Umoja!

Umoja!

Yes!

We dance a language you can not speak!

We twist and turn to the clicks and snaps around the "Mmmm's" and "Hallelujahs"

around the fire.

We LOUD AS HELL and don't give a fuck!

We told you stories as you went to sleep,

while the days looked longer and longer.

We made a way outta no way!

Sho NUFF!

We wove our own culture!

We made that shit cool!

Baby, we invented that thing called jazz, bebop, rock

We roll deep!

We still managed to break the rules,

cuz we done realized there aint never been any!

We got a spirit that is rooted to another continent

But we just as American as yo white ass!

We bad as we wanna be, but don't say nothing bout our momma!

We nice! So nice! That you tried to make us forget that we built the Sphinx with a wide Black nose!

We King Tut! We Malcom X! We Tupac Shakur!

We that uprising you've been scared of!

Letters written in hieroglyphs, passed around high school lunch tables!

Why you think we always sit together! We planning on dancing our way to the White House!

OBAMA! Habari gani! OBAMA! Habari gani! OBAMA!

If you can't cipher then you aint sposed to!

That's right we dance like we done lost our minds!

That's what we want you to think!

Umoja!

Photo by Amanda Grupp. Words by Rashaad Hall.