The Bay Tradition

To the underground, who i represent to the end;

Like it was said by Toni Morrison:

Don’t ask me why i don’t write for them

Keep my head down, keep creating and doing what feels right 

Spitting for folks trying to capture the voice

Capture the soul, capture the agitation, capture the imagination

Pick the fruit soon as it reaches maturation

Underground like the roots burrowing into earth 

Onto my face spread a handful of dirt

Dot each cheek, wipe a stripe down the forehead  

Your boy’s risen from the bay soil 

Like Hiero with a three eyed blank face smile

Proud of our tradition of radical thought - self taught radical art

This one is for the locals who got bills overdue 

The organizers, writers, animals locked in the zoo 

The ones who never left and the ones who came thru

Shout out to moms for housing for showing us what we can do;

All sorts of contributions abound from the underground 

Including from our neighbors that are unhoused 

Without an address, but who remain at home with us, in the town 

See our power is to bring what’s unspoken out into the open 

We are anonymously unknown with spirit defiantly unbroken 

Shake this shit up to challenge the status quo

I’m speaking for my ancestors and not the influencers

For them... it’s just a little too cold...

So bring it back to the Luniz, Souls, Lil b, 

Dead Kennedy’s, Boots Riley,  and the others who came before me

I’ll continue to do it live from the underground 

Words that spark the brain, speak to the soul

This revolution isnt how the radio’s sounds

Stand out be different maybe never fit in 

Not everyone gets- it’s ok, cuz this isn’t for them

It’s the underground