All Lives Matter, but have you seen what my people are going through?

Creating this song has been a great experience for me to understand where we’re coming from in order to contemplate the realistic solutions to the current problems we are facing as a Nation. I pray that you can watch this with an open mind and an open heart. Yes, I can say ALL LIVES MATTER – YELLOW, BROWN, RED, BLUE and WHITE LIVES MATTER, but it makes me wonder why some people find it so difficult and even abhorrent to simply say Black Lives Matter. The Truth is that All Lives do not matter until Black Lives Matter to All.

Much Love Always!
BrotherFriend

All Lives Matter
But have you seen what my people are going through?
All Lives Matter
From slavery to right now this ain’t nothing new
All Lives Matter
Black people face the worst persecution and you know it’s true
All Lives Matter but remember,
That Black Lives Matter Too

Some say they don’t they don’t see color
Well, they must be color blind
I see real prejudice all the time
See hate in the eyes of a racist mind
And suffer injustice with a plastic smile
See yellow tapes and signs saying “don’t cross the line”
Another brother just died without a proven crime
Oh Jah this world can be so unkind
And Life can be bitter like a glass of lime
So many conversations are a waste of time
Like throwing your pearls before a bunch of swine
Genuine people can be so hard to find
Especially when your living on the front line

We know that all lives matter, but remember
That Black Lives Matter Too

So you wanna Make America Great Again?
Please tell me when????
With your long history of Genocide
A trail of blood that you just can’t hide,
The murder and rape of all native tribes
So many of years of slavery was a wicked crime
Oh Jah it still blows my conscious Mind!
Slavery, Share Cropping and then Jim Crow
Always tear us down every time we try to grow
Martin Luther paid the greatest price
For “Peacefully Fighting” for our Civil Rights
Now how many more must we sacrifice?
Emit Till, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner cried
“I can’t breathe” 11 times
76 bullets took Jamarion’s life
Nearly nine minutes on the neck of George Floyd
Lord, I can still hear my brother’s cries

We know that all lives matter, but remember
That Black Lives Matter Too

We got racist police ~ Not afraid to show it
Prejudice people who don’t even know it
And every time we tell them that Black Lives Matter
You should see their temperature getting hotter

Then here they come with a bag of Chitter Chatter
Telling us again that “ALL LIVES MATTER!”
But when you check out the national data
It’s mostly black people getting battered

Killed or in jail for the simplest of matters
Fatherless Families shattered and scattered
They make the most noise when Kaepernick takes a knee
But not a sound when we die innocently

They said, “Home of the Brave, Land of the Free”
50 years before the end of Slavery
Now the whole world can see the brutality
Confederacy and Hypocrisy
But it’s never too late if we truly believe
That what we conceive we can surely achieve
Together as a Family

We know that all lives matter, but remember
That Black Lives Matter Too
You got to remember that
#BlackLivesMatterToo

One Love Always
BrotherFriend

Antoinette Rootsdawtah: Piano, Strings & Backing Vocal
Andy Kushner: Guitar & Backing Vocal
Nichelle Monroe: Backing Vocal
Empress Akua: Backing Vocal
Gavin Thompson: Bass Guitar
Oneko Arika: Congo Drums

Music & Video Production: Pato Banton