Nina

(Southern trees)

Bearing strange fruit (Bearing strange fruit)

Blood on the leaves (Blood on leaves)

And blood at the root (And blood at the roots)

So, bleed

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, and the spirit of L. Hill

Eye on the sparrow, nose like a pharaohs

Our bloodline trill for the young

And all the lil's, 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 ****, 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, ****, 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 **** to still ****, 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, **** (****)

I'm from the backwoods 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

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)