Have you heard about the cool new Negro Music?
Hips shaking, pens moving and bass was a grooving
How about our jazz that lasted so long
So long you can hear it in all today’s songs?
How the Negro shaped the whole world’s art scene
Only 60 years after they’re free?
This a real thing, real like blue skies
Blue water and what the Lady Billie Holiday sings
This a renaissance, I ain't talking about Rome
This is Harlem
This is Harlem where Apollo makes its home
This a Renaissance. I ain't talking about Di Vinci
1920. 1920, black arts came-a-plenty
First World War caused a
Shortage of the workers in the north
Cause at first, Negros couldn’t fight in war and
That plus racism all through the south
Jim Crow, Black Codes, so many Negroes moved out
Got jobs working in the factories and mines
Cheap labor. Cheap labor paid much less than whites
Black exodus. Great migration what they call it
Add that to the fact many Negroes went to college
Add this and this is what you get
Imma go and do the math, call it historythmatic
The sum of all these reasons is a season
Of creation and the freedom
Just to speak in all the thing that we believe in
Our art were secreting, our culture we’re leaking
We’re bleeding our soul in the country’s wet cement
Now we’re sitting at the table
Drinking massas drink
While he’s begging us asking for another song to sing
And everything we make is the new hottest rave
Starting with “Shuffle Along” on Broadway
This a renaissance, I ain't talking about Rome
This is Harlem
This is Harlem where Apollo makes its home
This a Renaissance. I ain't talking about Di Vinci
1920. 1920, black arts came a plenty
Let’s learn about the people, let’s learn about the Negros
Paul Robeson he’s Denzels’ prequel
Augusta Savage statues
Aaron Douglas paintings
James Weldon Johnson, Lifting every voice and sing
Zora Neele Hurston’s eyes were watching God
When her pen hit the page sparks flew like lightning rods
Langston Hughes, yeah we called him “O’Henry”
Wrote more poems than lights in the city
“Dream Deferred”, “Mother Speaks To Child”
“Weary Blues”
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers”, “To Artina” names a few
Don’t forget Claude McKay he wrote
“If We Must Die”, “White City”
And “The Lynching”, “December 1919”
Moving on to Jazz and we can’t forget the
Duke Ellington playing trumpet
While we swing in Zoot suits
Cab Calloway known for riffing on a song
While Jelly Roll Morton and Bassie plays along
This a renaissance, I ain't talking about Rome
This is Harlem
This is Harlem where Apollo makes its home
This a Renaissance. I ain't talking about Di Vinci
1920. 1920, black arts came a plenty
Look at that
The Blacks who came through the back door (5)
Influencing, creating art, poetry, jazz and more
Our culture brand new, 60 years a new born (6)
And look what we created!
All this new and we create it!
Who you know could do all this with;
Their arms tied behind their back
A noose around their neck
And their skin gets no respect
Only Us!
Harlem renaissance is the proof
You can do anything, break through that glass roof
But we need a Renaissance
An elevation of our thinking
A creation evolution
All this new stuff is stinking
We need a renaissance
We need some new change
Look at this, take a listen
All the music sounds the same
Hips shaking, pens moving and bass was a grooving
How about our jazz that lasted so long
So long you can hear it in all today’s songs?
How the Negro shaped the whole world’s art scene
Only 60 years after they’re free?
This a real thing, real like blue skies
Blue water and what the Lady Billie Holiday sings
This a renaissance, I ain't talking about Rome
This is Harlem
This is Harlem where Apollo makes its home
This a Renaissance. I ain't talking about Di Vinci
1920. 1920, black arts came-a-plenty
First World War caused a
Shortage of the workers in the north
Cause at first, Negros couldn’t fight in war and
That plus racism all through the south
Jim Crow, Black Codes, so many Negroes moved out
Got jobs working in the factories and mines
Cheap labor. Cheap labor paid much less than whites
Black exodus. Great migration what they call it
Add that to the fact many Negroes went to college
Add this and this is what you get
Imma go and do the math, call it historythmatic
The sum of all these reasons is a season
Of creation and the freedom
Just to speak in all the thing that we believe in
Our art were secreting, our culture we’re leaking
We’re bleeding our soul in the country’s wet cement
Now we’re sitting at the table
Drinking massas drink
While he’s begging us asking for another song to sing
And everything we make is the new hottest rave
Starting with “Shuffle Along” on Broadway
This a renaissance, I ain't talking about Rome
This is Harlem
This is Harlem where Apollo makes its home
This a Renaissance. I ain't talking about Di Vinci
1920. 1920, black arts came a plenty
Let’s learn about the people, let’s learn about the Negros
Paul Robeson he’s Denzels’ prequel
Augusta Savage statues
Aaron Douglas paintings
James Weldon Johnson, Lifting every voice and sing
Zora Neele Hurston’s eyes were watching God
When her pen hit the page sparks flew like lightning rods
Langston Hughes, yeah we called him “O’Henry”
Wrote more poems than lights in the city
“Dream Deferred”, “Mother Speaks To Child”
“Weary Blues”
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers”, “To Artina” names a few
Don’t forget Claude McKay he wrote
“If We Must Die”, “White City”
And “The Lynching”, “December 1919”
Moving on to Jazz and we can’t forget the
Duke Ellington playing trumpet
While we swing in Zoot suits
Cab Calloway known for riffing on a song
While Jelly Roll Morton and Bassie plays along
This a renaissance, I ain't talking about Rome
This is Harlem
This is Harlem where Apollo makes its home
This a Renaissance. I ain't talking about Di Vinci
1920. 1920, black arts came a plenty
Look at that
The Blacks who came through the back door (5)
Influencing, creating art, poetry, jazz and more
Our culture brand new, 60 years a new born (6)
And look what we created!
All this new and we create it!
Who you know could do all this with;
Their arms tied behind their back
A noose around their neck
And their skin gets no respect
Only Us!
Harlem renaissance is the proof
You can do anything, break through that glass roof
But we need a Renaissance
An elevation of our thinking
A creation evolution
All this new stuff is stinking
We need a renaissance
We need some new change
Look at this, take a listen
All the music sounds the same
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