[00:22.05]Look, black is beautiful, black is excellent
[00:25.99]Black is pain, black is joy, black is evident
[00:28.82]It's working twice as hard
[00:29.89]As the people you know you're better than
[00:31.56]'Cause you need to do double what they do so you can level them
[00:34.32]Black is so much deeper than just African-American
[00:37.11]Our heritage been severed,
[00:38.31]You never got to experiment with family trees,
[00:40.81]'Cause they teach you 'bout famine and greed
[00:43.09]And show you pictures of our fam on their knees
[00:45.35]Tell us we used to be barbaric, we had actual Queens
[00:48.12]Black is watching child soldiers
[00:49.84]Getting killed by other children
[00:51.33]Feeling sick, like "oh **** this could have happened to me"
[00:53.84]Your mummy watchin' tellin' stories 'bout your dad and your niece
[00:56.86]The blacker the berry the sweeter the juice
[00:59.61]A kid dies, the blacker the killer, the sweeter the news
[01:02.35]And if he's white you give him a chance, he's ill and confused
[01:05.35]If he's black he's probably armed, you see him and shoot
[01:08.32]Look, black is growing up around the barbershop
[01:11.74]Mummy saying stay away from trouble, you’re in yard a lot
[01:14.26]Studying for ages, appreciating the chance you got
[01:17.07]'Cause black is in your blood,
[01:18.38]And you ain't even got the heart to stop
[01:20.08]Black is stepping in for your mother because your father's gone
[01:22.88]Standing by your children when you haven't proven karma wrong
[01:25.66]Black is doing all of the above then going corner shopping
[01:28.56]Tryna help a lady cross the road to have her walking off
[01:31.44]Black is growing up around your family and making it
[01:34.08]Then being forced to leave the place you love
[01:36.30]Because there's hate in it
[01:37.18]People say you fake the ****,
[01:38.41]Never stayed to change the ****
[01:39.84]But black is being jealous,
[01:41.33]You'd be dead if you had stayed in it
[01:42.83]Black is struggling to find your history or trace the ****
[01:45.64]You don't know the truth about your race 'cause they erasing it
[01:48.44]Black has got a sour ******* flavor, here's a taste of it
[01:51.44]But black is all I know,
[01:52.52]There ain't a thing that I would change in it
[02:04.88]Look, black ain't just a single ******* color,
[02:07.89]Man there's shades to it
[02:08.84]Her hair's straight and thick but mine's got waves in it
[02:11.55]Black is not divisive they been lyin' and I hate the ****
[02:14.27]Black has never been a competition,
[02:15.83]We don't make this ****
[02:17.34]Black is deadly
[02:18.54]Black is when you're freezing in your home
[02:20.61]And you can't get sleep
[02:21.71]But never feeling empty,
[02:22.76]'Cause you got twenty cousins in your country living stress free
[02:25.77]Walking for their water,
[02:26.97]Daughter wrapped inside a bed sheet
[02:28.61]Black is distant, it's representing countries
[02:31.35]That never even existed while your grandmother was living
[02:34.02]Black is my Ghanaian brother reading into scriptures
[02:37.03]Doing research on his lineage, findin' out that he's Egyptian
[02:39.92]Black is people naming your countries on what they trade most
[02:42.87]Coast of Ivory, Gold Coast, and the Grain Coast
[02:45.87]But most importantly to show how deep all this pain goes
[02:48.50]West Africa, Benin, they called it slave coast
[02:51.47]Black is so confusing, 'cause the culture?
[02:53.51]They're in love with it
[02:54.39]They take our features when they want
[02:56.14]And have their fun with it
[02:57.23]Never seem to help with all the things
[02:58.96]We know would come with it
[03:00.08]Loud in our laughter, silent in our sufferin'
[03:02.71]Black is being strong in sight of facing defeat
[03:05.42]Poverty made me a beast, I battled the law in the streets
[03:08.29]Well you were struggled,
[03:09.23]But your struggle ain't a struggle like me
[03:11.06]Well how could it be
[03:12.05]When your people gave us the odds that we beat?
[03:13.98]I mean, ******* hell,
[03:15.08]What about our brothers that are stuck in jail?
[03:17.39]That couldn't bust a bell, they held a bird
[03:19.03]And gotta live with it
[03:20.00]Black is being guilty until proven that you're innocent
[03:22.81]Black is saying "free my ******* ******
[03:24.67]Stuck inside in prison cells"
[03:26.14]They think it's funny, we ain't got nothing to say to them
[03:28.67]Unconditional love is strange to them; it's amazin' 'em
[03:31.43]Black is like the sweetest ******* flavor,
[03:33.35]Here's a taste of it
[03:34.52]But black is all I know,
[03:35.38]There ain't a thing that I would change in it
[03:37.66]