Akua Naru - Baldwin's Crown lyrics

Your crown has been bought and paid for
All you have to do is wear it

I know your anger, the rage, pain
Indifference thought by 2018
You'd see somethin' different
Tried everything not be
Swallowed by bitterness
So you whisper when your heart turns cold
You caught the spirit it's been a long road
Short lies foretold by another
Worked in a house, over the stoves, they
Be mothers, hoes, monkeys, niggas, negroes
Those that take a needle
Strange fruit juice sold by
Dole, America's favorite drink, yo
Sweet to the taste, cause amnesia
A need to erase
Addictive, the smell of blood
Favorin' the perfume spray
Cornrows in Paris at a fashion week runway


She's gotta have it, long as
She ain't us, some days, uh
My heart aches till the dungeon shakes
Heavy the head that wear the mask
Brother of the face
Not the one a motherfucker
Wanna ask to explain
Pain got my patience thinner than
A nigga Baldwin fee (It must be gone)

Wear your crown (Uh)
Baldwin's crown (Put it on, uh, uh)
Wear your crown (Uh, huh)
Baldwin's crown (What happen?)

What happen to wounds that we never see?
To stay safe
All implored for applause on the world stage
For Claude McKay, for James
My grandmother Hattie May
Crack-cocaine, what Reagan did to
My daddy veins what happen to the blade the
Day Beloved passed away?
Mental health, Nina Simone, Donny Hathaway
Found that I was on verge
Of a psychotic break
Last week, two tweets away from billhooks
Killing rage used to ask myself
"How much more can I take?"
Till I recognized it wasn't mine
In the first place, uh
Blood of the humans that slave
Nannies, maids, sharecroppers, entertainers
In cage, bird
Carnegie Hall sold out, standin' applause
Can't walk his horn through the front door
For black boys with hoop dreams
Sent up state or murdered unarmed
For Trayvon
This crown is bought and paid for

Wear your crown (Uh, put it on)
Baldwin's crown (It's yours, just put it on)
Wear your crown (Uh) baldwin's crown (Uh)
Well, I know this
And anyone who has ever tried to live
Knows this: now what you say
About somebody else, anybody else
Reveals you now here in this country we’ve
Got something called a nigga
There’s no such term, I beg you to remark
Exists in any other country in
The world we have invented
The nigga i didn’t invent it
White people invented it
I’ve always known, I had to know by
The time I was seventeen years old
What you were describing was not me
And what you were afraid
Of was not me it had to be something else
You had invented it so it
Had to be something you
Were afraid of and you invested me with it
(Wear your crown, Baldwin's crown)
Now that so, no matter what you've done to
Me, I can say to you this, and I mean it
(Wear your crown)
I know you can’t do anymore and
I got nothing to lose and
I know and I’ve always known
(Baldwin's crown, Wear your crown)
And really always, that’s a
Part of the agony
I have always known that I’m not a nigga
(Baldwin's crown)
But, if I am not the nigga, and if
It’s true that your invention reveals you
Then who is a nigga? (Wear your crown)
(Baldwin's crown)
I am not the victim here i know one
Thing from another i know was born
I’m going to suffer and I’m going to die the
Only way you get through life is know
The worst things about it i know that a
Person is more important than anything else
Anything
Else i learned this because I’ve had to learn
It but, you still think, I gather
That the nigga is necessary
Well it’s unnecessary to me so
It must be necessary
To you and I give you your problem back
You’re the nigga baby it isn’t me