WEBVTT

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And so, I go look for
words when I can find them,

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and I think outside of books,
you find them in your beloveds.

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You find them in music, you find
them in art that speaks to you.

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And I find a lot
of mine in music.

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A lot of the work is not just
the language of the streets,

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and the language of hip hop,
it comes from the music.

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And so, this next poem
is called "Solange Says."

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"Solange says, be leery about
your place in the world.

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She warns me like my sister when
she presses her cheek to mine.

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Says, I love you, and sighs a
prayer that leery is enough.

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That our survival will
be left up to us tonight.

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Like my sister, when she
presses her cheek to mine,

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Solange says she's weary
of the ways of the world.

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Tired of praying our
survival will be up to us,

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and I feel that shit, like
the pistol in my jeans.

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Solange says, be weary
of the ways of the world.

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They make niggas bleed like
kings with no country here,

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and I feel that shit like
the pistol in my jeans.

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An iron oath, they will
not take me from my sister.

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They make niggas bleed like
kings with no conscience here.

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I will not beg to flesh
and bone for my own blood.

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My iron oath, they will not
take me from you, sister.

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Be leery about your place
in the world, she warns me."

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That's the first pantoum
I ever wrote too, y'all.

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I wrote that poem
different and Jericho

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was like, make it a pantoum.

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I'm kind of mad he not here
right now, because I was like,

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you made me write this.

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[LAUGHTER]

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You know what I mean?

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But rest up, I hope
he's doing good.

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