Hear Their Cries

Honoring their country with the national anthem
Except these youngsters have suddenly become unwelcome
In the country of their birth
The Dominican Republic has decided to strip citizenship
From people born to Haitian migrant workers since 1929
Making their birth certificates null and void
And you need a birth certificate to claim citizenship
It could affect more than 200,000 born individuals of Haitian decent
Plunging them into statelessness

Tin roofs dirt floors and broken dreams
The inception of left with nothing
The forefront of something different than broads
Clothes whips and shows
In the cane where the leaves are far from mistletoe
Red from the blood of a million who'll never speak
Red from the blood of a million who'll never peak
Red from the blood of those who were never chosen
To live in a place of freedom
Now open your eyes and peak into the cane

Thousands of acres of land are covered with sugar cane plants
The authorities are rounding up any Haitians
Found without the correct documents

Far from home
The life they chose
Now hear their cries

The Dominican Republic is all these students know
Haiti is a country lost to them
But faced with deportation to an unfamiliar place
They may experience the very upheaval
Felt by their ancestors generations ago

Back to the real
Back to the flow
Back to the mic and I'm back with a map and the facts hold up
Never pretty but I gotta spit it witty
The flow is so gritty put on for my people and my city
On the road less traveled y'all know I kill
I murder beats and y'all know the drill
I speak for those who border crossed
Those who got past the border boss
House in the cane with a board across
No food can't afford the cost
But those in the cane adore the cross
Christ in the cane
Jesus save them lighten the pain
Chicken beans rice in the cane
None of the above that's life in the cane
And I might entertain
Anyone who claims I'm right for the name
Right from the 'ville to the life in the cane
Write what I feel isn't right in the cane
Darker than night in the cane
So I gotta be a bright light I
Brought a gun to knife fight I'm
Steady killing these mics like
Paint a picture without a brush
You can hear it in my words the colors are lush
Verbal artistry is a part of me truth it never lies
This is life in the cane you can hear it in their cries

Haitian migrants have long struggled
With integrating into the Dominican society
Some have been living here for over thirty years
In these farming houses called bateys

Far from home
The life they chose
Now hear their cries

Sent back to an uncertain future
In January alone thousands of Haitians living illegally
In the Dominican Republic were deported
La Republica Dominicana tiene
Milions de imigrantes Haitianos viviendo en la isla
Tens of thousands of Haitians could be forced to leave
The neighboring Dominican Republic
Thousands of acres of land are covered with sugar cane plants