Anthem to Abolish the 13th Amendment (Music Video)

Anthem to Abolish the 13th Amendment (Music Video)
Min King X Pyeface feat. Scarface

After serving 24 years behind bars for Bank robbery, 6 years in the feds, and 18 in California’s maximum security prisons, Min King X AKA Pyeface had hit the ground running, when he was released in July of 2019.

No other rapper in Hip Hop has done more through art-activism (Artivist), in the past three and a half years to highlight the plight of the men and women behind bars than the George Jackson of Rapp. A reference to George Lester Jackson, the 1970s prisoner and activist, whose murder in San Quentin during a prison riot, led to the worst prison riot in US history, at Attica, three weeks later, and a name given to King X by fellow prisoners, when he lived amongst them.

Anthem to Abolish the 13th Amendment features the legendary Godfather of Southern Hip Hop Scarface, whose long-standing political rap flows clearly impacted and influenced the early rap lyrics of both Ice Cube and 2Pac.

Also included amongst the political graphics is the artwork Incarceration Nation. Created in July of 2017, by California prison artist C-Note, as a promotional piece for the August 19th 2017, Millions For Prisoners Human Rights March, held in Washington DC and across the US, including Internationally, Incarceration Nation has become America’s premier artwork on mass incarceration.

Incarceration Nation (2017), Graphite on paper, Donald “C-Note” Hooker

HEY THERE

Courtesy of Courtney Hanson

by Sherie Jarvis

Thanks for the strength and the courage you have shown.

People blow in the wind forgetting that with help change is growing.

People like me broken but still manage to keep the love flowing…

It was once #metoo, I am #transgender and #black lives matter even in this prison 

where the way I look keeps bad chatter.

I’ve fallen but if they’ll remove their foot off my neck I can get up and breathe.

Scattered scars, bruised heart, memories that don’t leave.

Childhood in a wild hood just now learning to read.

Understand my struggle before calling me a bad seed.

HEY THERE no one was there why didn’t they take the time to love me.

God is near, but why didn’t they physically hug me.

When the masks come off and the smoke has cleared,

when all lives matter and no one is weird just maybe I’ll make it home to say 

HEY THERE.

Special thanks to the The Fire Inside for sharing this poem and poet, published in The Fire Inside, Issue Number 61, Summer 2020 

The Fire Inside is a Newsletter of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners

4400 Market St., Oakland, Ca. 94608 

AUDIO: Can’t Black Lives Matter Too???

DAREALPRISONART · Can't Black Lives Matter Too???

by Donald “C-Note” Hooker

A Healing Place

A single Hawk Glides across the sky, a sign of Hope. Alone, i stand marveling at this beautiful place. A place of healing wounds that cannot be seen. War a distant memory. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. Here he provides me all that I need. A quiet place. He allows me to lie down in Green Pastures, a water bearer to lead me to rest beside These Quiet Waters. A pleasant place to restore my soul. Yes, I’m considered blessed no longer stressed, even though I didn’t travel through muddy waters a search of a mother’s love. Condemned, because of my father’s past transgression. Through it all I fear no evil; for you are with me. When I bowed down on one knee, trembling in defeat, it was you who Lifted me and led me to this Pleasant place of grace and mercy. Surely healing and loving kindness shall follow me all the days of my life.

Inspired by Psalms 23

By Darryl Tyrone Burnside.

Institutional Diaspora of Black Americans will be Represented at 29th Celebration of African American Poets and Their Poetry.

On Saturday, February 2nd, 2019, in Oakland, California, at the Oakland Public Library, West Oakland Branch, Multi-Purpose Room, from 1 p.m. through 4 p.m., will be the 29th Celebration of African American Poets and Their Poetry. This year’s theme is aligned with the 2019 theme of Dr. Carter G. Woodson’s Association for the Study of African American Life and History (EST 1915). ASALH’s 2019 theme of Black Migration emphasizes the movement of people of African descent to new destinations and subsequently to new social realities. While inclusive of earlier centuries. This theme focuses especially on the twentieth century through today. “When speaking of the Black experience, I’ve coined the phrase ‘Institutional Diaspora’ as the mass migration of Blacks from their American homes to America’s prisons,” says Donald “C-Note” Hooker. Inspired by the theme of the event, C-Note created an original work for the event entitled, American Negro: A Migrant’s Story. It poetically chronos the mass migration of American Blacks from their West African homelands to America’s prisons.

