Don't let them tell you 'bout yourself
Never that's your wealth knowledgeispower!
If you don't feed your mind how
Can you live in health? Knowledgeispower!
Don't let them tell you 'bout yourself
Never that's your wealth
When they say that Knowledge ain't
For you and your people
They’re tryna' keep you less than equal
Cos deep down in themselves
That’s how they really see you
Less based on status
Or the places you was raised in
Or the shape of your faces
Degrees or bank statements
So we gotta reject Whatever they set
They’re never benevolent yet
Yet we sit at a desk Collecting a check
No need to ever respect
Mess coupled by death tripled by theft
Look at the West and the rest
Transfer knowledge transfer the power then
Tell me what is left bliss? No ignorance
It just just his head that
Is numbing the pain
Only the clever shit should ever change
Our development towards an aim
No bro, push of the chain
Training the muscle is training the brain
It is the same if you push through the pain
Once you are strong you are never the same
Your manner your swagger
The way that you stand up
The way that you work with
Your boys as a rapper
I’ve seen a killer convert from a trapper
To working with yout dem and
Tellin’ em man up
I am not telling you it will get better
But if we are to fight
We must keep our jabber
C’mon my people stand up
Knowledgeispower!
Don't let them tell you 'bout yourself
Never that's your wealth knowledgeispower!
If you don't feed your mind how
Can you live in health? Knowledgeispower!
Don't let them tell you 'bout yourself
Never that's your wealth knowledgeispower!
Don't let them tell you 'bout yourself
Never that's your wealth knowledgeispower!
If you don't feed your mind how
Can you live in health? Knowledgeispower!
Don't let them tell you 'bout yourself
Never that's your wealth
Are we ready to understand it
In it's fullest cultural state
Beyond it's useless branding
Beyond the story that keeps us
Feeding us the common myth
People started rapping in the 70’s
What a bunch of shit done with the talk
Im lovin New York for impact in my heart
But lets not pretend there was
No foundation to this art
Because KRS-ONE and Bam would be
The first ones to say
Birth of Hip Hop runs far
Deeper within our veins
Before Kool Herc came to New
York pumping 100 watts
Before the Watts Prophets
Last Poets and Gil Scott
Before there was Jazz before there was Blues
Before there was Cab Calloway
Before the whips the ships
And all the tragedy
Before we were stripped of Knowledge
Of our cultural anatomy
You could be apart for
Generations you’re still family
Before there were slaves
Fuck the bullshit about slave music
You must have had a cultural
Base to even produce it
The schools of Timbuktu they already knew
The cycles of the planet and
The motion of the moon
150 years before Galileo, check it
And medieval Benin’s in the
Guinness book of records
And all of them cultures there
They had a Griot speaker
A storytelling musician poet
And history keeper who had to memorise a
Couple thousand oral epics
The tradition still exists today but
It could get neglected
And Hip Hop? Needs to be understood
In it's fullest context not just as
A product of the hood
Cos Miles Davis was rich and still
Played with the same feeling
It’s that cultural memory go and ask Steven
Ella Fitzgerald scatting's basically rapping
When we know we lost our language
Then you know what has happened
So when you hear somebody’s rapping
The base of it is African
It ain't about excluding no
One it's just accurate
Knowledgeispower!
Don't let them tell you 'bout yourself
Never that's your wealth knowledgeispower!
If you don't feed your mind how
Can you live in health? Knowledgeispower!
Don't let them tell you 'bout yourself
Never that's your wealth
Look around hip hop’s becomes
This global voice
But we must understand it's roots so
We can have a choice
What we should do with it how to use it
How to teach our students
Cos Viacom is not our cultural institution
But it will use this
Culture for it's prostitution
And our destruction, anything but a solution
The ghetto dilemma's as bad as it's ever been
People are dead, just ain't rememberin'
Roots of the rhythm and bass
Thing is as good as the
Parts that assemble it
Hamlet is writing, we think the pencil is
People are sacred, we think the Temple is
If i'm uncomfortable you shouldn't mention it
Im superior so watch your sentences
Don’t disturb my privileged pensioners
Living off ignorance of all the members of
Every one of all the people we severed off
Never one of all the people we’re never soft
Any gun or the better we sell it off
Any sum of all the cheddar we level off
Cultural suicide is a necessity
To get you to worship celebrity
Cos people with a strong sense of themselves
Could say that we’ll never be
Knowledgeispower!
Don't let them tell you 'bout yourself
Never that's your wealth knowledgeispower!
If you don't feed your mind how
Can you live in health? Knowledgeispower!
Don't let them tell you 'bout yourself
Never that's your wealth
When they say that Knowledge ain't
For you and your people
They’re tryna' keep you less than equal
Cos deep down in themselves
That’s how they really see you
Less based on status
Or the places you was raised in
Or the shape of your faces
Degrees or bank statements
So we gotta reject Whatever they set
They’re never benevolent yet
Yet we sit at a desk Collecting a check
No need to ever respect
Mess coupled by death tripled by theft
Look at the West and the rest
Transfer knowledge transfer the power then
Tell me what is left bliss? No ignorance
It just just his head that
Is numbing the pain
Only the clever shit should ever change
Our development towards an aim
No bro, push of the chain
Training the muscle is training the brain
It is the same if you push through the pain
Once you are strong you are never the same
Your manner your swagger
The way that you stand up
The way that you work with
Your boys as a rapper
I’ve seen a killer convert from a trapper
To working with yout dem and
Tellin’ em man up
I am not telling you it will get better
But if we are to fight
We must keep our jabber
C’mon my people stand up
Knowledgeispower!
Don't let them tell you 'bout yourself
Never that's your wealth knowledgeispower!
If you don't feed your mind how
Can you live in health? Knowledgeispower!
Don't let them tell you 'bout yourself
Never that's your wealth knowledgeispower!
Don't let them tell you 'bout yourself
Never that's your wealth knowledgeispower!
If you don't feed your mind how
Can you live in health? Knowledgeispower!
Don't let them tell you 'bout yourself
Never that's your wealth
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