Malcolm X- The Inspiration
I hope y'all listen close and listen well
Listen, hear, and understand this tale I'm about to tell
I'll do whatever it takes, but if you notice that my voice shakes,
It's because of this story that makes my heart ache
Malcolm X may have had some skeletons in his closet,
But he cleaned up his act before they could throw him in a coffin
Along his way, he may have made some mistakes,
but he did everything he could for God's sake
He just wanted to eliminate some of the black hate
to take what lemons he had and make lemonade
But when the interviewers slipped poison into their questions and fancy cake
he began to spit cold hard facts
made sure they would feel the wrath of his attack
It's him, his honesty's brutal, and it's honestly futile
for them to even try to treat him like a misbehaving pupil
and even with his fat profit,
he refused to make a living for himself off it
Lemme take you back to a rally in '63
When everyone was tryna get Malcolm talking for their CD
when everyone was begging him to just “Talk to me”
The public had been loving him for months
and that must have got the Elijah in a bunch
so he said that Malcolm was their most faithful minister
but what we didn’t see was Mr. E's plan, so sinister
Now Malcolm did everything he could to get Elijah some recognition
but behind his back Mr.E had a different mission
just take a moment to put yourself in his shoes and try to envision
working so hard to help people find what they didn’t even know they were missing
while every time Mr.E bids you goodbye, he's actually wishing that you would die
I believe in human beings, and that all human beings should be respected equally
Regardless of their color, gender, or ethnicity
Hit me up when it occurs to you,
That all these people may not be as diverse as you,
But your hatred, it's only hurting you
Malcolm was the walking dead, a talking head
with a price on it to see some spilt red
blood. His name had him grow farther from his
faith and his role as a husband and father
When you give a man your trust,
you give him the power to do things to you that are torturous
He could make you feel like your efforts are purposeless
So then came gravity,
snapped him back to reality
He couldn’t figure out how or when
He ended up in this position he's in
He was left in a slump,
with his painful bruises and bumps
Brought to a stop by this hump,
But then he found something to get him out of the dumps,
Something to make him stand back up, in order for him to pick the mic back up
Now he's got
one last chance at redemption before he ends up in jail or shot
Triumph is the only option, failure is not
He cannot rot away in some Harlem lot
So he said "heart fail me not"
and took the only opportunity that he got,
He used to be
All “you’re not black like me, you don’t walk, talk, or act like me!”
But then he came to the realization,
That the white devil doesn’t even exist outside of his nation!
Not long after he was shot,
they put him 6 feet under some spot
I'm spittin these rhymes
To illustrate the tough times
that Malcolm X went through so that we can wait in the same lines
while being as different as pennies and dimes.
Malcolm X is one tough act to follow
I wonder why it’s such a hard pill to swallow,
We have no time left to sit back and wallow
It is a time for martyrs now,
Because it’s not wrong what they say,
for the clock ticks faster now than ever before
This cannot be just one of many attempts at a brighter future,
because while we wait the day is wasting, and we cannot wait for nightfall,
for it’s common knowledge that people turn dark when the light leaves them.
Let’s not be in the blurred backdrop of a moment anymore,
gone unnoticed just because the focus wasn’t quite right.
We’ve done our fair share of bench warming, now it’s time to play the game right
We’ve lived and lost the yesterdays, we’re getting through the todays,
so it’s only fair that we build the tomorrows.