![Lauryn Hill – Black Rage (Sketch) [Ferguson Dedication]](https://singersroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/laurynhillblackragesketchfergusondedication1.jpg)
When it comes to releasing songs inspired by the rage happening in Ferguson, MO, Lauryn Hill’s got next….
On her 2012 "Life Is Good" tour, Hill debuted this song called "Black Rage," but given the current events, she’s decided to share this demo, which she says was recorded in her living room. It’s a re-working of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “My Favorite Things,” as she trades in lyrics about kittens and mittens, for lyrics regarding "social control" and "wounds of the soul."
“Black human packages tied up in strings / Black rage can come from all these kinds of things,” she sings.
Lyrics like these need to be heard, so they're posted in full below. Download above.
"Black rage is founded on two-thirds a person
Rapings and beatings and suffering that worsens,
Black human packages tied up with 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 was founded on these kinds of thingsBlack 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 thingsSo when the dog bites
When the beatings,
And I’m feeling mad
I simply remember all these kinds of things
And then I don’t fear so badFree enterprise, is it myth or illusion
Forcing 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 denying of self.So when the dog bites
And the beatings
And I’m feeling so sad
I simply remember all these kinds of things
And then I don’t feel so bad"
