Otep had this to say about Wake Up:
“Rage Against the Machine were fearless and had the courage to speak truth to power,” she says. “We give them an an homage on this record. We give them all the respect.”
She continued, about Rage:
“There’s not many bands out there that are speaking out like that,”...
Come on
Although you try to discredit
You still never edit
The needle I'll thread it
Radically poetic
Standing with the fury that they had in '66
And like E-Double I'm mad
Still knee deep in the system's shit
Hoover
He was a body remover
I'll give you a dose but it'll never come close to the
Rage built up inside of me
Fist in the air in the land of hypocrisy
Movements come and movements go
Leaders speak
Movements cease when their heads are flown
Cause all these punks got bullets in their heads
Departments of police
(what?)
The judges
(what?)
The feds
Networks at work
Keeping people calm
You know they went after King
When he spoke out on Vietnam
He turned the power to the have-nots
And then came the shot
Yeah
Yeah, back in this
With poetry my mind I flex
Flip like Wilson
Vocals never lacking that finesse
What do I gotta I got to
What do I gotta to do to wake you up?
To shake you up
To break the structure up
Cause blood still flows in the gutter
I'm like taking photo
Mad chick kicks open the shutter
Set the groove
Then stick and move like I was Cassius
Rep the stutter step then bomb a left upon the fascists
Yeah
Several federal men
Who pulled schemes on the dream and put it to an end
You better beware of retribution with mind war
20/20 visions and murals with metaphors
Networks at work
Keeping people calm
Ya know they murdered X and tried to blame it on Islam
He turned the power to the have-nots
And then came the shot
I think I heard a shot (x 5)
Wake up (x 8)
How long? Not long
Cause what you reap is what you sow
Wake Up was written by Tom Morello & Zack de la Rocha & Tim Commerford & Brad Wilk.