Kembe La (Hold On)                   1/29/10

When the dust eventually clears my tears of hope will cleanse the souls of lives lost

My hopeful heart does not wave goodbye but waves go forth with deep intensity and memory.

My communication is not by phone but I will reach through the rubble and hold your hands when no one can

My mornings are filled with prayers for your afternoons and evenings

My rainbow colored smile will illuminate your surrounding darkness

My dull pencils will serve as additional soldiers in your battlefield

My tongue is saturated with the moisture you need to survive

My words will create coverage for the moments that rain explodes and runs down your cheek

My blood is your blood

My pain is your pain

Your strength is my strength

Your language is my speech

We stand united when we’re expected to fall

We are Mankind

We are Humanity

Hear us roar and hear us sing songs of peace

The rhythm is familiar

The sound is organic

The Anthem is filled with oxygen

We are Born Black Jacobins

We are together with Toussaint

We are descendants of Dessalines

We are daughters and sons of Charlemagne Peralte

We write with Rene Depestre

We take journeys with Jean Dominque

We are with Wyclef right now

We are Survivors of Slavery

We Overcame Occupation

We Pushed past Papa Docracy

We will always be bigger than baby doc

We Climbed over the hills of Coup D’Etat

When the earth shook and swallowed our beauty. The earth became filled with peace and love

When the earth shook and tasted our finest. The earth ingested freedom.

Loot the land but not the people. Show me signs and I’ll salute to Leogane with my palms drenched in our blues

L’union fait La Force is more than a motto it’s a testament of our courage.

I text 1  8  0  4   to the ancestors asking them for assistance.

Asking them to listen

Asking them to look upon the people and to breathe an essence of excellence

After shaking we sing and pray and laugh and cry and live

Nou Kembe La because Petionville has mountainous aspirations

Shake loose my skin and find the sun

My flesh my face my survival comes from you.

Together we shall drink each others tears of joy and pain to negate our nightmare and to empower our dreams.

Kembe La because it is necessary

Kembe La because they need us too

Kembe La

Kembe La

Kembe La

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DIE ANOTHER DAY   (featured in do not hold doors)

If we must die, let it not be like Rats

Lied to and packaged in an ignoble gift

While behind Old Glory prey the vampire bats

Creating capital as we’re pushed off cliffs.

If we must die, O let us nobly die

So that our melodies roar is not silenced

And Freedom Fighters that instinctively lie

Shall sing along to our soulful defiance!

My peeps! we must remove the constructed veil

Outnumbered no more, battered fists must pump

And deal a killer blow when their words assail!

Are we to be afraid if our bodies become slumped?

Like warriors we won’t drop to media’s attacks

Pressed to the screen dying but fighting back.

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Microphone Checka

I am an MC because I’ve got those skills

I am an MC because wheneva I touch the Mic it burns blue flames

I am an MC because my lyrical level makes me a lyrical rebel

I am an MC because I catch the beat like Jerry Rice catches touchdowns

I am an MC because the elements elevate, electrify and ignite

I am an MC who flows

I am an MC be it battles, freestyles, recorded tracks, in basements, bars, and backyards, at bbq’s, bashments, baby showers and on balconies, in lobbies, lunchrooms, dorm rooms, bedrooms, classrooms, at sweet sixteens, on subway cars and platforms, during syphrs, drunk or sober, sittin shotgun on road trips or on stoops, at open mics, on the block, on both N6 and Q2 buses, on stage or during an Orlando Afternoon or Arizona evening, in offices, kitchens, auditoriums, gyms, arenas, parking lots, at McDonalds, the Gap, Jimmy Jazz, Express for Men, Friendly’s, Costco, at Roosevelt, Green Acres and the Coliseum Malls, in dungeons and crack houses, on the moon and in the sun.

I am there

I am an MC that will rhyme about anything

Test me with a topic

I am an MC, which stands for Master Craftsman Magically Creative and of course I Move the Crowd

I am an MC because of Nas, Rakim, BIG, Mos, Kool G, Kweli, Jay, Pac, MC Shan,

Kriss Kross, LL, Slick Rick, RUN DMC, A Tribe Called Quest,  EPMD, MC Lyte, The Fugees, Pudge Mcee, Wuan, X/man, Stevie Wonder, Sly Stone, Miles Davis, George Clinton, and James Brown

I am an MC because EL PREZ says so

I am an MC because at one point I’ve claimed to be the nicest

I am an MC who’s got the Juice

I am an MC therefore I’m a poet, a teacher, a writer, a student, an activist, a voice and truly an artist

I am an MC who can spit in two different languages

Annu allez!

I am an MC who refuses to spit about guns, ice, sitting on twenty two’s, shipping bricks, cocaine, fancy cars, bitches and ho’s…I don’t agree but I won’t hate I’d rather educate

I am an MC who will not fight, but I will write three verses and a hook about you

I am an MC who remembers rocckin for TRU Image and the beginnings dj spynfo

I am an MC who convinced his Haitian born parents that rhymin is an art form

I am an MC infected by Grew Bap

I am an MC

I am an MC so pass the M-I-C

P.S If you eva wanna test its best to reassess

Wit Prez the mic is blessed

Wit you its just a mess

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88-05 (Merrick Boulevard)

I plunge into and swerve away from life’s potholes

Sugarcane Sweetness

Battles with Bitterness

Memories of a third beatdown are triggered

My backyard was a BUS TERMINAL

Playing in the yard meant using tokens to tour the city

The fire hydrant of a front lawn was never green on my side

The driveway was the street on which you found parking

Block sans meter equals garage mobility

Check the porch

an encased capsule with limitless cultural complexities

Uninviting to invited guests even when functional

3B- Mr. Singh

1A- The Super

1G- my alias

Multitasking became popular

The kitchen doubled as the ding area

(With the aid of an open oven) tripled as the fireplace

Quadrupled as the occasional roach motel

And quintupled as a hallway to my sanctuary

Guestroom…living room…den…Guestroom

Vicious cycle

My bedroom was just that

A room and a bed

The double bunk bed housed three

Sis reached the highest level

Grandma down in the basin

I played the bench waiting to shine

Moms and Pops were freedom fighters

Their MASTER bedroom

a rose growing in the sidewalk

the bathroom

1-2-3 situation

Fully functional Friday’s

4-5-6 hustla

For over fifteen years

my next door neighbors

were the Central Public Library Family

lovely Mr. and Mrs. Telephone Company

APT. 1G

Where I did the Running Man to impress guests

APT. 1G

Where discourse of Pimps and Crackheads controlled the payphones

APT. 1G

Its own city within the Americana complex

The white picket fence never enclosed my home sweet home

88-05 sweet 88-05 survived the susceptibility of the White picket

I am a true homeboy