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Matrix Don't Work

from south is north by nth digri

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about

poem recorded live in a movie theatre while bootleg recording one of the Matrix movies, complete with real live audience laugh trax... includes scenes of car chases and fiery impact that may be disturbing to some listeners; take off your dread wigs at the door, as no outside food, fakery or fuckry is allowed in the cinema. Nuff respect to Nas for the made you look bite!

lyrics

They reloaded, klik klak
a binary sneak attack
digital mirage like holograph
hallucinogenic mindtrap
But the matrix don't work on Blacks
Gets tangled in the naps
Ultramagnetic pulsations emanating from
helical coils causing sentinels to recoil and
malfunction in the rhythmic junction of handclap and fingersnaps
Klik Krak They shootin?
Aw made you look, but don't mind that
Cuz the matrix don't work on Blacks
Rip the socket out my cortex cuz my melanocytes swirl
mad genetic algorithms into a vortex of proportions
similar to afros on panthers, the blackest of cats
graceful like breakdancers, with moves to fool an IBM Big Blue in a chess match
Checkmate sucker, so take that
Do the math, gorgeous like the mind of Morpheus
the metamorphoses of pharaohs like Thutmoses into
street geniuses that resonate to choruses sung to
time-travelling drums like that old boombap
true dat, underground treasures like rhyme notebooks
buried Zion deep, in the bottom of backpacks
rare grooves and hot wax, the energy crackling
from a mic, two turntables and a 4 track
graphic like a flashback to grandmaster flash
with the fury to deflect laser rays
and reject implants and alla dat, it's a fact
Cuz the matrix don't work on Blacks
Suffers tricknological setbacks and short term memory loss
Like heads blunted in bonnets knotted with dreads and turban headwraps
Circuitry sizzled and seized up broken like brittle teeth of afro picks
From the tightly frizzled cornrows and braids of unknown tribes
From the favelas of Rio to the ghettos of LA saying fa shizzle
While grizzled elders in Soweto teach neo bandeleros how to survive
and buss rhymes to the basslines of township jive
and tear down posters selling skin cream and Big Macs
Sold by Samurai legends in the guise of Tom Cruise or Tom Hanks
Staring through infrared night goggles from tanks
that visualize the world as green data like DOS screens
with flashing blips of collateral casualties
that get deleted without the sound of screams,
but detailed endlessly on videophone playback
Go way back to pioneer wetdreams represented in shifts in so-called reality
Historical anomalies, like David Carradine
impersonating Bruce Lee, remember that?
Artificial constructs like Lawrence of Arabia or Prester John on camelback
Get killed softly by the soul sounds of Roberta Flack
Or the funk from a Car Wash sound track played on beta max
Obsolete and incomplete, say a throwback
Don’t you know dat? The matrix don’t work on Blacks
Architects cannot comprehend so do not respect
The arithmetic that could erect timeless monuments
at Ghiza, Kush, or Karnak
I say Ye Krick, you say Ye Krak
Ye Krik (Ye Krak) YE KRIK! (YE KRAK!)
Alright then, let’s take the night back
So long as the rich keep getting richer
on the poor people’s backs
We ain’t paying no fucking income tax
Life has become so stressful there’s no way to relax
So programmed to go frenetically from residentially designated zones that
Are segregated economically to roll like clones off assembly lines into bus lines
And park and rides to stand in ten-lane wide highway traffic single file for miles
To pile into cubicle pens and stare at screens till the day ends and then
Gasoline our way slowly through the grid maze of street arteries till we reach the Capillaries of subdivisions and wolf down pre-packaged nutrition
Before plugging into televisions and drifting into nightmares of alien invasions
With special effects anticipating matrices planned in small print in appendices
Of medical encyclopaedia speaking of green monkeys and leafed through anxiously
By hypochondriacs
But the Matrix don’t work on Blacks
Bush teas are the antitheses of replicating agents dressed like men in Black
Of corrupt cardinals that plot inquisition under the cover of red skullcaps
Of beasts programmed and licensed to kill at will and flex a nightstick to bus kneecaps
Of conditioning mechanisms masquerading as school systems
leaving kids intellectually handicapped
Of flying dropkicks and shoot-em-up blockbusters flicks
sequeled endlessly to fill time and blow minds with car chases and fiery impacts
But the matrix don’t work on Blacks
Don’t work on Blacks!
Don’t work on Blacks!!
Don’t it?

credits

from south is north, released August 7, 2013

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nth digri Ottawa, Ontario

nth digri is inspired by his Caribbean-Canadian heritage, hip hop culture, and the African griot tradition. His LP Tales of the North Coast was nominated for a Canadian Urban Music Award. His poem Sugar Cane was selected for the Best of the National Poetry Slam Anthology. He was the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word 2010 Male Poet of Honour. He has performed in Canada, the Caribbean, and the US. ... more

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