Immortal Technique — Harlem Renaissance

[Intro] Let me welcome both of you to the show this morning to talk About what I consider a very, very important topic of the Harlem Renaissance But before we get into that [Verse 1: Immortal Technique] Harlem once was red line district rated Designated ghetto like the yellow star of David And you wonder why people don't own their homes Cause the racist bank wouldn’t fucking mortgage a loan Until after the invasion of gentrification Eminent domain intimidation That's not negotiation, and it's frustrating to look at Every day, like watching a porno, on 56k Biohazard labs instead of storerooms Whats next motherfucker, projects as dorm rooms You ain't fooling nobody in this community duke With your little fake Manhattanville community group Ivy League, real estate firms are corrupt They lay siege to your castle like the Moors in Europe They treat street vendors like criminal riffraff While politicians get the corporate kickback [Refrain] Harlem Renaissance, a revolution betrayed Modern day slaves, thinkin' that the ghetto is saved Till they start deporting people off the property Ethnically cleansing the hood, economically They wanna kill the real Harlem Renaissance Tryna put the Virgin Mary through an early menopause The savior is a metaphor for how we set it off Guerrilla war against the rezoning predators [Verse 2: Immortal Technique] When I speak about Harlem I speak to the world The little Afghan boy and the Bosnian girl The African of Sudan, the people of Kurdistan The third world American, indigenous man Palestinians, Washington Heights Dominicans Displaced New Orleans citizens Beach front Brazilian favelas that you livin' in The hood is prime real estate, they want back in again I didn't write this to talk shit, I say it because Some of ya'll forgot what the Harlem Renaissance was We had revolution, music, and artisans But the movement was still fucked up like Parkinson's Cause while we were giving birth to the culture we love Prejudice kept our own people outta the club Only colored celebrities in the party And left us a legacy of false superiority W.E.B. Du Bois versus Marcus Garvey And we ended up, selling out to everybody The Dutch Schultz and John Gotti's Banksters, modern day gangsters Immobile army They wanna move us all out the NYC Like they did to the Jews With the Alhambra Decree So support your own businesses and do the knowledge Cause the real Harlem Renaissance is economic [Refrain] [Outro] When they were saying it is the renaissance of Harlem They didn't mean that we had stake in that They meant to say that they could make money out of us They are coming in with all kinds of prejudices In Brooklyn they're doing the same thing In Queens they're doing the same thing The Bronx, there's hardly any place which is affordable I mean those people are putting up condominiums which start from a million dollars How many people in this community make that kind of money How many people HAVE that kind of money People of Harlem, they are the natural allies of the oppressed people of the world Whether the struggle is in Panama, in Africa, Cuba We spend money with the wrong people We are looking for love with people Who don't love us What's wrong with loving each other and making sure we are protected