[Intro: Rapsody & Nina Simone]
Southern trees
Bearing strange fruit (Bearing strange fruit)
Blood on the leaves (Blood on the leaves)
And blood at the root, check (And blood at the roots)
So bleed
[Verse: Rapsody]
Emit light, rap, or Emmett Till
I drew a line without showing my body, that's a skill
Bad to the bone and the grill
You'd be dead wrong if looks killed
I'm still on my spill, in the spirit of L. Hill
Eye on the sparrow, nose like a pharaoh's
Our bloodline trill for the young and all the lils
We all gon' get mils
Talk a lot of game but we get paid to like Jemele
Was raised upon a hill, the valley's a sunken place
I'm just tryna build like I came with some kettle weight
Know I'm a god emcee, 'cause nigga, I made the devil wait
'Fore I brought hell, you ain't gotta tell me I'm hella great
I don't speak on it nowadays, I just meditate
Y'all can have the bars, nigga, I spit hard metal gates
Henry Louis Gates when I cop me some new estate
Make room for myself, I'm in a way different mental place
I keep it real, all y'all look anime
I'm fine like Anna Mae, black don't crack like Angela
Black and brave like in the A, it don't come with apologies
'Less it's Tip and some Andre, when you greet me it's, "Namaste"
Spread love the Brooklyn way or like marmalade
No matter if you street street or more like the promenade
We gotta come together like the corn and the dookie braids
For the present and future days, I say what I gotta say
I am Nina and Roberta, the one you love but ain't heard of
Got my middle finger up like Pac after attempted murder
Failed to kill me, it's still me, woke up singing Shirley Murdock
As we lay these edges down, brown women, we so perfect
Went from field nigga to still nigga, being cropped out the picture
But we all know who got the juice, my sisters
Imitating us in all the Hollywood pictures
And still, they'll never be us, nigga (Nigga)
I'm from the back woods where Nina would
Sing about the life we should lead
A new dawn, another deed, I try to do some good
I felt more damned than Mississippi was
They deny Nina in Philadelphia
And still we persevere like all the 400 years of our own blood, Africa
Old panthers lookin' back like who gon' come up after us?
Outside the movies, I make sure before it move you
It moved me, now bow down to a queen, please
Survival
[Outro: Reyna Biddy]
Here's to the honey in you
To the bittersweet in me
I will shed this blood so romantically, so viciously quiet
Here's to a moment of silence
I've poured and poured my soul again, here's to epiphanies
There was never a we
There was you all and there was me
In this war, likely to succeed
Unlike me to surrender
Trying and dying to breathe poetry to rise in the light of day
To subconsciously exist cautiously ascending towards freedom
Praying for a breather
Do you see my pain?
Do I seem like prey?
Empathy be the reason you're still standing
We are not the same
I've lived more lives than you, I have less pride than you
I'm extraterrestrial, I was created different
I've been here many times before and I've never been defeated, and still
I will never be defeated (Defeated)
Southern trees
Bearing strange fruit (Bearing strange fruit)
Blood on the leaves (Blood on the leaves)
And blood at the root, check (And blood at the roots)
So bleed
[Verse: Rapsody]
Emit light, rap, or Emmett Till
I drew a line without showing my body, that's a skill
Bad to the bone and the grill
You'd be dead wrong if looks killed
I'm still on my spill, in the spirit of L. Hill
Eye on the sparrow, nose like a pharaoh's
Our bloodline trill for the young and all the lils
We all gon' get mils
Talk a lot of game but we get paid to like Jemele
Was raised upon a hill, the valley's a sunken place
I'm just tryna build like I came with some kettle weight
Know I'm a god emcee, 'cause nigga, I made the devil wait
'Fore I brought hell, you ain't gotta tell me I'm hella great
I don't speak on it nowadays, I just meditate
Y'all can have the bars, nigga, I spit hard metal gates
Henry Louis Gates when I cop me some new estate
Make room for myself, I'm in a way different mental place
I keep it real, all y'all look anime
I'm fine like Anna Mae, black don't crack like Angela
Black and brave like in the A, it don't come with apologies
'Less it's Tip and some Andre, when you greet me it's, "Namaste"
Spread love the Brooklyn way or like marmalade
No matter if you street street or more like the promenade
We gotta come together like the corn and the dookie braids
For the present and future days, I say what I gotta say
I am Nina and Roberta, the one you love but ain't heard of
Got my middle finger up like Pac after attempted murder
Failed to kill me, it's still me, woke up singing Shirley Murdock
As we lay these edges down, brown women, we so perfect
Went from field nigga to still nigga, being cropped out the picture
But we all know who got the juice, my sisters
Imitating us in all the Hollywood pictures
And still, they'll never be us, nigga (Nigga)
I'm from the back woods where Nina would
Sing about the life we should lead
A new dawn, another deed, I try to do some good
I felt more damned than Mississippi was
They deny Nina in Philadelphia
And still we persevere like all the 400 years of our own blood, Africa
Old panthers lookin' back like who gon' come up after us?
Outside the movies, I make sure before it move you
It moved me, now bow down to a queen, please
Survival
[Outro: Reyna Biddy]
Here's to the honey in you
To the bittersweet in me
I will shed this blood so romantically, so viciously quiet
Here's to a moment of silence
I've poured and poured my soul again, here's to epiphanies
There was never a we
There was you all and there was me
In this war, likely to succeed
Unlike me to surrender
Trying and dying to breathe poetry to rise in the light of day
To subconsciously exist cautiously ascending towards freedom
Praying for a breather
Do you see my pain?
Do I seem like prey?
Empathy be the reason you're still standing
We are not the same
I've lived more lives than you, I have less pride than you
I'm extraterrestrial, I was created different
I've been here many times before and I've never been defeated, and still
I will never be defeated (Defeated)
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Album: Eve
Rapsody’s album commences with the common theme of the track title and content celebrating powerful black women. In this track Rapsody interpolates and samples Nina Simone’s haunting rendition of Billie Holliday’s “Strange Fruit”.