Back story / My experience
Growing up in a Black home and predominately Black neighborhood can be very different from growing up in a predominately White one. In dealing with our everyday realities, our experiences can be polar opposites. As a kid, I never noticed being treated differently by my clo...
[Intro]
Hands up, don't shoot
Hands up, don’t shoot
Hands up, don't shoot
Hands up, don't shoot
Hands up, don’t shoot
Hands up, don't shoot
Hands up, don't shoot
Hands up, don't shoot
[Chorus]
Growing up, I could never trust a cop for my own good
Black and blue was just another gang in my neighborhood
You got good guys and got bad guys on the same field, my people still trying to find acceptance with the same ones that'll hate them and that's evil
[Verse]
I woke up been feeling like Moses
Why do people still believe that they own us?
Just because my family woke up in Egypt, doesn't mean I belong where they wronged us
I am a black man, I got a real wife, I got a real life, I got a family
You ain't listen when we sat and we kneeled
Collin Kaepernick, we going to plan B
Why you gotta go and reaffirm the way I feel while being around cops?
Yeah, now an officer wants to see us dead, ’cuz yo daddy said I was the opp
I’m sick and tired, you keep claiming it's ignorance, tell me: "Canon how we pose to be different?"
I shouldn’t know more about your history and how they've treated us because of my pigment?
Hear you saying: "Get the facts, all facts, get the whole truth, show some respect"
You concerned with a statement from officers that would kill a man, his knee on his neck
Now we on one, forget it I been on it, time to organize what you gone do to me
Flip over tables and chairs, incinerate it, but don't burn down your own community
Tired of the same old system
Tired of the same old victims
Tired of the same old Christians talking
You ain't even listening
Look, if he can’t breathe, then we can't breathe: that's a culture
How you scared to fend for you life with guns out the holster?
Niggas is tired of murder, yeah, I said it, niggas tired of the same verdict
I'm so sick and tired of giving them verses, I'm so sick and tired of nothing working
Don't stop and frisk before you stop to witness, that's a real person
Now them bullets flying and somebody dying, and it wasn't worth it
Every part of my body inside of me, feeling ready to go riot and ride
But my family is all I that got
Should I cock it back or keep it inside?
Why should worry about what you don't understand?
My people, I stand with the pain
Tell me: how am I suppose to be fine when it's black people dying again and again?
No, don't call me
No, don't text me
I don't want empathy
Don't try to check me
You do not get to tell me how to feel
When, all reality, you do not respect me
I got love for the right ones and wrong ones, only God can judge you
These ain't the old times, my people tired, so it's hard to tell you what they won't do, yeah
[Chorus]
Growing up, I could never trust a cop for my own good
Black and blue was just another gang in my neighborhood
You got good guys and got bad guys on the same field, my people still trying to find acceptance with the same ones that'll hate them and that's evil
[Post-Chorus]
That's evil, I cannot breathe, yeah
Can't tell me that ain't evil
That's evil, I cannot breathe
Tell me that ain't evil
That's evil, I cannot breathe, yeah
Can't tell me that ain't evil
That's evil, I cannot breathe
Tell me that ain't evil
[Outro]
Hands up, don't shoot
Hands up, don't shoot
Hands up, don't shoot
Hands up, don't shoot
Hands up, don't shoot
Hands up, don't shoot
Hands up, don't shoot
Hands up, don't shoot
Evil was written by Canon.
Evil was produced by Canon.
I pray that this song shows that racism is evil. What we are seeing today is the fruit of that evil that has been allowed to grow in our society through the many injustices that people of color have faced, both public and private. Even if you were previously unaware of your racial biases and discrim...