Beat: "Rampage" by Antidote Beats
LYRICS:
Beloved Rap Part 2 (Chapters 8-15)
Back into the drama, blunt force trauma,
Beloved like a child hearin’ tales of Denver’s mama
Giving birth on a river, Amy helps deliver,
The danger of a white helping a black girl makes ‘em shiver.
“Every sound is a shot, a tracker’s quiet step”
Every move that Sethe makes is a move she might regret.
But when baby starts to whimper, she can take it as a sign
That the healing from the pain is “what God had in mind”
Back in time we progress to Baby Suggs who blessed
Gave her heart to the people, in the Clearing found rest
Slavery had busted everything from kidney to the hands
So her heart led the way and she told ‘em that they could stand,
They could laugh, they could dance, they could cry til they’re exhausted,
They have to love their body when oppressors try to toss it.
Stamp Paid helps Sethe and baby get to Suggs,
Reunited with her children plentiful kisses and hugs.
CHORUS:
Can’t heal without pain,
Can’t grow without rain,
Gotta speak, gotta listen,
or we don’t know what we’re missin.
With Denver and Beloved, Sethe heads to the Clearing,
Paid tribute to Halle ‘cause the images were searing
Of news from Paul D, Halle’s butter-covered face,
Halle’s gone without a trace, what he saw was a disgrace.
What he saw he couldn’t shake, what he saw just made him break,
So now in Ohio this Sethe senses what’s at stake,
gotta breathe, gotta move, take the girls to the Clearing,
See if she can master memories that she’s been fearing.
But a smooth-fingered touch that begins as a rub
Leads to Sethe gettin strangled in the Clearing by the shrubs
Denver and Beloved rush to help and revive,
Who could’ve been the ghost that didn’t want Sethe alive?
It’s addin’ to the chaos, Denver thinks it’s Beloved,
But everything that Sethe does, that ghost girl is lovin’,
Beloved heals Sethe, but still Sethe’s devotion
Is splintered now that Paul D and Sethe are set in motion.
Can’t heal without pain,
Can’t grow without rain,
Gotta speak, gotta listen,
or we don’t know what we’re missin.
Back in time we go, Paul D in Georgia prison,
If dignity is precious, here it certainly isn’t,
Gruesome tales of oppression, unending days of stressin
Until the rains came and they escaped oh what a blessing,
He finds himself with Cherokee people, they give direction,
Follow flowers to the north, trees in every section,
Eventually meetin’ Sethe years after the madness,
Will there be light after the dark, will there be gladness?
Baby Suggs, Sethe, Denver, Paul D,
Siftin through the rubble of a broken history.
Baby Suggs is told the slavery that she endured
Was a little less treacherous, a little more pure,
See her owner was “righteous”, he valued her perspective,
She’s well provided for, kindness was the objective.
But still he took her boy and her body’s broken down,
And slavery is still buryin’ people in the ground.
Can’t heal without pain,
Can’t grow without rain,
Gotta speak, gotta listen,
or we don’t know what we’re missin.