Chaka Mkali, also known as I Self Devine, is a musician, hip-hop emcee, racial justice trainer, graffiti artist, muralist and director of organizing and community building at the Minneapolis nonprofit Hope Community.
This piece is part of the "A Moment of Silence" project in which members of Minnesota's theatrical, musical, artistic and literary circles reflect on this troubled summer. It can be found at blackmnvoices.com.
I see the light visuals blinding
In need of constant refinement
Every day another funeral procession
Can't sleep in constant depression
Recession like humans is regressing
Aggression oppression I bleed weapons
All alone in an uprising
When I fall all I know is to keep climbing
I'm an old soul lean with the drum roll
Solar heat to the Arctic where it's dumb cold
Watching wigs get peeled
Slumped over chest on the wheel
Age 16 got 6 bodies
Live video game sick shotty
The world's unraveling
The vibration is so off balancing
On a tightrope balancing malice with
Fake love that appears to be counterfeit
Stress under pressure
Compressed under heat that a test ya
Either crack off alignment
Or rock hard like a diamond amen
Give thanks give grace
Give peace give love give praise
Here's what I'm gonna do
Ride when drama is in front of you
When the bottom fall what ya gonna do/
Grind harder like you 'pose ta do
Can't be everything to everybody
But I was raised by the Black Panther party
Wattstax in and out of projects
Gang sets maniacs on deck
Bomb threats vets holding black pits
Weight benches on front lawns hood stuff
Drug raids friends catching AIDS
High deficit live to get paid
Gotta be more than this
Looking up at the sky in wonderment
Why preachers be so dogmatic
Make God racist so tragic
In the end make it what you make it
Life is way too short to be faking
I'm a see heaven cause I seen hell
In a cell with a mean smell
Reborn with a clean shell
On the grind where the fiends dwell
Stay humble build with a clean angle
In limbo with the fallen angels
Either crack off alignment
Or rock hard like a diamond amen
Give thanks give grace
Give peace give love give praise
