The World Is Listening - Akua Naru

Flash

Flash

Flashback '88

Copped my first tape

Third Grade

Young girl banking Roxanne Shante

Around my way

Called McKay

Disarray

Langston's a dark hues get bruised

Stored away hey

Caught in cage

Fought in the maze gave up

And now I got dreams of being live on stage

What

Turn up the volume me and my cousin

Doing the wop

Dreaming about the Salt-N-Pepa haircut

Speakers bump like the rock pumps

The rhythm of my next double-dutch jump

What you want at once

And we love the

We dreamed of ourselves

Knew when Latifah showed us what a queen was

Went from invisible to seen on the Smooth tip

Sweet Tee to follow Monie in the

Middle on the scene

So then saw myself I'll drop mics

When I'm over

Pick up a pen and like Antoinette

Lights Out Party's Over

This is for Latifah for Lyte for Shante

Bahamadia Lauryn Hill Heather B

For Jean Grae

E-V-E Nikki D Salt-N-Pepa even me

Apani B for Missy for Kim and Foxy

This is for Rah Digga Rage Left Eye

For Yo-Yo

Paula Perry Nonchalant Da Brat for Jane Doe

Rage Mystic BO Sparky D

For those never seen

On the search for female emcees

The microphone fiends

Stomped in the '90s

After school you could find me

In the backyard begging for a beat box

Rhyming

U-N-I-T-Y and Heather B Blues

Claim the news of the death

Of Phyllis Hymen

I rap to keep from crying

Taking Mine now I'm the Bo

Recipe for a show

They say no girls in the cipher

So I rock solo

Then on the Blackstreet

Ill Na Na get me home though

I rap along to every song

And ain't no playing with my Yo-Yo

Check how I hit every note though

Even sung along with patois

Like in the joint she did with Patra

I'm on a Romantic Call

Talkin' to my baby Down ah mi yard

Blank page calling a

The crowd yes ya'llin'

Nonchalantly in the trees

At five o'clock in the morning

Sported he Kim hardcore wig

Then came Lauryn

She showed me the beauty and the natural cut

Amplify my Rage growing out my afro puffs

This is for Latifah for Lyte for Shante

Bahamadia Lauryn Hill Heather B

For Jean Grae

E-V-E Nikki D Salt-N-Pepa even me

Apani B for Missy for Kim and Foxy

This is for Rah Digga Rage

Left Eye for Yo-Yo

Paula Perry Nonchalant Da Brat

For Jane Doe

Rage Mystic BO Sparky D

For those never seen

On the search for female emcees

The microphone fiends

New millennium came of age

While things stayed the same

Media forms changed

New name from What-What to Jean Grae

We bootlegged the bootleg

Facebook or MySpace

Put away cassette and VHS

Tapes in vinyl crates

Fast forward album release dates

Hip-hopalizing what we buy or objectify

In these days

Tell me what's the plight

Of a female MC's fate

Or what's the worth of a

Woman's story to a DJ

Downloading everyone and now

My heroes seemingly gone

Search and found Lauryn Hill Unplugged

Guess I lost one

Some come and go

Self-labeled b***h and ho

A heretic of discourse

I turn off the radio

I can't relate nor can I hate

For the ways we negotiate

The sexist spaces we navigate

I stay reppin'

Vaunted by the crest of hip hop's crescent

It seems

Fantasy's what people want reality to be

This is for Latifah for Lyte

For Shante

Bahamadia Lauryn Hill Heather B

For Jean Grae

E-V-E Nikki D Salt-N-Pepa even me

Apani B for Missy for Kim and Foxy

This is for Rah Digga Rage

Left Eye for Yo-Yo

Paula Perry Nonchalant Da Brat

For Jane Doe

Rage Mystic BO Sparky D

For those never seen

On the search for female emcees

The microphone fiends

The world is listening

The world is listening

The world is listening