Catch the recital of American Negro: A Migrant’s Story at the 29th Celebration of African American Poets and Their Poetry or read it online at Mprisond Poetz.

Event: 29th Celebration of African American Poets and Their Poetry
Date: Saturday, February 2, 2019
Time: 1 p.m. – 4 p.m.
Location: Oakland Public Library, West Oakland Branch, Multi-Purpose Room
1801 Adeline Street, Oakland, CA 94607 (510) 238-7352
Contact: Oakland Public Library, West Oakland Branch, (510) 238-7352 or event organizer, Ms.Wanda Sabir (510) 255-5579 or info@wandaspicks.com

Mprisond Poetz
American Negro: A Migrant’s Story
https://mprisondpoetz.wordpress.com/2019/01/13/american-negro-a-migrants-story/

American Negro: A Migrant’s Story

Listen to the drum beat
drum beat
From my West African Motherland
to an island in the Caribbeanne
Listen to the drum beat
drum beat
Listen to my heart weep
heart weep
To a plantation in a Southern State
to Emancipation from which I could not escape
Listen to the drum beat
drum beat
Listen to my heart weep
heart weep
Back to enslavement
because the 13th Amendment says they can
because of convict leasing
just ask any historianne
Listen to the drum beat
drum beat
Listen to my heart weep
heart weep
Went home to the Maker
from being hung from a tree
cause the Ku Klux Klan
thought that’s how it ought to be
Listen to the drum beat
drum beat
Listen to my heart weep
heart weep
Jim Crow
a great friend of the Klan
so I left the South
to become a Chicagoanne
Listen to the drum beat
drum beat
Listen to my heart weep
heart weep
Congress cut off funding
for Wars in foreign lands
created a drug called Crack
from the Columbian Hinterlands
Started a Drug War
aimed at the Black community
and locked us all up
with impunity
Listen to the drum beat
drum beat
Listen to my heart weep
heart weep
Now I’m a part of this new diaspora
from Miami, L.A., Brooklyn to Peoria
21st Century Jim Crow.
Now a penitentiary cell is my new home
Back to bread and water being a full-course meal
just like an 1841 so what’s the big deal
THIS IS THE AMERICAN NEGROS’ MIGRANT STORY
went from a plantation Hell
to a Warden’s prison cell
Now we’re just lonely and alone
and the songs we once heard
we don’t hear no moe
“Brotha over there
in the next cell,
‘Are you still listening for the drum beat
the drum beat?’
I don’t”
Oh Lord, just put my heart to sleep
heart to sleep
American Negro: A Migrant’s Story

by Donald “C-Note” Hooker

Artwork by C-Note

Zoo Loo’s Don’t You Run

Zoo Loo’s

Four Nuc#les & A Thumb

You want some

Come get some

Here I come don’t you run

I’mma Zoo Loo!

Four Nuc#les & A Thumb

Real Soldiers never run

Modern day slavery

Still got chains on me

Tell me I’m free

Yet you still wanna lie to me

It’s plain to see

all the lies you keep telling me

I’m no lame

I was a King before a slave

Look into His•story (History)

It’s still being done to me

did all you could to me

Murdered Blac# Families

Say you’re not my enemy

Wanna be a friend to me

Hide my History

and made it what you want it to be

Five Hundred years

Eyes full of tears

Showin no fears

Tha revolution is here

Zoo Loo’s

Four Nuc#les & A Thumb

You want some

Come get some

Here I come don’t you run

I’mma Zoo Loo!

Four Nuc#les & A Thumb

Real Soliders never run

Tha law’s made against me

You broke before me

The taken of a land

with tha stricken of your hands

Why am I not free

Like I’m supposed to be

A blac# man in a land

that never gave a damn

Sisters and brothers dissing one another

No respect

Send
See
Revolutions!

Poison our communities

Taken opportunities

Playing make believe we’re in the land of the free

My wife at home

with my children all alone

Never knowin

if they’re father ever coming home

Lost without me

Now a broken family

Children fu#ked growing up

And now the blame is on me!

Zoo Loo’s

Four Nuc#les & A Thumb

You want some

Come get some

Here I come don’t you run

I’mma Zoo Loo!

