The World Is Listening

[Verse 1: Akua Naru]
Flash, flash, flashback, '88, copped my first tape
Third Grade, young girl banking Roxanne Shante
Around my way, Claude McKay, disarray
Langstons of dark hues get bruised, stored away, hey
Caught in cage, fought in the maze, gave up
And now I got dreams of being live on stage, what
Turn up the volume, uh, me and my cousin doin' the wop
Dreaming 'bout the Salt-N-Pepa haircut
Speakers bump light as the rock pumps
The rhythm of my next double-dutch jump, what you want?
At once, Pecola Breedloves, uh, we dreamed of ourselves
Knew when Latifah showed us what a queen was
I went from invisible to seen to on the Smooth tip
Sweet Tee, to follow Monie in the Middle on the scene
Saw them, saw myself, vowed to rock mics when I'm older
Pick up a pen, and like Antoinette (Lights out, party's over)

[Chorus: Akua Naru]
This is for Latifah, for Lyte, for Shante
Bahamadia, Lauryn Hill, Heather B, for Jean Grae
E-V-E, Nikki D, Salt-N-Pepa, even me
Apani B, for Missy, for Kim, and Foxy
This is for, Rah Digga, Rage, Left Eye, for Yo-Yo
Paula Perry, Nonchalant, Da Brat, for Jane Doe
Rage, Mystic, BO$$, Sparky D
For those never seen
On the search for female emcees
The microphone fiends

[Verse 2: Akua Naru]
Stomped in the '90s, after school you could find me
In the backyard begging for a beat box, rhymin'
U-N-I-T-Y and Heather B Blues
Frame the news of the death of Phyllis Hymen, I rap to keep from crying
Taking Mine, now I'm the Bo$$, recipe for a show
They say no girls in the cipher, so I rock solo
Then on the Blackstreet, Ill Na Na get me home, though
I rap along to every song and ain't no playing with my Yo-Yo
Check, how I hit every note, though
Even sung along to patois like in the joint she did with Patra
(I'm on a romantic call, talkin' to my baby down ah mi yaad)
Uh, blank page callin', I fantasized a crowd "Yes, ya'll"in'
Nonchalantly in the trees at five o'clock in the morning
Sported the Kim hardcore wig, then came Lauryn
She showed me the beauty and the natural cut
Amplified my Rage, growing out my afro puffs

[Chorus: Akua Naru]
This is for Latifah, for Lyte, for Shante
Bahamadia, Lauryn Hill, Heather B, for Jean Grae
E-V-E, Nikki D, Salt-N-Pepa, even me
Apani B, for Missy, for Kim, and Foxy
This is for, Rah Digga, Rage, Left Eye, for Yo-Yo
Paula Perry, Nonchalant, Da Brat, for Jane Doe
Rage, Mystic, BO$$, Sparky D
For those never seen
On the search for female emcees
The microphone fiends

[Verse 3: Akua Naru]
Yo, new millennium came of age while things stayed the same
Media forms changed, new name from What? What? to Jean Grae
We bootlegged the bootleg, facebook or MySpace
Put away cassette, VHS tapes in vinyl crates
Fast forward album release dates
Hip-hopalizing what we buy, how we objectify in these days
Tell me, what's the plight of a female emcee's fate?
Or what's the worth of a woman's story to a DJ? Uh
Downloadin' everyone and all my heroes seemingly gone
Search and found Lauryn Hill Unplugged, guess I lost one
Some come and go, self-labeled bitch and ho
And heretic of discourse, I turn off the radio
I can't relate, nor can I hate
For the ways we negotiate the sexist spaces that we navigate
I stay reppin', haunted by the ghost of hip hop's crescent
It seems (Fantasy's what people want reality to be)

[Chorus: Akua Naru]
This is for Latifah, for Lyte, for Shante
Bahamadia, Lauryn Hill, Heather B, for Jean Grae
E-V-E, Nikki D, Salt-N-Pepa, even me
Apani B, for Missy, for Kim, and Foxy
This is for, Rah Digga, Rage, Left Eye, for Yo-Yo
Paula Perry, Nonchalant, Da Brat, for Jane Doe
Rage, Mystic, BO$$, Sparky D
For those never seen
On the search for female emcees
The microphone fiends

[Outro: Akua Naru]
The world is listenin'
The world is listenin'
The world is listenin'