I’m fightin’ on ‘til my life is gone
Even when my version of health insurance is orange juice and tiger balm
Even when my attention is so divided
Between rappin’ and writin’ and activism and survivin’
And at any given time so many of us are new to this
But you ain’t gotta stop listening to Ludacris
And you ain’t gotta dress a certain way
Ride your bike in wintertime, shop at the co-op or ever turn away
From who you really are… this movement doesn’t need perfect
It just needs us to start workin’
Radical means you have hope
And sometimes ya vote for it, most of the time, though, ya don’t
So this is for the ballot, the bullet, the bulletin and the boycott
For the hand to hand, and the door to door
More and more, it’s growin’ in popularity
We don’t say peace, we say solidarity

With this many hands we can start a fire
With this many hands we can start a war
With this many hands we can build something beautiful
With this many hands we can do so much more
With this many hands we can start a fire
With this many hands we can start a war
With this many hands we can build something beautiful

I got a friend who ran for city council and he got elected
Got a friend who ran for school board and got rejected
But in the process, learned about the process
Wrote a couple grants, now she runs a non-profit
I got a friend who never went to college
But knows the first and last names of everyone in his housing project
It starts with the basics
I got another friend who throws parties in his basement
And basically that’s just a baseline
Power’s a hundred people in the same place at the same time
But what you gonna do with it?
I got a friend who knows what the revolution is
And knows that though the music is beautiful
It’s the people that it brings together who are better
And the senators and representatives only bend
To the will of the real change-makers, my friends

With this many hands we can start a fire
With this many hands we can start a war
With this many hands we can build something beautiful
With this many hands we can do so much more
With this many hands we can start a fire
With this many hands we can start a war
With this many hands we can build something beautiful

We don’t care about the clothes you wear
Don’t care about the kind of car you drive
We don’t need any more heroes
We just need to organize
Don’t care about the books you read
Or the revolution in your head
Don’t put your fists in the air, use ‘em
To build something real instead

Fuck a conspiracy theory that ain’t right
The worst they do is always in plain sight
I ain’t concerned about black helicopters
It wasn’t the illuminati who shot Sean and Oscar
I ain’t looking for symbols on dollar bills and monuments
Or reading Nostradamus’s prophecies of apocalypse
I got enough problems in my neighborhood
.unemployment, schools underfunded so take a good
Look at the books it doesn’t add up so what’s up
It doesn’t take a new world order to fuck us
…so flip that switch off
I don’t think 9/11 was an inside job
And even if it was suspicious, our mission is the same
Resist, revolt, rebel, remember every name
We live, we vote, we yell the pressure doesn’t change
Whether on republicans or democrats or space lizards

— Guante & Big Cats, “A Pragmatist’s Guide to Revolution”

#Bandcamp #Music #Lyrics #Guante #BigCats #YouBetterWeaponize #HipHop #Rap #Revolution #Anticapitalist #Antifascist

Ungodly wars caught in the name
Blood stains upon the text
Dried on the page as it clung to a mothers chest
You got the nerve to criticize drive-bys at schools
When heatseekers reach teachers red white and blue
Red white and blues never on the nightly news
Killed more kids than shit, Nike shoes
So i fight the rules kinda like Tyson do
Yeah it might be rude but it’s likely true
From the A-Bomb, the napalm, the scud missiles
From heroes to heroine pins with drugs in you
Or a face gets replaced by a molded mass
A soldier standing on the stoop with a folded flag
I ask where the billions went
And if this war on terrorism still legit
Or it never was tell the gov’ tell the fuzz
We the threat yes you scared of us

(Hook)
…there are stars in your stomach
…a supernova beatin’ in ya chest
…lightning between ya fingertips
…fire burnin’ in ya breath
…there are stars in your stomach
…a supernova beatin’ in ya chest
…lightning between ya fingertips
Let it out until there’s nothin’ left!

Believe nothing sound truer than the livest
It’s repeated, feed it to the masses
Eat it up and teach it in your classes
But at least you preaching what you practice
Aggressively passive culture for the placid
About to get drastic, road block, rush hour traffic
So we can’t roll up and roll past it
Newsflashes handed down like Moses’ stone tablets
No questions or you’re outcasted
I’m looking for hope here inside the don
Seeing all kinds of wrong, got damn, the line is long
The hell am I doing trying to write a song?
Maybe I should ride along with them and keep the blinders on
But fuck that, if not for me then for my daughter
For the trail of tears that let me to my ancestor’s slaughter
So when the levees break you’ll see me wading in the water
At least they gonna bury me with honor

(Hook)

Shout to Howard Zinn
Have you ever seen the world through a bomb sight?
Have you ever prayed through a darkness beyond night?
The song might be a bunker buster
Daisy cutter thermobaric American crazy proletarian ay
But when you boil in the belly of the beast it’s scary
So hack out by any means necessary
They’re gonna call it terrorism either way
So you can head for the clear, or give ‘em something to fear
C’mon… and I ain’t talkin’ ‘bout bombs
I ain’t talkin’ ‘bout Bibles, Torahs or Qurans
I’m talkin’ ‘bout the god that lives in your feet when you’re walking
The god that lives on your lips while you’re talking
The god that lives in your fist when you fight for
Something worth fightin’ for, this whole life is war
And the first step to victory
Like Toki Wright said: know the history
An injury to one is an injury to all, understand me
They step up to your cousin, you run and go get your family
So when they step to you on some real shit
You got the whole city risin’ up, climbin’ up that double helix
Your job is to protect your family
And your family is everyone
Power to the people, give it a chance
‘cause it’ll work, it’s the only thing that ever has

— Guante & Big Cats feat. Toki Wright & Crescent Moon, “Until There’s Nothing Left”

#Bandcamp #Music #Lyrics #Guante #BigCats #YouBetterWeaponize #HipHop #Rap #Revolution #Antifascist