Obasi
I Am Not Your Nigger (Interlude)
[Verse 1: Obasi]
Yo G, I just have to pause this and interject right quick, cause I'm getting tired of everybody asking me what my opinion is 'bout the N word, you know, like, like:
Who can use it; who can lose it?
Who can sing it with the music?
Could a black person abuse it?
If I'm mixed do I still count or do I need some type of stamp to prove it?
Is it cool if I'm just quoting what my friend said?
It's true I'm still a student but this confusion could confound Confucius!
And honestly, I probably wouldn't give a dime
But I ain't bout to let this question take another second of my time
So if it's really laying heavy on the white mind
Somebody tell a brother I'm about to write mine:
Sticks and stones can break the skin and bones
But it takes something stronger to decimate the dignity
More than a word, when your place in the world
Is a hated aberration, a mistaken identity
When they assume you're the dumbest in the room
The coon to lampoon—that'll shake your humanity
And when they want to give a word to your status
They'll call you a n***a—you a thug and a savage
[Chorus: Obasi, Yesuto, Jamilla]
Tell them, I am not your n***a, man!
(I am not your n***a, I am not your n***a)
Tell them, I am not your n***a, ladies!
(I am not your n***a, and I ain't your ho!)
[Verse 2: Obasi]
But if we ain't getting lynched no more
And ain't nobody doing sit-ins on the bench no more
And if they barely even use the word in print no more
Then why so many people hearing it and cringing for?
I mean, it's just a word, right? It just depends whether
We can ever move on from the sixties or remain tethered
But that's like tryna tell the sick to "Get better"—
It's a lot of blood spilt over them frickin' six letters
They representing a severance of independence
A fetter that got us tethered way better than methamphetamine
And this is meta, but the mental fix is liminal
My brother says it's friend but to my momma it means criminal
I'm fed up with the fighting over vitamins and minerals
We're never getting better till we find a way to get control!
And if that means turning words into power
Don't you ever tell a n***a how he can't address his bro!
[Chorus: Obasi, Yesuto, Jamilla]
But still, I am not your n***a, man!
(I am not your n***a, I am not your n***a)
Tell them, I am not your n***a, ladies!
(I am not your n***a, and I ain't your ho!)
Tell them, I am not your n***a, man!
(I am not your n***a, I am not your n***a)
Tell them, I am not your n***a, ladies!
(I am not your n***a, and I ain't your ho!)
It don't make me any bigger, man
But I won't never let a word tell me who I am
Tell them, I am not your n***a, ladies!
(I am not your n***a, and I ain't your ho!)