Wyclef Jean: Next Generation
If you’re still feeling those election blues, go listen to “Next Generation” by Wyclef Jean. It’s a song about enduring hardship in the time to come.
Wyclef Jean is a Haitian music producer, rapper, and former member of a superstar hip-hop trio, The Fugues. He has worked with artists like Santana, Destiny’s Child, the Black Eyed Peas, Mick Jagger, Eric Benét, and most interestingly Missy Elliott: a demonstration of his versatility and technique.
We are the next generation, we ain’t scared to die.
The only thing i fear is the afterlife.
‘Cause I don’t know what’s there on the other side,
But I pray the Lord forgives me, gives me one more try.
[CUT]Next Generation - Wyclef Jean
[Wyclef Jean]
Hold on now, don’t die now. Be strong now.
He said, “I was born a crack baby,
in the plastic bag in the alley,
raised in a foster home with no motherly love:
and I never knew my papi.”
“Back in the days, when Bobby McPheren
used to sing ‘don’t worry, be happy, Lord.’
How can I be happy when I don’t even know my own family tree, Lord!”
[Chorus]
We are the next generation, we ain’t scared to die.
The only thing i fear is the afterlife.
‘Cause I don’t know what’s there on the other side,
But I pray the Lord forgives me, gives me one more try.
[Wyclef Jean]
Gang poppin’ things doing drivebys in anger,
Kids goin’ to school puttin’ fears in their teacher,
Ya need to let them know that it ain’t all good,
‘Cause the gang was created to protect the neighborhood, now.
All you red now, all you blue now
all you yellow now, follow me now-
to that place of righteousness,
where the only thing that matter is your consciousness. He said
[Chorus]
We are the next generation, we ain’t scared to die.
The only thing i fear is the afterlife.
‘Cause I don’t know what’s there on the other side,
But I pray the Lord forgives me, gives me one more try.
[Wyclef Jean]
In my father’s kingdom there are many mansions.
All the rooms are free, there is no tax collection.
I can see Biggie, Tupac, Moses and Abraham:
Jason, the One & Twos, jamming with the Son of Man.
[Scarface]
I’ve been kicked, I’ve been stabbed, I’ve been shot, I’ve been give’..
by a person that I thought I trusted, where I live.
It’s a war at the crib, so I walk with a strap–
Myself, ’cause I don’t want nobody’s son on my back.
My mind playing tricks on it, to really I be get it.
Me out in five unless I take another hit,
I can see the sun setting on the other side of town.
Now I’m drifting in the darkness, Heaven hold me down.
I want to see the end, but I know I’m born dying.
Feel the tears of the angels, looking down on me crying
Father, I ain’t asked for your forgiveness in a while,
and I’m sorry–never let me forget that I’m your child.
While I’m locked up in this basement, staring eye-to-eye with Satan,
In this cold, dark world with no patience.
We get plotted on by agents with talks of replacing
The Africans, Jamaicans and the Haitians, in this next generation.
[Chorus]
We are the next generation, we ain’t scared to die.
The only thing i fear is the afterlife.
‘Cause I don’t know what’s there on the other side,
But I pray the Lord forgives me, gives me one more try.
[Rah Digga]
We the next generation, look at what we facing:
kids raise themselves, all kind of temptation
Flowers and candles decorating all the pavements
No, the perpetrator ain’t seeing no arraignment!
Nobody cares about the feelings of the poor,
many suffer while we spending eighty billion on a war!
Cutting school budgets, US stock market plummets
Condition’s only worse and I wonder what be coming.
Metal detectors replace music classes,
angry little kids wanna beat their teacher’s asses.
The red and blues, somebody gotta lose:
Reality TV be reality for who?
I don’t question what the Lord found in me,
I just pass it on to folks with no boundaries.
Got a long road ahead of us, AIDS already gettin’ us
Now we got SARS, how many will there be left of us?
[Chorus]
We are the next generation, we ain’t scared to die.
The only thing i fear is the afterlife.
‘Cause I don’t know what’s there on the other side,
But I pray the Lord forgives me, gives me one more try.[/CUT]
This entry was posted on Sunday, November 7th, 2004 at 7:02 pm and is tagged with destiny s child, jean wyclef, wyclef jean, many mansions, crack baby, election blues, mick jagger, missy elliott, haitian music, fugues, music producer, papi, righteousness, versatility, black eyed peas, next generation, motherly love, consciousness, family tree, demonstration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback.
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