Wattstax Page #3

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if you know what I'm talking about.

Black is beautiful because it feels so good.

If black is beautiful, white is divine.

Now, that n*gger's crazy.

Don't call you black, you're a Negro.

You sound like them kids in school.

You ever know them dudes?

They get madder than a motherf***er.

"Say, black boy."

"Say, man. What you mean, black?

"Baby, I'm colored.

"I don't play that sh*t."

My parents was like that.

In my neighborhood,

used to be some beautiful black man...

would come through the neighborhood,

dressed in African sh*t. Really nice sh*t.

And he'd be,

"Peace, love, black is beautiful.

"Remember the essence of life.

"We are people of the universe.

Life is beautiful."

My parents would go, "That n*gger crazy."

I used to love to go to the meetings,

when you get down.

I got ultra-black for a while.

Them brothers be rapping.

I never knew what they was saying.

But the brothers be having emotion.

"You see, the first thing you gotta know

is about eating pork.

"Now, you eat a piece of pork...

"you don't realize the subtlefications

of this individuality's prospect.

"What the man

trying to lay on you through porkitis...

"you will not understand

because the trichinosis of your mind...

"will not relinquish

the thought of individuality.

"You know what I mean?"

Ladies and gentlemen, right about now...

the soulful, funky sounds of the Bar-Kays,

It's been said many times

and many places...

that freedom is a road

seldom traveled by the multitude,

We would like to invite each of you

to come and go with us,

And perhaps you'll see a side of life

that you've never seen before,

I'm the son of a badass!

Right now,

we'd like to give everybody a chance...

to get down,

Black people rip off one another.

I'll tell you which ones rip off

one another.

It's the ones

that don't know who the f*** they are.

As simple as that.

They don't know who they are.

Sometimes, it seemed the guys

would rip me off so often...

I thought they were running the place

instead of me.

It was just like them coming in

and getting what belong to them.

If I can't work and make it,

I'll steal and take it.

If there was a way a n*gger could put

air in a bottle and sell it, he'd do it.

A n*gger can sell anything.

I ain't gonna lie to you.

Anytime a brother would shoot

another brother in his own neighborhood...

then go to his funeral

and turn over his own casket...

they need to have the police down there.

The n*ggers are NAACP-ing.

N*ggers ain't acting like colored people.

And we can't stand that.

But pimp, that's why.

Anybody that use somebody else to gain,

he's pimping.

I'll tell you what,

soul brother. Looky here.

Can't nobody pimp you

but your pimp-ass self, you understand?

Somewhere along from the day I was born

and up until now, something went wrong.

And I'm trying to figure out in my mind,

"Do it take another riot?"

I mean, a riot that's gonna include

a lot of killing and things...

in order to get this thing going

the way it should be going.

We're tired of gaming, man.

We're tired of all this bullshit.

We wants jobs and, we wants everything,

just like they got.

It's not getting out and confronting,

and fighting the man on the street...

because right now he's got the power,

and he's gonna win.

What we got to do,

we got to get our minds together.

I'm not gonna get up on Front Street

and front myself off.

You be fronting yourself off every time

you be coming out of your house.

You see the brother pushing pushcarts.

You see the lady bagging out.

See the brother standing up.

You understand?

But you know what you got to deal with?

The waking up and going to bed.

Once you get a job, n*gger, be respectful.

This is the Age of Aquarius.

"Sh*t! Man, get a job?

"What the f*** you talking?

"I went down.

Man, I ain't bullshitting, baby.

"I went down

to the unemployment bureau.

"You dig?

"I just got out the joint.

You know what I mean?

"I'm in the joint,

I go to the unemployment bureau...

"the b*tch telling me,

'What's your occupation? '

"I said, 'Pressing license plates.'

"Where you gonna find a job for a n*gger

out here pressing license plates?

"And I'm

a license plate-pressing motherf***er.

"You dig?

"Old b*tch has got a tiara

and sh*t up there.

"Old, ugly white whore

with old wrinkles and sh*t.

"B*tch got funky with me.

I said, 'F*** the job, b*tch.

"'Kiss my ass. And your mama, too."'

You know what I learned

up in Soledad in '67?

- That you got to...

- You got to what?

...stay out the penitentiary.

And this number's

being especially played and dedicated...

to all of the blues lovers,

And to all of those

that's not hip to the blues, ;

We're gonna learn them to you,

teach them to you, brother...

'cause we'll be around for a while,

You know how much sh*t

I've been through.

I done had three mothers in my life.

That's why I think...

you see a man walking down the street

by himself alone at night, lonesome...

walking down the street

about 6:
00 in the morning...

he'll stand in front of the mirror and say:

"Ricky, what are you doing?"

And he'll say, "Doo doo da doo," and start

singing the blues. You know what I mean?

I like the blues. I don't like the jazz.

I'm too old a man to like a lot of that.

The blues.

People have to have something

they can relate to for right now.

I don't mean tomorrow, but right now.

You dig what I'm saying?

The blues is past tense.

That's the black man's cousin, the blues.

- I've been down so long...

- Tell them why.

...that getting up

don't even cross my mind.

Yes, I've had the blues.

I've had men

that I really liked, that I really loved.

And they have

a change of heart, a change of mind.

And there you are, standing there

with your heart in your hand.

Just like if you had an old car,

and it kept stopping on you.

This is what I've experienced

with the blues in many ways.

Not just being in love.

Although, that's

one of the hurt ingest blues you can have.

You know what I told her

when she called me on the phone?

I said, "Honey, I done married again.

"I got me a good wife,

and forget about you."

Yes, sir. "Forget about you."

'Cause that's all I wanted of her,

is to let me alone.

But I loved her, boy.

You know what? I tell you what.

I'd work, I'd buy... I'd wear jeans, boy.

She'd go to church with furs.

I ain't lying.

$200 and $500 bracelets,

big ring on her finger.

Singing in the choir.

And I got two jobs

to support that goddamn woman.

You know that?

And that's the honest God's truth.

You take care of business,

far as I'm concerned.

Who? Do you know she was pretty?

Man, she had my nose open.

- So I see that.

- She had my nose open.

I tell you what. And right today...

every time I think about it,

damn it, I get mad.

I used to cry over her.

I ain't lying. Sometime I'd be at the job...

and I had to go

and sit in the car for a few minutes.

They'd ask me,

"What's wrong with you, man?"

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