Baldwin’s Crown

[Intro: Pia Ovanda]
Your crown has been bought and paid for
All you have to do is wear it

[Verse 1: Akua Naru]
I know your anger, the rage, pain, indifference
Thought by 2018, you'd see somethin' different
Tried everything not be swallowed by bitterness
So you whisper when your heart turns cold, you caught the spirit
It's been a long road, short lies foretold by another
Worked in a house, over the stoves, they be mothers, hoes, monkeys, niggas, negroes, those that take a needle
Strange fruit juice sold by Dole, America's favorite drink, yo
Sweet to the taste, cause amnesia, a need to erase
Addictive, the smell of blood favorin' the perfume spray
Cornrows in Paris at a fashion week runway
She's gotta have it, long as she ain't us, some days, uh
My heart aches till the dungeon shakes
Heavy the head that wear the mask, brother of the face
Not the one a motherfucker wanna ask to explain
Pain got my patience thinner than a nigga Baldwin fee
(It must be gone)

[Chorus: Akua Naru]
Wear your crown (Uh)
Baldwin's crown (Put it on, uh, uh)
Wear your crown (Uh huh)
Baldwin's crown (What happen?)

[Verse 2: Akua Naru]
What happen to wounds that we never see?
To stay safe, all implored for applause on the world stage
For Claude McKay, for James, my grandmother Hattie May
Crack-cocaine, what Reagan did to my daddy veins
What happen to the blade the day Beloved passed away?
Mental health, Nina Simone, Donny Hathaway
Found that I was on verge of a psychotic break
Last week, two tweets away from billhooks, killing rage
Used to ask myself, "How much more can I take?"
Till I recognized it wasn't mine in the first place, uh
Blood of the humans that slave
Nannies, maids, sharecroppers, entertainers in cage, bird
Carnegie Hall sold out, standin' applause
[?] can't walk his horn through the front door
For black boys with hoop dreams, sent up state or murdered unarmed
For Trayvon, this crown is bought and paid for

[Chorus: Akua Naru]
Wear your crown (Uh, put it on)
Baldwin's crown (It's yours, just put it on)
Wear your crown (Uh)
Baldwin's crown (Uh)

[Outro: James Baldwin]
Well, I know this, and anyone who has ever tried to live knows this: now what you say about somebody else, anybody else, reveals you
Now here in this country we’ve got something called a nigga. There’s no such term, I beg you to remark, exists in any other country in the world. We have invented the nigga. I didn’t invent it. White people invented it
I’ve always known, I had to know by the time I was seventeen years old, what you were describing was not me and what you were afraid of was not me. It had to be something else. You had invented it. So it had to be something you were afraid of and you invested me with it
(Wear your crown)
(Baldwin's crown)
Now that so, no matter what you've done to me, I can say to you this, and I mean it
(Wear your crown)
I know you can’t do anymore and I got nothing to lose. And, I know and I’ve always known
(Baldwin's crown)
(Wear your crown)
And really always, that’s a part of the agony, I have always known that I’m not a nigga
(Baldwin's crown)
But if I am not the nigga, and if it’s true that your invention reveals you, then who is a nigga?
(Wear your crown)
(Baldwin's crown)
I am not the victim here. I know one thing from another. I know was born, I’m going to suffer and I’m going to die. The only way you get through life is know the worst things about it. I know that a person is more important than anything else, anything else. I learned this because I’ve had to learn it. But you still think, I gather, that the nigga is necessary
Well it’s unnecessary to me so it must be necessary to you. And I give you your problem back
You’re the nigga baby. It isn’t me