Okayplayer | 2012. ápr. 17.
https://www.youtube.com/@okayplayer

Akua Naru is back on the block. And in this "live & aflame" session backed the DigFlo band and singer Drea D'Nur, Akua shows the world why she is an okayplayer-to-watch, commanding the mic and weaving complex counterpoints to the live ensemble into the cadence of her rhyme like a Grammy-winning industry vet, rather than a fresh face in this whole live hip-hop movement. Watch for the sax solo and make sure you stick with this song right through to goose-bumpy conclusion at the 7 minute, 26 second mark. You'll be glad you did. Also, did I forget to mention: World Premiere!
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Akua Naru (also known as Akua Olatunji), is a rapper from Connecticut, United States. Naru has been particularly successful in Europe, where she has lived since 2008. Her hip-hop music incorporates styles including soul and jazz. In 2018 she began archiving the achievements of women in hip-hop at Harvard University as a Nasir Jones Hip-hop Fellow at the Hip-hop Archive Research Institute.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akua_Naru
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Akua Naru - GreenTown Jazz 2015 (Sombor - Serbia)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh0oyylrdGY
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(Drea d’Nur)
Walking the block, yeah
I can see clearly
Oh Lord, oh Lord
Another body dropped
Somebody just got shot
Oh Lord, oh Lord
Tell me, can you hear me? I need to know!
Can you hear me?
Oh Lord, oh Lord

(Akua Naru)
Another block caught
Cool cat cops
Gunshots, another body dropped
Crippled waking at the bus stop
Can't let you hit the mailbox
How should you sweat socks?
He should braid their heads on the porch to get that extra guap
'Cause ?eviction? facing rock bottom
Pray she bounds back on top
American dream, a nightmare, please
Make it stop, neighbors watching, hell
Modern day dress cost slinging rocks
Black royal white ting top baggy jeans
Dreadlocks streaming at that drop top
Non-stop Chinese spot
And let me get the black in my ????
Navigate liquor stores, projects lords and bacon lots
We’d be the have-nots
When we have we become what we’ve got
Another car ride by
Sister, I’m not that new shit pedestrian shop
Hip hop corner stay at track in the flaw
The pain that back in the ????
Single mothers hussel to push the time clock
Trauma, cash crob
Somebody wanted a dime drops
??? masks and kind hard
As time talks
Fathers are holograms
Sons waiting for the day that they snuff Uncle Sam
Wipe not, no sympathy for that man
He get what he deserve, damn
I said he get what he deserve, yo
He get what he deserve, yo
They keep telling me

(Drea d’Nur)
Walking the block, yeah
I can see clearly
Through inside what’s in screams, oh Lord
Can you hear me? Oh

(Akua Naru)
Another woman raped, yo, battered
Body found in the alley
Contents of her purse scattered, left over, re-shattered
Clothes tattered, lipstick smeared, broken glass
No news reports on the matter, oh
Nobody gathered, nothing change, ask around ‘bout her name
Some said to me 'cause some claim Loraine to tag on the foot-said chain
I wonder who she was
Did she give and receive love?
Did she fight back?
Or just gave up?
She laid dead.
Lets cold, he had go
Praying in the child’s poles
Bruised nose
Seemed as stain pandy-hose
Shot day on the radio
Shover singing through the window
I wonder if pain have the tempo
How bad!
It is slow!
Streets survive, never live, then we die
Dreamed of full glass, ceiling high
Poured on the wrong side
Is there a right side classified
Now labour's souls for nickel and dime
And who decides?
Our lives by a son in order to dive the line
They seemed to ????
Pushes us outside the city line
Sirens scream in the evening
Profiled for being not white
And, we’ve been walking the streets
Poor cops, they're thinin', probable reason
No Donuts shops are teasing, roll up!
Worn a couple cast ???? speaking
Mexicans, what they’re screaming?
Puerto Ricans, they thinking they’re all the same.
Fuck’em!
Blow out their brains!
Killing season!
It’s war hour!
Wish they could take us all ??
Let the dogs out
Nigger should be hanging from trees!
Auction off now!
Roll them up!
Bless’em ‘till they’re all down
Fire shot to four-four snap!
They never see the court house, yo
They never see the court house, yo
They never see the court house, oh
They never see the court house, oh oh
They never see it.

(Drea d’Nur)
Walking the block, yeah
I can see clearly
Through inside what’s in screams, oh Lord
Can you hear me? Oh
Can you hear the block, yeah?
I can see clearly
Through inside what’s in screams, oh Lord
Can you, can you, can you really? Tell me!

(Akua Naru)
Another body dropped today on the block.
Somebody just got shot today on the bock.
Look, yo, watched it today on the block.
Today on the block.
Today on the block.
Another body dropped.
Somebody just got shot today on the block.
Look, yo, watched it today on the block.
Today on the block.
Today, oh oh
Another body dropped.
Somebody just got shot.
Look, yo, watched it today.
Another body dropped.
Somebody just got shot.
Look, yo, watched it today on the block.
Today on the block.
Today on the block.

https://lyricstranslate.com/en/akua-naru-block-lyrics.html-0

The Journey Aflame
Akua Naru
Released January 7, 2011
https://genius.com/albums/Akua-naru/The-journey-aflame