Year Of Tha Boomerang

Album: Evil Empire (1996)
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  • Tha sistas are in so check the front line
    Seems I spent the '80s in the Haiti state of mind
    Cast me into classes for electro shock
    Straight incarcerated, the curriculum's a cell block
    I'm swimmin' in half truths and it makes me wanna spit
    Instructor come separate the healthy from tha sick
    Ya weigh me on a scale, smellin' burnt skin
    It's dark now in Dachau and I'm screamin' from within
    'Cause I'm cell locked in tha doctrines of tha right
    Enslaved by dogma, talk about my birthrights
    Yet at every turn I'm runnin' into hell's gates
    So I grip tha cannon like Fanon an pass tha shells to my classmates
    Aw, power to tha people
    'Cause tha bosses right ta live is mine ta die
    So I'm goin' out heavy sorta like Mount Tai
    Wit tha five centuries of penitentiary so let tha guilty hang
    In tha year of tha boomerang

    I got no property but yo I'm a piece of it
    So let tha guilty hang
    I got no property but yo I'm a piece of it
    In the year of tha boomerang
    I got no property but yo I'm a piece of it
    So let tha guilty hang
    I got no property but yo I'm a piece of it
    In the year of tha boomerang

    Yeah!
    Now it's upon you!
    Now it's upon you!

    Tha sistas are in so check the front line
    Seems I spent the '80s in the Haiti state of mind
    Cast me into classes for electro shock
    Straight incarcerated, the curriculum's a cell block
    Swimmin' in half truths and it makes me wanna spit
    Instructor come separate the healthy from tha sick
    Ya weigh me on a scale, I'm smellin' burnt skin
    It's dark now in Dachau and I'm screamin' from within
    'Cause I'm cell locked in tha doctrines of tha right
    Enslaved by dogma, talk about my birthrights
    Yet at every turn I'm runnin' into hell's gates
    So I grip tha cannon like Fanon an pass tha shells to my classmates
    Aw, power to tha people, yeah, yeah
    Tha bosses right ta live is mine ta die
    I'm goin' out heavy sorta like Mount Tai
    Wit tha five centuries of penitentiary so let tha guilty hang
    In tha year of tha boomerang

    I got no property but yo I'm a piece of it
    So let tha guilty hang
    I got no property but yo I'm a piece of it
    Uh! In the year of tha boomerang
    I got no property but yo I'm a piece of it
    So let tha guilty hang
    I got no property but yo I'm a piece of it
    In the year of tha boomerang

    Yeah!
    Now it's upon you!
    Now it's upon you!
    You! You! You! You! You! You! You! You! Writer/s: BRAD J. WILK, THOMAS B. MORELLO, TIMOTHY COMMERFORD, ZACK M. DE LA ROCHA
    Publisher: Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Wixen Music Publishing
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 5

  • Fricky00 from P-town“So I grip the cannon like Fanon and pass the shells to my classmates.” I think what Zack does here is analogize himself to Fanon who was also a word-smith. So ‘gripping the cannon’ is essentially a using the pen, or teaching, through books, poetry or music... and ‘pass the shells to my classmates‘ is teaching your peers about the exploitation & injustices of imperialism & colonialism so that they can rise up in revolution against those injustices.
  • Matt from Winnipeg, MbMt. Tai part

    "The bosses right to live is mine to die, so I'm goin' out heavy, kinda like Mt. Tai". This refers to a poem written by the Chinese revolutionary communist leader Mao Tse Tung. To paraphrase the poem:

    "Death can be a light as a feather, or as weighty as Mt. Tai. To die in the service of the reactionaries is a death as light as a feather. To die in the service of the People is a death as weighty as Mt. Tai."

    So, he's basically saying that he's dedicating his life to the people. Sweet!

  • Carlo from Munich, Germanyi offer you my deepest condolences, i myself live in germany and i always get confronted with this theme but in spite of some of my friends saying that this issue is has been discussed so often that it's not important anymore,i do beleive that we always have to keep the ns regime and auschwitz and dachau(i visited the cc there - i cried)in mind for not giving racism and fascism a chance.
  • Pk from Sedalia, MoI always thought this was about being trapped in a concentration camp and then hanging Nazi war criminals until I read the lyrics. If the Dachau thing up there is true then those Nazi's deserved it, my grandfather died in Auchwitz and its not funny in the slightest when people make Nazi jokes about Jews around me.
  • Steven from Waldwick, NjThis song was on the soundtrack for "Higher Learning" and also had excerpts of the song throughout the movie

    credit: http://www.musicfanclubs.org/rage/discography.htm Soundtracks and Compilmations
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