[intro] We don’t want reparations [Verse 1] We don’t want reparations We want the land that held plantations That’s the whole U.S. Fuck forty acres and a mule That deal was for the fools Trying to give us land That was never yours to use Said we were slaves So you could give the indigenous a new face Five-dollar Indians on land that belongs to my fam Ancestors won’t let the crops grow Because you reap what you sow Put a price on the pain, then call the balance paid Like blood disappear when a check get made But a deed don’t make you native, a map don’t make it yours You can change every name, still the roots beneath the floor Courthouse full of paper, earth don’t recognize ink History gets dangerous whenever people start to think They buried who we were underneath what we became Then taught the children everybody’s story but our name [Hook] We don’t want reparations We want the land that held plantations Give the land back to the rightful owners That’s the conversation You can change the maps You can change the names You can burn the records But the blood remains Whole nation built on stolen foundations Now the roots coming up through the pavement We don’t want reparations We want restoration Give the land back to the rightful owners That’s the conversation [Verse 2] They called it property Funny, property remember who was property Made a fortune off the body, then rewrote the genealogy Stamped another name upon the branches of the family tree Now the leaves asking questions And the roots answering silently Who drew the borders? Who gave the orders? Who decided ownership When ownership came through slaughter? Every acre got a witness Every river kept receipts Every field that fed the wealthy Got a story underneath That’s why I don’t want a payment I’m questioning the arrangement If somebody stole your house Would you celebrate the basement? Give you forty acres back Then expect congratulations While the country sitting on Generations upon generations They say “prove it” Like the truth only exist when they approve it Like ancestry starts whenever somebody documents the movement But blood don’t need permission And the ground don’t need a witness You can rewrite every textbook Still can’t copyright existence [Hook] We don’t want reparations We want the land that held plantations Give the land back to the rightful owners That’s the conversation You can change the maps You can change the names You can burn the records But the blood remains Whole nation built on stolen foundations Now the roots coming up through the pavement We don’t want reparations We want restoration Give the land back to the rightful owners That’s the conversation
