Black

[Verse 1]
Look, black is beautiful, black is excellent
Black is pain, black is joy, black is evident
It's working twice as hard as the people you know you're better than
'Cause you need to do double what they do so you can level them
Black is so much deeper than just African-American
Our heritage been severed, you never got to experiment with family trees, 'cause they teach you 'bout famine and greed
And show you pictures of our fam on their knees
Tell us we used to be barbaric, we had actual Queens
Black is watching child soldiers getting killed by other children
Feeling sick, like oh shit this could have happened to me
Your mummy watchin' tellin' stories 'bout your dad and your niece
The blacker the berry the sweeter the juice
A kid dies, the blacker the killer, the sweeter the news
And if he's white you give him a chance, he's ill and confused
If he's black he's probably armed, you see him and shoot
Look, black is growing up around the barbershop
Mummy saying stay away from trouble, you're in yard a lot
Studying for ages, appreciating the chance you got
'Cause black is in your blood, and you ain't even got the heart to stop
Black is stepping in for your mother because your father's gone
Standing by your children when you haven't proven karma wrong
Black is doing all of the above then going corner shopping
Tryna help a lady cross the road to have her walking off
Black is growing up around your family and making it
Then being forced to leave the place you love because there's hate in it
People say you fake the shit, never stayed to change the shit
But black is being jealous, you'd be dead if you had stayed in it
Black is struggling to find your history or trace the shit
You don't know the truth about your race 'cause they erasing it
Black has got a sour fucking flavor, here's a taste of it
But black is all I know, there ain't a thing that I would change in it

[Verse 2]
Look, black ain't just a single fucking color, man there's shades to it
Her hair's straight and thick but mine's got waves in it
Black is not divisive they been lyin' and I hate the shit
Black has never been a competition, we don't make this shit
Black is deadly
Black is when you're freezing in your home and you can't get sleep
But never feeling empty, 'cause you got twenty cousins in your country living stress free
Walking for their water, daughter wrapped inside a bed sheet
Black is distant, it's representing countries that never even existed while your grandmother was living
Black is my Ghanaian brother reading into scriptures
Doing research on his lineage, findin' out that he's Egyptian
Black is people naming your countries on what they trade most
Coast of Ivory, Gold Coast, and the Grain Coast
But most importantly to show how deep all this pain goes
West Africa, Benin, they called it slave coast
Black is so confusing, 'cause the culture? They're in love with it
They take our features when they want and have their fun with it
Never seem to help with all the things we know would come with it
Loud in our laughter, silent in our sufferin'
Black is being strong in sight of facing defeat
Poverty made me a beast, I battled the law in the streets
Well you were struggled, but your struggle ain't a struggle like me
Well how could it be when your people gave us the odds that we beat?
I mean, fucking hell, what about our brothers that are stuck in jail?
That couldn't bust a bell, they held a bird and gotta live with it
Black is being guilty until proven that you're innocent
Black is saying free my fucking niggas stuck inside in prison cells
They think it's funny, we ain't got nothing to say to them
Unconditional love is strange to them; it's amazin' 'em
Black is like the sweetest fucking flavor, here's a taste of it
But black is all I know, there ain't a thing that I would change in it