Four Nuc#les & A Thumb

Real Soliders never run

Tha prison population proves he’s a racist

Take a look at tha crook

who makes a living off me

His crimes justified

while I’m doin time

For the laws that he broke

when he wrote

what he spoke

The taking of a country

that was once free

Give to all

by God

in one unity

Why am I here in a cage

full of rage

Turn tha page

and you see nothing but reality

Zoo Loo’s

Four Nuc#les & A Thumb

You want some

Come get some

Here I come don’t you run

I’mma Zoo Loo!

Four Nuc#les & A Thumb

Real Soliders never run

by Fred Smith aka Rabbitt Loeco

The World’s Greatest Threat: Being Black With Self-Respect

They never likeded my swag
cause it was rooted in gang culture
cause out here in L.A.
WE DON’T PLAY.
Nineteen Sixty-Five
ain’t never died
year of the Watts Riots
cause thirty years later
Nineteen Ninety-Two
We kicked off some shit too
year of the L.A. riots
But who really brought it your way
N-Double-U-A
You know what dem Niggas had to say
about dem cops
Police brutality had to stop
But that was before Black Lives Matter
and that shit came from the Town
Oak Land
Where Huey P Newton was the Spokes Man
for the Black Panthers
and its Organization for Community Defense
you see it all makes sense
Now
that video recorders dun came around
But it didn’t to Rodney King’s jurors
who saw his Black ass take a beat down
from six cops standing around
Naw
six cops actively participating
in the demise of an uppity ass negro
cause who he think he was
that he can get away with running from the fuzz
It only took a dahz
of whites
to say
Hell No! To Black Liberation
if that shit didn’t disturb your sleep
Why are you surprised of white criticism
when Beyonce speak
of Female Black Liberation
so join Her Formation
But again this ain’t nothing new
in the Red White and Blue
maybe because whites refuse to have
that conversation
about Nationhood reconciliation
don’t talk about chipin in dem funds
for reparations
They can for the First Naytion
and American Japanese
but when it comes to Black folks
we only get sympathies
from overseas
Because whites don’t wanna
do nothing about changin
the situation
about Black acclimation
into fabric Americana
wit your dirty lies
about apple pies
and second amendment aggrandization
Cause when was there ever a time
we could do
what we wanted to do
as a Black man or woman
legally armed
with a gun in our hand

Change California law
when Huey went to the State capitol
opened and carried
Killed Philando Castillo
in Minnesota
as a illegally armed
Black motorist
Standing on her own property
as a licensed gun owning Black woman
Michigan would rather imprison
a pregnant Swatu Salam Ra for two years
than let her use
their “Stand your ground” law
Due take notice
these were all liberal States
It’s like fake news
in prison blues
that’s why my pants sag
and my Blue Rag hangs low
I’m all that’s negative
bet believe
If I didn’t make myself that way
they would have
wit their lies and alibis
targeting

A great wrong was done to
you my Black children
A great wrong was done to you
my Black child
A suspicion has been casted upon you
it’s called revenge
Revenge
for the wrong done to you
Revenge
for the wrong done
by hands pure as the white of snow
They just don’t know
when you will recomeuppance
You’re under suspicion
My children
My child
Just look into their eyes and you’ll see
Dis is why me brudda
Dis is why mee sistah
Dis is why mee children
you’re under suspicion
What y’all brewing in da kitchen?
We know it gots to be a special stew
full of wicked concoctions
each with our signed I.O.U.
CAUSE YOUR God is dat Voodoo
so we know He’s stirring dat stew
so we don’t want nothing from you Black America
cause we know you’re itchin
to get us in your kitchen
to serve us this brew
and watch it see
do what it do

So Black man whoa
So Black woman whoa
and that’s why you’re always remain
a threat
Da Black man or woman, with self-respect
So Black man whoa
So Black woman whoa
and that’s why you’re always remain
a threat
Da Black man or woman with self-respect

By Donald “C-Note” Hooker

Editor’s Note: To For more epic poems by this poet, check out: THE CRIMINALIZATION OF OUR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION (This Is Not A Manifesto)
STRADIVARIUS: Play Her Like
It Must End! (BLACK FEMALE BOYCOTTS AGAINST BLACK MEN IN THE PEN)

Here are audio links:
The Criminalization of our American Civilization (This Is Not A Manifesto)
STRADIVARIUS: Play Her Like
It Must End!: BLACK FEMALE BOYCOTTS AGAINST BLACK MEN IN THE PEN

CAN’T BLACK LIVES MATTER TOO???

