Brother (Watching)

[Hook]
(I've been watching everything
Oh, brother, brother, brother)
[x2]

[Verse 1]
I try to hold some hope in my heart for these African youths
Coming up where I'm from, many traps to elude
Surrounded by mostly white and affluent dudes
And somehow, you expected to have mastered this smooth
Swagger and move with the right walk, the right talk
Fashion and crews, souls subtly attacked and abused
And what's funny's being black wasn't cool
Where I'm from till suddenly you started hearing rap in the school
Hallways, amidst this madness I grew
With a knack for amusing through this little skill for rapping at dudes
And we all like to laugh at the truth
But when you young and the same facts pertain to who you rapping 'em to
Well, I opted not to bring that to the booth
But after a while, it sort of starts nagging at you
The crazed infatuation with blackness, the trash that gets viewed
And the fact that the tube only showed blacks acting the fool
And I was watching

[Hook]

[Verse 2]
(Saturated with negative images and a limited range
Of possibilities is strange)
And it's sad cause that naturally do
Sort of condition your mind and over time that's what's attractive to you
So young blacks don't see themselves in scholastic pursuits
Or the more practical routes, it's making tracks or it's hoops
Or God-forbid moving packs for the loot
Shoot, even with this music we so limited, it's rap or produce
And that narrow conception of what's black isn't true
Of course, still we feel forced to adapt to this view
Like there's something that we're having to prove
Now add that to the slew of justifications the capitalists use
For the new blaxploitation, many actions excused
In the name of getting cash that's adversely impacting our youth
With mental slavery, the shackles is loose
And it's hard to cut chains when they attached at the roots
So what the new black activists do
For our freedom is just being them, do what you're passionate to
Not confined by a sense that you have to disprove
Any stereotypes, so-called facts to refute
Or match any image of blackness they've established as true
Perhaps we'll break through the glass ceiling, shatter the roof
And emerge, from these boxes that they have us in-cooped
And grow to smash the mould that they casted of you
I'll keep watching

[Hook x2]