GARVEYITE from SOVEREIGN by PaviElle French

What is right?
Is it the only pathway to freedom, to fight and give up my life?
Don’t wanna live with white supremacy and for it, I’m not gonna die.
At the hands of systemic oppression
400 years
a cycle of psychosis
I know this
I'm tired
got options
and I'm second guessing what I was taught to believe

Done everything
from begging and pleading
to burning and looting
to entering the political arena
and we see our people continue to bleed
too accepting too resilient
living under this anti-Black sentiment
still seen as chattel by our government
we're profitable if we live or die so they're good with the suppression

Hook:
Feeling like I'm a Garveyite
Yeah…
With all of my might
With all of my might, all of my might…yeah.

We don’t need yo’ permission
You don't get my forgiveness
I want you so far the fuck away from me
I can heal from your transgressions
where can we breathe
and get reprieve
from white American exceptionalism
we tried to leave
but you don't want us to take our natural resources with us
How do you plan to reach atonement for these acts that you still commit
'cause I'm beyond my limit
y'all even hunting us down in a pandemic
push us to the brink
deflect, deny, we die
Spending all this time
talking about our pain with no change in sight
Justify your plans of genocide
but you can’t ever extinguish our light!

The saga continues
the Maafa continues

no justice no peace

But justice ain't never been served
if we're not going to be heard
then fuck all these words

you say violence ain’t the answer
but y'all use it to make your stance clear

that manifest destiny kinda thought
must’ve ate ya brain up like it’s a cancer

Hook:
Got me feelin’ like a Garveyite
I say it with all of my might, all of my might…yeah
Feelin’ like I’m a Garveyite

White supremacists they want their war…

The good intention ones are asking for more…

…of our labor…
so they can write their think pieces
and get Pulitzer awards

oh you need academia to hear me
well, let me break it down with a lesson
a quadricentennial is the long game
incremental work won't get my blessing


Brute force and savagery
backed up by immunity
Protected by policy
held up by the elite

“they” say we'll be alright but, whenever have we been?

I've been talking a lot to God to keep my heart from hardening.

…with all of my might, all of my might!

got me feeling like…

I'm a Garveyite.

• Experimental.
• Hip-Hop
• R&B
• R&B/Soul
• Soul
• classical
• Minneapolis