This song is about death and mortality. Everyone on this song is young, black and talking about their funerals. This is because it’s commonplace in America for black people to be thinking about their mortality at such a young age. So many black lives are taken so soon and it has been this way for ge...
[Intro: Phoelix, theMIND, Cam O'bi]
How do you see me?
How do you love me?
How do you remember me?
Amaurotic nightingale
I hope that darkness keeps you well
When I can't fall asleep at night
I blindly taught myself to fight
Aw shadow man shadow box, please keep your hands up
And if you get knocked down don't forget to stand up
[Hook: Phoelix, theMIND & Cam O'bi]
Bless the nightingale
Darkness keep you well
Bless the nightingale
(I pray it keep you well)
Darkness keep you well
[Verse 1: Noname]
Shadow man, shadow box, dance in the dark with me
This resurrected agony there's apathy for caskets
Everything I ever loved I lost in the magic
I claim by the river, my body delivered
When I die there's 27 rappers at my funeral
Moses wrote my name in gold and Kanye did the eulogy
Remember all the bashfulness, understand the truancy
Here I stand in front of a college dropout
My music was a church when your spirit hopped out
Met a gypsy in LA and she reading my palm tree
Mysterious situation like kissing the concrete i.e getting money
I been close to heaven, baby claim he love me
Hold me down forever, I never should have bought this halo
He waiting for me at his table
My funeral a Disney fable 'cause the king 'bout to take me home
[Verse 2: Saba]
Preach, church, tabernacle, Tallahassee sunshine
Southern is my bloodline, we know it'll come time... to go
And though I leave like alumni
I'm lying like a lullaby and quiet like my tongue tied... alone
Bury me in satin, tell the pastors say the sad shit
Same class with the whole... first row
And if ashes turn to ashes then I'm back in my first form
With a dust storm with a corner... and coke
Morbid or late, Lord give Lord take
Viva la muerte, mortal man, less love, more hate
More like mortician, we meet our fate
Funeral home lookin like a home that I used to live in
You wasn't supposed to go so soon I took it for granted
Maybe we'll meet the next life, maybe another planet
Open my soul but then it'll end with an open casket
[Verse 3: Smino]
Uh, ay, tippy-toe on a tightrope
Leaning on green and it gon be a dice roll
I'm fiendin' a feline who mindset Afeni, I got two packs for us
Gold on my gumline done got rich off my tongue
Sticky dro in the tight roll, cleaning my grievances
As a lil' heathen I sat pledge allegiance out
Never believed in y'all system, I needed more
And I done went Figaro with the finger roll
Landed wrong split my head, start leaking songs
And I'm worser than they worst, they make a nigga live forever
Flock with them birds, my heart stay lighter than a feather
It's gon be niggas boomin' at my funeral (boom-boom-boom-boom!)
Tell em play Metro Boomin' at my funeral
St. Louis taught me death could be your neighbor, stay away
Don't take the family for granted, better days await
[Hook: Phoelix, theMIND & Cam O'bi]
Bless the nightingale
Darkness keep you well
Bless the nightingale
Darkness keep you well
Bless the nightingale
Darkness keep you well
Bless the nightingale
Darkness keep you well
Noname released Shadow Man on Sun Jul 24 2016.
Noname used to go by “Noname Gypsy,” but in March 2016, she switched to just “Noname” due to the offensive connotations of “gypsy.”
On Twitter, Noname stated why she used the word specifically on this track:
Shadow Man is a funeral song to symbolize death to that part of my name. I am just Noname...
theMIND: Cam is a fucking genius… I remember he got pissed off because the images weren’t moving. He was like, ‘No, no, no! No one look at the screen!’ [Laughs] He brought up a couple words—"nightingale” was one—that he said kept coming to him. I went over in the corner and wrote this chorus. Everyo...
Cam O'bi told DJBooth:
The beat to [Noname’s] “Shadow Man,” I made a version of that without my sped-up vocals at J Cole’s crib. I wrote a hook and everything to it with Cole but he didn’t end up using it. Then, I go to Chicago and make [a new version of] the “Shadow Man” beat in front of Chance, l...