And so, I go look for words when I can find them,
and I think outside of books, you find them in your beloveds.
You find them in music, you find them in art that speaks to you.
And I find a lot of mine in music.
A lot of the work is not just the language of the streets,
and the language of hip hop, it comes from the music.
And so, this next poem is called "Solange Says."
"Solange says, be leery about your place in the world.
She warns me like my sister when she presses her cheek to mine.
Says, I love you, and sighs a prayer that leery is enough.
That our survival will be left up to us tonight.
Like my sister, when she presses her cheek to mine,
Solange says she's weary of the ways of the world.
Tired of praying our survival will be up to us,
and I feel that shit, like the pistol in my jeans.
Solange says, be weary of the ways of the world.
They make niggas bleed like kings with no country here,
and I feel that shit like the pistol in my jeans.
An iron oath, they will not take me from my sister.
They make niggas bleed like kings with no conscience here.
I will not beg to flesh and bone for my own blood.
My iron oath, they will not take me from you, sister.
Be leery about your place in the world, she warns me."
That's the first pantoum I ever wrote too, y'all.
I wrote that poem different and Jericho
was like, make it a pantoum.
I'm kind of mad he not here right now, because I was like,
you made me write this.
[LAUGHTER]
You know what I mean?
But rest up, I hope he's doing good.