Atlanta Teen Voices / all

Poetry Finalist: “Forgive Me Father, For They Have Sinned”

by share

Despite my lyrical and fickle unorthodox rhyming skills
I feel like an artist with negative chances at record deals
Honestly how many decades worth of faces does it take to realize
That colored rappers have a distinct fear inside
No, I’m not talking about the black and white normality
that occurred right after Eminem said “Screw it man it’s happening”
I’m referring to the numerous other races without chances
Because they didn’t have the right skin for their faces legs and hands
It’s like
witnessing a mass genocide before they’re slaughtered
Raising the walls higher with no spots for ladders
How many moments of hesitation laced with contemplation
Do you think a rapper has in a foreign nation without affiliations?
Quite too many for a population plenty
trust me
people turned away because the rap game a
frantic frenzy
dreams destroyed quickly as they sit down weeping
quoting failure as “what am I doing, the rap game doesn’t need me”

Now
Listen to the muffled cries of thousands left abandoned
barred behind the black bars of modern rap standards
record labels as discriminate as 50s water fountains
rejecting everyone that had different voice boxes

Maybe I’m

being delirious and looking for excuses
Trying to find reasons to substantiate my origins
Multiple people keep telling me that I won’t make it
Persuading me to ditch it and change all of my focuses
What is it then? an unusual ethnic poet,
with different motives
that doesn’t understand at the moment,
he’s not absorbent
of the slim shady chances he has going
with mediocre melatonin
Nah, of course he knows. he’s off to go make flows with foes
write with pros and chill with hoes
but with proper prose and proper clothes

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Now I understand that there are rappers in their own countries
successful without trouble and rich as hell with no worries
but I hate to generalize with the statement that most of them
wouldn’t have made it if they started in the states as originals
Grew up in an american home surrounded by judgy folks
Cant seem to shove off the racism that follows home
How did you deal with it, you ask?
I got scoffed at by stuck up brats who gave no craps that I could rap
I just sat back took the flack and made sure I wanted to make the stacks
My skin color, I’m proud of that, my personality?
it’s not black
and I admit that without insulting back how can I be proud of something that I lack
I don’t need a mask, I need a task, a motive to fight back,
a reason to end their laugh, and a desire to keep pumping tracks

Please tell me again why color dictates standards
Didn’t y’all spend decades trying to reverse actions?
All I’m saying is equal rights, equal fights, and equal mics
and you’ll have more rappers rapping in broad daylight
If you give them a chance to prove themselves tonight

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