Creation #4: Rap "Bye Baby"

“Bye Baby”

A rap for Emmett Till

I was beautiful before I knew
my skin was the color of life
and mama told me, “beware my hue.”
But I talked to that man’s wife.
“Bye baby,” I said to that woman.
I was a Chicago boy not knowin’
that Jim Crow would kill me, showin’
the whole country whites controlled.
My mama cried over my body
she didn’t want my story to go untold
she wanted to show what the South embodied.

Oh Lord, Oh Lord
I thought I was free,
free like the White man be.
They beat us in slavery,
tried to break us in slavery,
but I ain’t no slave
to no man’s ways.

Mama put my beaten corpse on display,
but Whites only reasoned and tried to down play
my murder, but the truth won’t betray
what history has let decay.
Those White judges let them White men go
and the South went back to statuesque
a thumb on the Southern Negro
like a hand on mosquito.

Oh Lord, Oh Lord
I thought I was free,
free like the White man be.
They beat us in slavery,
tried to break us in slavery,
but I ain’t no slave
to no man’s ways.

But what them White men didn’t know
is how my death would grow
and I ain’t no Negro
no Nigger,
Not your fucken slave.
I was just a boy
used as a White man’s toy.
To keep control of the Southern Negro.
What they didn’t know
is how my story would grow

Now in Heaven I say:
Oh Lord, Oh Lord
I thought I was free,
free like the White man be.
They beat us in slavery,
tried to break us in slavery,
but I ain’t no slave
to no man’s ways.