Tic
Toc
goes the clock
On the mystery
of the history
Of
who am I
And
who are you
And
who are we

Maybe
to better understand me
I should try and understand you
So when I heard of the demise
of the Indian tribes
from the White perspective
was that they had put too much trust
in the treatise they signed

Now you
can better understand
why Sandra Bland
told that policeman
I HAVE RIGHTS!!!
and ended with
losing her life

But that has nothing to do
with the perversion
of the aversion
towards the Chinese
whereupon our first immigration law
was to get rid of them all

or the Japanese version
who will tell you
that internment is a diversion
it was imprisonment

You see history
is His story
but what about
Her story
now that you’ve heard
some of Their story
all we ask
is just a simple task
Can’t Black Lives Matter
Too???

You see no one knows
what the Poles went through
in World War II
where six million died
half of them Jew

or in 1891
the single day
worst
mass lynching
in America
took place
in Louisiana
against the Italians
cause being a Catholic back then
was like being a Muslim today

or that
in 1848 through 1860
in a twelve year span
out here in California
they lynched
163-Mexicans

You see history
is His story
but what about
Her story
now that you’ve heard
some of Their story
all we ask
is just a simple task
Can’t Black Lives Matter
Too???

No one knows what a Black woman goes through
cause it was a Black woman who started
hashtag Me Too

and White privilege
means many different things
to many different body
but to the Black family
it means access to their body

How many times did the slave masters rape Black women
so many times I ain’t got a clue
so you’re not a clown
when you look around
and see a lighter shade of Brown
just ask the African, the Aztecan, and the Mayan
how that happened
These women had no choice!
there was no Twitter to give them voice!

Some say Thomas Jefferson was a great man
but how many times did he have to rape that woman to produce six children
and when we called him father
he denied us
and all of America told us
Yousa lie!
But in 1998 DNA gave us proof
that for over 200-years Black folks had been telling the truth
then I heard somebody scream who did not look like me
HOW COULD THE PERSON WHO WROTE THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE HAVE ENSLAVED HIS OWN CHILDREN!

You see history
is His story
but what about
Her story
now that you’ve heard
some of Their story
all we ask
is just a simple task
Can’t Black Lives Matter
Too???

I want to set the Record Straight!
hashtag Black Lives Matter ain’t got nothing to do with no cops
It got something to do with a civilian
and his name was George Zimmerman
and he shot and killed an unarmed Black teenage boy
by the name of Travon Martin
and there was NO JUSTICE FOR US!
and just like all the other civilians before him
with Dey Lynch Mobs
and Dey Gang Rapes
so much was going on Rosa Parks had to investigate
and this was some twenty years before she refused to go to the back of the bus
80-years removed from slavery so much horrors had been thrusted upon us

In 1944
in Alabama
Recy Taylor
was twenty-four
she was walking home from church
when she was abducted by six Caucasian boys
She said, “Please don’t hurt me, I have to go home to my children.”
Five hours later
Her father found her on the side of the road
beaten and raped
Now I comes from a woman!
We all do
And when I heard this story
I cried
but when I heard her sister tell it
I died inside

Dem boys wasn’t content with just raping my sistah
Dem boys played inside my sistah
My sistah never had any children after that
Dem boys went all up inside my sistah’s body
My sistah never even gotten pregnant after that
Dem boys played inside my sistah’s body!

You see history
is His story
but what about
Her story
now that you’ve heard
Our story
We have a daunting task
Such an overwhelmingly daunting task
For YOU TO ASK
CAN’T BLACK LIVES MATTER
TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

by Donald “C-Note” Hooker

Here is the audio version:
CAN’T BLACK LIVES MATTER TOO???

Editor’s Note: To For more epic poems by this poet, check out: THE CRIMINALIZATION OF OUR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION (This Is Not A Manifesto)
STRADIVARIUS: Play Her Like
It Must End! (BLACK FEMALE BOYCOTTS AGAINST BLACK MEN IN THE PEN)
The World’s Greatest Threat: Being Black With Self-Respect

Here are audio links:
The Criminalization of our American Civilization (This Is Not A Manifesto)
STRADIVARIUS: Play Her Like
It Must End!: BLACK FEMALE BOYCOTTS AGAINST BLACK MEN IN THE PEN