The Last Poets
New York, New York
New York, New York, the big apple
New York, New York, the big apple
New York, New York
(The big apple)
Sixteen million feet
Nationals, Tom McAns, Florsheims
Stepping on each other
Rejoicing over the death of one n***a toe
Cold, calloused feet
Trotting up and down synthetic avenues
Streets and gardens
Gardens that grow shit
Gardens where putty faced beings sit emotionlessly
Admiring bastard flowers
New York, New York
(The big apple)
A prerequisite to America
A disguised sin
Where some brother from that closed southern shit
Comes to some open northern shit
For a vacation
For an opportunity
An opportunity that knocks up sisters
And knocks them in the head
For an opportunity that takes them home
With dope in the arm
And Clairol on their brain
New York, New York
(The big apple)
New York, New York
New sameness, new food, same shit
New car, same gas without Platformate
New love, same neurosis
New installation, same hoes
New hairdo, same minds
New style, same influence
New York, New York, the big apple
Where jive Maryland farmers are running around
Shaking hands with all the grass-root people
Never getting choked by the grass
New York, New York
Where Queen Liberty tin shit
In the middle of pea-green water
Telling a brother he's liberated
(Statue of Liberty is a prostitute)
Yeah, he is liberated
From the old Mississippi to the new Mississippi
New York, New York, the big apple
Where freak looking filthy white rodents are running around
Spreading new kinds of venereal diseases
Talking about "we love everybody"
"We love everybody"
New York, New York
(The big apple)
Watching movies marked "adults only"
When it should be for kids only
The A train, the D train, the F train
That underground, undercurrent steel plated frame
Unworkable air vents, ass aching benches
And then there's that corny paraphernalia
All over the interior
Inside of this there's a brother
Being soaked in by that shit on the wall
Suffocating from bad breath in the air
In pain 'cause some white jackass is riding on his foot
New York, New York, the big apple
New York, New York
While on the train
You see young and old white wrinkly faces
Peeking over crooked shoulders and under cardboard hats
Poking their noses at you
Vampire eyes staring at you, wondering who you are
New York, New York
An exploited colony called Brownsville
Bedford-Stuyvesant or Harlem
Where tiny, fat Jews are holding the fiery hoop
And watching you burn your ass jumping through it
New York, New York, the big apple
Siren sounds through the streets
Putting your mind in a state of mental paralysis
New York, New York
New York is brogan, boot-shaped state of Madison Avenue
Negro button downs
Hungry, lost n***a souls screaming downtown for death
Semi black, obscured blackness, plastic trees and phony grass
New York is a state of mind
That doesn't mind fucking up a brother