I wanted to do some blog entries about the mixtape. I’m starting with F.C.G. (Black Gurl Song).

I wrote this song two years ago after really paying attention to Ntozake Shange’s Choreopoem, ‘For Colored Girls’ (So obviously FCG stands for For Colored Girls). I was particularly inspired by the part where she says “Somebody, anybody, sing a black girl song. Bring her out to know herself.” I was like that’s so true! — And that’s how I feel. Within current music, esp. hip-hop, I feel like you NEVER hear black girl songs anymore. I’m talking about a real black girl perspective – not what we think other people want to hear, or trying to become men in skirts, basically, but REAL black girl’s songs and black girl’s stories (what we go through and how we feel). So I wanted to just express that and implore the world to “sing a black girl song” because they are getting our stories ALL WRONG.

Anyway, the lyrics are below.

[Verse 1]

we hula hoop with the rings of Saturn

our earrings are almost bigger, so you know we get at ‘em.

the atoms in the atmosphere are same as those in our bodies

and so we’ll always feel connected, even as we hear shotties,

as we lay up at night and be prayin for our babies,

pray they really grow up to respect themselves—be ladies, be men

it’s crazy–cuz the images don’t show that,

but I know that ain’t reality

somebody’s twisted vision of me, clouding me

it’s crowding me

I feel it closin in on all sides

my periphery is filled with big white lies

I wrote this on white paper with light blue lines

and I did it to get high like I was doin white lines

write lines in my head, that way they ain’t hard to find I

close my eyes and just feel sometimes

hear the music in my head, when I rock, when I rhyme

It is not a front step

I climb

I chime:

[Hook]

won’t somebody, anybody, please

sing a black girl song

cuz our stories, they getting ‘em all wrong – all wrong

and we’ve been trodded on this press too long (too long)

sing a black girl song

won’t somebody, anybody, please

sing a black girl song

cuz our stories, they getting ‘em all wrong – all wrong

and we’ve been trodded on this press too long (too long)

sing a black girl song

[Verse 2]

we daydreamin’ when they say that we frontin

just fantasize we can afford everything that we stuntin

it makes us feel as if we’re just a little more of somethin

and in the end we’ll recognize that it’s in US what we huntin

a hundred different ways they wade through us,

only graze the surface

and it betrays our depth on purpose, and we be nervous

as they givin paper bag tests with hair grades

you would think that we were still slaves, it’s depraved

it deprives us of seein who we are

exactly how light do you have to be to be a star?

and here’s another riddle: how much weave do you need?

how many pictures of your back, you lookin back over your sleeve?

how much time does it take, for you to cure self-hate when you’ve seen nothing but these images since you was like eight

months . . . ?

yo it should be a throne for us.

but for now, that’s a whole different zone from us,

so won’t

somebody, anybody, please

sing a black girl song

cuz our stories, they getting ‘em all wrong – all wrong

and we’ve been trodded on this press too long (too long)

sing a black girl song

won’t somebody, anybody, please

sing a black girl song

cuz our stories, they getting ‘em all wrong – all wrong

and we’ve been trodded on this press too long (too long)

sing a black girl song

[Verse 3]

we double-dutch by the light of the moon

and hang our attitudes up like posters in rooms

cuz we supposed to be hard, but we reading a script

we’re just deliverin the lines with emphasis

the emphasis is on our asses too much

is it askin too much

that we be seen as people, not just body parts to touch

. . . but that’s a touchy subject, guess it doesn’t matter, does it?

they just want us to dance . . .

shake what’s in our pants.