Nina

[00:01.42] Southern trees
[00:06.91] Bearing strange fruit (Bearing strange fruit)
[00:12.41] Blood on the leaves (Blood on the leaves)
[00:16.74] And blood at the root, check (And blood at the roots)
[00:21.26] So bleed
[00:23.92] Emit light, rap, or Emmett Till
[00:26.52] I drew a line without showing my body, that's a skill
[00:29.53] Bad to the bone and the grill
[00:31.61] You'd be dead wrong if looks killed
[00:33.48] I'm still on my spill, in the spirit of L. Hill
[00:36.92] Eye on the sparrow, nose like a pharaoh's
[00:40.13] Our bloodline trill for the young and all the lils
[00:42.23] We all gon' get mils
[00:43.68] Talk a lot of game but we get paid to like Jemele
[00:46.65] Was raised upon a hill, the valley's a sunken place
[00:49.89] I'm just tryna build like I came with some kettle weight
[00:52.54] Know I'm a god emcee, 'cause nigga, I made the devil wait
[00:55.49] 'Fore I brought hell, you ain't gotta tell me I'm hella great
[00:58.57] I don't speak on it nowadays, I just meditate
[01:01.58] Y'all can have the bars, nigga, I spit hard metal gates
[01:04.78] Henry Louis Gates when I cop me some new estate
[01:07.31] Make room for myself, I'm in a way different mental place
[01:10.63] I keep it real, all y'all look anime
[01:13.17] I'm fine like Anna Mae, black don't crack like Angela
[01:15.86] Black and brave like in the A, it don't come with apologies
[01:18.86] 'Less it's Tip and some Andre, when you greet me it's, "Namaste"
[01:22.31] Spread love the Brooklyn way or like marmalade
[01:24.94] No matter if you street street or more like the promenade
[01:27.92] We gotta come together like the corn and the dookie braids
[01:30.67] For the present and future days, I say what I gotta say
[01:33.51] I am Nina and Roberta, the one you love but ain't heard of
[01:36.45] Got my middle finger up like Pac after attempted murder
[01:39.28] Failed to kill me, it's still me, woke up singing Shirley Murdock
[01:42.33] As we lay these edges down, brown women, we so perfect
[01:45.09] Went from field nigga to still nigga, being cropped out the picture
[01:48.55] But we all know who got the juice, my sisters
[01:51.46] Imitating us in all the Hollywood pictures
[01:54.11] And still, they'll never be us, nigga (Nigga)
[01:56.38] I'm from the back woods where Nina would
[01:58.67] Sing about the life we should lead
[02:00.59] A new dawn, another deed, I try to do some good
[02:03.11] I felt more damned than Mississippi was
[02:05.30] They deny Nina in Philadelphia
[02:07.32] And still we persevere like all the 400 years of our own blood, Africa
[02:11.99] Old panthers lookin' back like who gon' come up after us?
[02:14.86] Outside the movies, I make sure before it move you
[02:17.92] It moved me, now bow down to a queen, please
[02:21.34] Survival
[02:23.97]
[02:27.85] Here's to the honey in you
[02:31.30] To the bittersweet in me
[02:32.91] I will shed this blood so romantically, so viciously quiet
[02:37.54] Here's to a moment of silence
[02:40.70] I've poured and poured my soul again, here's to epiphanies
[02:45.14] There was never a we
[02:46.22] There was you all and there was me
[02:47.67] In this war, likely to succeed
[02:49.91] Unlike me to surrender
[02:51.13] Trying and dying to breathe poetry to rise in the light of day
[02:54.92] To subconsciously exist cautiously ascending towards freedom
[02:58.13] Praying for a breather
[03:00.31] Do you see my pain?
[03:04.14] Do I seem like prey?
[03:06.98] Empathy be the reason you're still standing
[03:09.20] We are not the same
[03:10.18] I've lived more lives than you, I have less pride than you
[03:13.28] I'm extraterrestrial, I was created different
[03:17.65] I've been here many times before and I've never been defeated, and still
[03:21.44] I will never be defeated (Defeated)
[04:20.45]