Late last night, Lauryn Hill shared a "sketch" of her song "Black Rage" through her Twitter account, which you can listen to below. The song is based on Rodgers & Hammerstein's "My Favorite Things," but with a considerably more political and socially conscious slant. Hill dedicated the song to the residents of Ferguson, Missouri.
Check out Lauryn Hill's "Black Rage" right here:
An old sketch of Black Rage, done in my living room. Strange, the course of things. Peace for MO. - MLH https://t.co/47v9BEDoN6
— Ms. Lauryn Hill (@MsLaurynHill) August 21, 2014
Pitchfork points out that Hill has been performing "Black Rage" in concert since 2012. Her most recent single "Consumerism" was released in 2013. Her most recent (and so far, only) studio album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, was released all the way back in 1998.
Here are the lyrics to "Black Rage," as they are transcribed on her website:
Black rage is founded on two-thirds a person
Rapings and beatings and suffering that worsens,
Black human packages tied up in strings,
Black rage can come from all these kinds of things.
Black rage is founded on blatant denial
Squeezed economics, subsistence survival,
Deafening silence and social control.
Black rage is founded on wounds in the soul!
When the dogs bite
When the beatings
When I'm feeling sad,
I simply remember all these kinds of things and then I don't fear so bad!
Black rage is founded: who fed us self hatred,
Lies and abuse, while we waited and waited?
Spiritual treason, this grid and its cages.
Black rage is founded on these kinds of things.
Black rage is founded on draining and draining,
Threatening your freedom to stop your complaining.
Poisoning your water while they say it's raining.
Then call you mad for complaining, complaining.
Old time bureaucracy drugging the youth,
Black rage is founded on blocking the truth!
Murder and crime, compromise and distortion,
Sacrifice, sacrifice who makes this fortune?
Greed, falsely called progress,
Such human contortion,
Black rage is founded on these kinds of things.
So when the dogs bite
And when the ceilings
And when I'm feeling mad,
I simply remember all these kinds of things and then I don't fear so bad!
Free enterprise, is it myth or illusion?
Facing you back into purposed confusion.
Black human trafficking or blood transfusion?
Black rage is founded on these kinds of things.
Victims of violence both psyche and body
Life out of context is living unGodly.
Politics, politics
Greed falsely called wealth
Black rage is founded on denial of self!
Black human packages tied in subsistence
Having to justify very existence
Try if you must but you can't have my soul
Black rage is made by unGodly control!
So when the dogs bite
When the beatings
And when I'm feeling sad,
I simply remember all these kinds of things and then I don't fear so bad!
