Black is tired
Black would like to make a statement
Black is tired
Black's eyes are vacant
Black's arms are leaden
Black's tongue cannot taste shit
Black's stomach cannot compress death
And black would like to state that black is not a beast of myth
To be slain in a fable
Recounted atop a round table
Surrounded by blue-collared brave men
Black has demands
Black demands baton-proof bones and bullet-resistant skin
Black thinks no person that's trigger nervous deserves a gun
Much less a badge
And black knows one day its arms will be up
Its lips pinned, its shadow
Its shadow will be reaching for something
That isn't there and then that'll be enough
Black says "keep your forty acres
Just let black reach for the end of the street
Let black weed for the last [?] wheat
Just let black reach into black's own car
Let let black reach into black's own lungs"
Black doesn't want its young ones seeing their fathers dead on YouTube
Girls in halfway [?] just to keep them alive
Black says its always been like this
It's you who's late to walk
And black has seen your grin
Your grin is a cutlass flag
And black's eyes are bleeding
From gripping the knife-edge you offered on your side of the handshake
Go write your thoughts and prayers on a piece of paper
Fling it at the moon, see what that will do
You call for calm, you call for peace
Like sacrifices on mountain peaks
He doesn't end the palaver
But he come at the top, where the negus still in lava
Black is angry now
Black as the day
And black's snare is a firefly dancing in grief
A curseword trapped in a bracket
A sentence too intense for one full stop
Black says that you don't understand
Black says that you cannot compare
Black says that its pain is too [?]
Black says that you cannot digest
Black says "how can you relate?"
When these black limbs are [?]
And this black blaze is dance
This black sorrow is dance
These black prayers is dance
This black struggle is dance
This black pain is dance
This black struggle is dance
And this black blaze is dance
Just leave black be
You already have the world, just leave black be
Leave us alone!
Black would like to make a statement
Black is tired
Black's eyes are vacant
Black's arms are leaden
Black's tongue cannot taste shit
Black's stomach cannot compress death
And black would like to state that black is not a beast of myth
To be slain in a fable
Recounted atop a round table
Surrounded by blue-collared brave men
Black has demands
Black demands baton-proof bones and bullet-resistant skin
Black thinks no person that's trigger nervous deserves a gun
Much less a badge
And black knows one day its arms will be up
Its lips pinned, its shadow
Its shadow will be reaching for something
That isn't there and then that'll be enough
Black says "keep your forty acres
Just let black reach for the end of the street
Let black weed for the last [?] wheat
Just let black reach into black's own car
Let let black reach into black's own lungs"
Black doesn't want its young ones seeing their fathers dead on YouTube
Girls in halfway [?] just to keep them alive
Black says its always been like this
It's you who's late to walk
And black has seen your grin
Your grin is a cutlass flag
And black's eyes are bleeding
From gripping the knife-edge you offered on your side of the handshake
Go write your thoughts and prayers on a piece of paper
Fling it at the moon, see what that will do
You call for calm, you call for peace
Like sacrifices on mountain peaks
He doesn't end the palaver
But he come at the top, where the negus still in lava
Black is angry now
Black as the day
And black's snare is a firefly dancing in grief
A curseword trapped in a bracket
A sentence too intense for one full stop
Black says that you don't understand
Black says that you cannot compare
Black says that its pain is too [?]
Black says that you cannot digest
Black says "how can you relate?"
When these black limbs are [?]
And this black blaze is dance
This black sorrow is dance
These black prayers is dance
This black struggle is dance
This black pain is dance
This black struggle is dance
And this black blaze is dance
Just leave black be
You already have the world, just leave black be
Leave us alone!
Contributed by Dq82 - 2021/6/2 - 20:23
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Note for non-Italian users: Sorry, though the interface of this website is translated into English, most commentaries and biographies are in Italian and/or in other languages like French, German, Spanish, Russian etc.
Black to the Future
Sons of Kemet, Pick up your burning cross
Edward Colston era un mercante di schiavi britannico del seicento. Nel 1895 la città di Bristol eresse una statua in suo onore. È rimasta in piedi fino al 7 giugno 2020, quando migliaia di manifestanti antirazzisti l’hanno gettata in mare, a pochi giorni di distanza dalla morte di George Floyd, l’afroamericano ucciso dal poliziotto bianco Derek Chauvin a Minneapolis. C’è un filo che lega il movimento Black lives matter statunitense a quello britannico: la comunità nera si mobilita, a New York come a Londra.
E se c’è un referente musicale credibile per questi due mondi, quello è Shabaka Hutchins. Sassofonista e clarinettista cresciuto tra Londra e le Barbados, Hutchins è il leader di tre progetti molto interessanti: Shabaka and the Ancestors, The Comet is Coming e Sons of Kemet. In passato ha collaborato con la Sun Ra Arkestra, gli Heliocentrics e non solo. La sua musica è da molto contaminata: mescola jazz, dub e tradizione africana. Si distingue per una forza percussiva non comune, che diventa evidente nelle sue trascinanti performance dal vivo.
Dopo Your queen is a reptile, manifesto antimonarchico e antirazzista, i Sons of Kemet sono tornati con Black to the future, un album che lo stesso Shabaka ha definito un poema sonoro frutto di “rabbia, frustrazione e percezione emerse dopo la morte di George Floyd e le proteste di Black lives matter”. Anche i titoli delle canzoni, messi in fila, sono un mini poema sull’identità nera.
Sono i due percussionisti e il sassofono di Hutchings ad aprire le danze del disco nella splendida Field negus, che ruota attorno allo spoken word del poeta Joshua Idehen, cantore di una rivoluzione che rifiuta l’uguaglianza di comodo offerta dai bianchi, di una rivolta “in sella a un cavallo nero”. La poeta Moor Mother e la clarinettista Angel Bat Dawid (che a novembre ha pubblicato uno splendido disco dal vivo) invece animano la trascinante Pick up your burning cross, mentre il rapper Kojey Radical e la cantante Lianne La Havas arricchiscono il singolo Hustle. Ma anche gli episodi strumentali, come In remembrance of those fallen, funzionano molto bene.
Il jazz di Hutchings è unico, non solo nel panorama britannico. E Black to the future è uno dei dischi migliori della sua giovane ma molto prolifica carriera. Il suono non è mai accessorio al messaggio politico, ne è parte integrante. Musica che affronta il passato, e lo supera. Come chi ha il coraggio di buttare giù una statua che non lo rappresenta.
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