The World Is Listening

Flashback, '88
Copped my first tape
Third Grade
Young girl banking Roxanne Shante
Around my way
Called McKay
Disarray
Langston's a dark hues get bruised
Stored away, hey
Caught in cage
Fought in the maze, gave up
And now I got dreams of being live on stage
What
Turn up the volume, me and my cousin
Doing the wop
Dreaming about the Salt-N-Pepa haircut
Speakers bump like the rock pumps
The rhythm of my next double-dutch jump
What you want? At once
...and we love the
We dreamed of ourselves
Knew when Latifah showed us what a queen was
Went from invisible to seen on the Smooth tip
Sweet Tee, to follow Monie in the Middle on the scene
So then saw myself, I'll drop mics when I'm over
Pick up a pen and like Antoinette
"Lights Out, Party's Over"

This is for Latifah, for Lyte, for Shante
Bahamadia, Lauryn Hill, Heather B, for Jean Grae
E-V-E, Nikki D, Salt-N-Pepa, even me
Apani B, for Missy, for Kim, and Foxy
This is for, Rah Digga, Rage, Left Eye, for Yo-Yo
Paula Perry, Nonchalant, Da Brat, for Jane Doe
Rage, Mystic, BO$$, Sparky D
For those never seen

On the search for female emcees
The microphone fiends

Stomped in the '90s
After school you could find me
In the backyard begging for a beat box, rhyming
U-N-I-T-Y and Heather B Blues
Claim the news of the death of Phyllis Hymen
I rap to keep from crying
Taking Mine, now I'm the Bo$$
Recipe for a show
They say no girls in the cipher, so I rock solo
Then on the Blackstreet, Ill Na Na get me home, though
I rap along to every song
And ain't no playing with my Yo-Yo
Check, how I hit every note, though
Even sung along with patois
Like in the joint she did with Patra
I'm on a Romantic Call...
(Talkin' to my baby Down ah mi yard)
Blank page calling, a ...[??]
The crowd yes ya'llin'

Nonchalantly in the trees at five o'clock in the morning
Sported he Kim hardcore wig, then came Lauryn
She showed me the beauty and the natural cut
Amplify my Rage, growing out my afro puffs

This is for Latifah, for Lyte, for Shante
Bahamadia, Lauryn Hill, Heather B, for Jean Grae
E-V-E, Nikki D, Salt-N-Pepa, even me
Apani B, for Missy, for Kim, and Foxy

This is for, Rah Digga, Rage, Left Eye, for Yo-Yo
Paula Perry, Nonchalant, Da Brat, for Jane Doe
Rage, Mystic, BO$$, Sparky D
For those never seen
On the search for female emcees
The microphone fiends

New millennium, came of age
While things stayed the same
Media forms changed
New name, from What-What? to Jean Grae
We bootlegged, the bootleg
Put away cassette and VHS tapes in vinyl crates
Fast forward album release dates
Hip-hopalizing what we buy or objectify
In these days
Tell me what's the plight of a female MC's fate?
Or what's the worth of a woman's story to a DJ?
Downloading everyone and now my heroes seemingly gone
Search and found Lauryn Hill Unplugged
Guess I lost one
Some come and go
Self-labeled bitch and ho

A heretic of discourse

I turn off the radio
I can't relate, nor can I hate
For the ways we negotiate
The sexist spaces we navigate
I stay reppin'
Vaunted by the crest of hip hop's crescent
It seems...
"Fantasy's what people want reality to be"

This is for Latifah, for Lyte, for Shante

Bahamadia, Lauryn Hill, Heather B, for Jean Grae
E-V-E, Nikki D, Salt-N-Pepa, even me
Apani B, for Missy, for Kim, and Foxy
This is for, Rah Digga, Rage, Left Eye, for Yo-Yo
Paula Perry, Nonchalant, Da Brat, for Jane Doe
Rage, Mystic, BO$$, Sparky D
For those never seen
On the search for female emcees
The microphone fiends

The world is listening
The world is listening
The world is listening