Assimilate

[Intro]
Papertoy on the beat
"First of all, this is Australia. Ah, we are not Islamic. Um, we've also, ah, been, (stutters words), we've had this imposed on us. If they don't change their ways and start, um, acting as patriotic Australians, they deserve what they get."

[Verse 1: Omar Musa]
You’ll never catch me alive, fuck that, I’m going down swingin’
You want me to assimilate? I don’t want to fit in
To a highly polished sheen of Australiana dreams
Why would I be part of a colonial regime?
I dig deep, deeper than my own grave
Ninety years ago, I would have been buried with no name
White Australia policy embedded in the veins
Of the great southern sham that they want to reclaim, uh
I won’t pretend it’s the same for all of us
I’m a brown man livin’ on black land
Benefit from the theft and the blood on my hands
And the pain that I’ll never understand
But I stand with, band with ‘em, we transition the notes
Handwritten to a future beyond
The ambition, plant seeds of grand vision
Of rightin’ the wrongs, we fan fires

[Chorus: Omar Musa]
Tell me what you see
Do you see no evil?
Hear none either? I dance like Ali
It’s a fight to be equal
We all just want to be free, they want me to assimilate
Assimilate
They want me to assimilate
I’m not a man to intimidate
You’re lookin’ dusty, time for you to ventilate

[Verse 2: Omar Musa]
This is for the dreamers, model minority achievers
Think you got it safe if approved for a visa
Eager to please, but you put your foot wrong
And they go into a seizure, take you to the cleaners
Then they talk about the hand that feeds ya
Remember, it’s also the hand that beats ya
They’ll tell you “Go home” even though it’s your birthplace
It means that they didn’t think you Aussie in the first place
Can’t fool a man like me
Fuck respectability
Big balls, 5’10’’, dark skin
I swim through the mainstream like a shark fin
King like I’m standin’ on a terrace
A heretic way before populate or perish
Criticise the venom we inherit in the tongue of the oppressor
You know that I mean it when I’m yellin’

[Chorus: Omar Musa]
Tell me what you see
Do you see no evil?
Hear none either? I dance like Ali
It’s a fight to be equal
We all just want to be free, they want me to assimilate
Assimilate
They want me to assimilate
I’m not a man to intimidate
You lookin’ dusty, time for you to ventilate

[Post-Chorus: Omar Musa]
Time for you to ventilate
Time for you to ventilate
Time for you to ventilate
Time for you to ventilate

[Verse 3: Tasman Keith]
Look at my scarred skin (Scar)
A product of the system my wisdom was raised with (Uh)
They tell you “Lighten up” when you come from dark kin (Uh)
But I ain't never did that and I’m never caged in
Assimilate, racism on dinner plate
With a side of coconut just to facilitate
‘Cause I’m about to open up because I feel the way
They love the black until the white man vindicates
I don’t ever wanna fit in on rights that they reside
Genocide and gentrified a country in no time
Trauma, pain, and loss, I lost my only piece of mind
They try to sell it back but I ain't take a stolen dime
Ooh, they tell the baker make the bread (Bread)
And if you don’t comply, you’ll wear a rope upon the neck (Neck)
Ooh shit, I guess I must be dead (Dead)
‘Cause I don’t even fit in with the half-caste set

[Chorus: Omar Musa]
Tell me what you see
Do you see no evil?
Hear none either? I dance like Ali
It’s a fight to be equal
We all just want to be free, they want me to assimilate
Assimilate
They want me to assimilate
I’m not a man to intimidate
You lookin’ dusty, time for you to ventilate