Zebras meet on prairies, the stallions leap and spar Mice may meet in city streets, mice-deer in Myanmar Wherever I may meet you — whether online or at the bar — However you're defined, you're fine: I'm fine with what you are. What am I? My DNA — my cell's in their division I'm a consequence of countless generations of fruition — If you've got to know my chromosomes, ask God or my physician But let me just say Hi to you, and bye to definitions So bye, binaries, binaries bye-bye — You can't define everything but everything is fine So bye, binaries, my non-binary dear Some say sex is just genetic competition, meaning nothing — Nature's blind imperative to keep the people coming — And maybe nature's blind, but then one might say so is loving 'Cause even if I didn't know what you are, I'd know you're really something Some may try to label you, but you don't need to let them Labels are for mason jars and bands with big investments You don't need to quite define them to be kind to or caress them If they've given you consent and you assent that it's a spectrum So bye, binaries, binaries bye-bye — You can't define everything but everything is fine So bye, binaries, my non-binary dear Some have double X's, and some have X-and-Y's And some have both regardless of what comes between their thighs — And drone bees have just half a gene but we still call them guys — The birds are birds, the bees are bees, the talks we got were lies So whether you're all figured out or whether you're a mess Whether you're a Mr. or a Mrs. in that dress Whether gender queer or cis gen, F or M or intersex When they're asking you What are you? All you have to say is Yes So bye, binaries, binaries bye-bye — You can't define everything but everything is fine So bye, binaries, my non-binary dear So if you're feeling lonely, in your old age or your prime Or while you're prepubescent with no peach fuzz on the rind And they tell you your complexity is only in your mind — You may not know yet what you are but what you are is fine So bye, binaries, binaries bye-bye — You can't define everything but everything is fine So bye, binaries, my non-binary dear My non-binary dear, my non-binary dear

Many and strange are the things of this world But nothing's as strange, or quite as absurd As you and I — Humankind — You might have heard: We're kind of the worst Is the title deserved? — Human Beings It's a quarter million years since we came on the scene In the past 300, we made some machines And began a new age — the Anthropocene ...Now just how extreme do I have to be To have a whole planet age that's named after me? Anthropos — human — it's Greek — I agree We changed the whole thing by quite a degree... Celsius. — See? — It's kind of intense — We don't always make ecological sense Cuz the things we invent, for survival success May, in the end, just lead to our deaths! ...Yes. ... But for now we're alive And while we're all here, we may as well ask why — And how'd we change so much, in so little time — The history of Strange Humankind Well, we've been around 300 thou' And it all started out au naturale — No horse, no plough; no slave, no master — That's fire, Wow! — we hunted, and gathered But nearer to now — 12 millenia tops — Just a little while relative to how long we've walked Upon this rock — someone stopped and said Let's plant crops! And settle in a place, make bread and tend flocks Bet — why not? But in the course of time As the hunter-gatherer became the grower of the vine It brought about changes in their hearts and minds Your farm's there; this farm's mine Darn — fine. Don't let it get your goose — They started owning animals — and ownership and use Came to dominate a consciousness that used to keep it loose For as one lives, so is one's truth We changed, we adapted — Our numbers increasing Our Feeling gave way To Thinking and Reasoning People of taste — eating with seasoning Instead of just eating whatever the season brings I sing how the shift began As they planted grains in the shifting sand As the power-grip shifted throughout the lands From animal to human, and from woman to man From family to clan — and what slipped through the cracks As the way got paved, was the way to get back From the fictions we made to the natural fact Of the Here and the Now. — We became abstract ...That's that Home on the range The world was ours But the world was changed And the things of this world Became things of exchange And the Earth and the Self Which were one Were estranged None stranger you can find Than the stranger Humankind Ah yes. Humans will be humans — Dust unto dust to industrial revolution The age of mass production and accelerated movement — And it never really ended, cuz we're kinda still doin it Throw this one a way, buy myself a new one — Throw myself away — my self is such a nuisance — Find myself a way to disappear into my room and If I need to know what life is like I'll stay at home and google it And true, we've made progress And awesome hits And the laptop software I wrought this with — But we also made an big atomic bomb that hit And for all time altered all of this The radiation remains And in our blood and our brains Are all the particles of polythene in hydrocarbon chains From our plastic bags — And so it's hardly strange We made a problem as large As climate change Change. Money — But money is nothing It really is, kids, it's just a symbol of something — Just a little piece of paper on a number we're running You can't live in it or eat it And it's not even yummy It's stunning — to think that we don't actually need it — I mean it — we really don't actually need it We grow enough a day to feed the planet and to keep it As a thing that's free for everyone and yet we don't feed them And you may say, Wait! we got a bottom line At the top they got a lot and at the bottom not a dime — But that concept's not inherent in the mind It's contingent on the way we've developed over time — I'm not denying it's survival of the fittest But survival of the fittest wasn't always such a business It was different when applied to our original conditions When we tried to fit the best with ecosystems that we lived in Ahhh, homo sapiens — One part progress, one part sloppiness I don't want to descend into soppiness But sometimes I feel sorry for all of us But then I think this — if we human beings Have changed the world once for the worse, then it seems We could change it again — We could intervene And give a new meaning to Anthropocene Imagine the scene — Ecstatically green — The age when humanity gathers its dream into action — and seeing The rational being Reconnected at last, with a planet that's clean This means that we're not the worst Your actions do matter The plan is not cursed Integrate the new with the way we lived first And celebrate the work Save the Humans of the Earth It isn't just words Or an abstract movement — It's a fact, and a truth That if everyone is doin' what They can where they're at Well then that's a revolution — A radical reunion of the planet and the human ... So yeah it is strange Being this animal, having this brain — And yet we can change — and may redefine Just what it is to be human: kind

Let's talk free speech – The concept is that all who seek To speak their mind can talk in peace And not get shot or fined or beat Or worse. The first amendment says That we got free speech, free religion and press So the shit that you wish to get off your chest Can get expressed and not get repressed But on the TikTok and on YouTube too I've been known to get muted and to not get viewed And to not get seen — not because I've gone nude But because Google says what I said's too crude – True But it's open to question And some have opined That there might be times When we gotta draw a line – With the misinformation that's spreading online Speech may be free, but it can cost lives ...Right? It's sure complex — Pure free speech can sure cause a mess And yet we want more free speech not less — That's common sense. – So we need context To see what comes next. ...So are we not free? What must the limits of our free speech be? That's a big question. – Lemme just teach This is a History of Free Speech Ancient, Medieval and Islamic Civilizations So-called free speech In the thought of the West can be traced to Greece The Athenian concept of Speech-Equality For all in the polity: they called it Democracy ...So speak as you want to speak But not if you're not a he, and not if you're Socrates Speaking on unorthodox topics. – We've all agreed To make you drink Hemlock: stop the philosophy! – Ah, gee. ...And in Ancient Rome too There was "Liberty" of speech, but it was freedom for few And this was even more true in the age of the Caesars Depending who you were the Caesar could seize your words Yes sir. ...I guess this is justice... And then there was Jesus, in the age of Augustus He died for His truth. But he vibed with his crew And they made it go viral — the Idea grew They tried for a few Centuries to suppress The little movement till soon With the rest of the West They said, The Word IS Flesh – As history attests Sometimes the oppressor becomes the oppressed And vice versa. — So free speech waned And took a back seat in the European brain Behind the refrain that all there's to see Is The Gospel — so don't hear or say heresy Meanwhile in the ancient Islamic state Free speech thronged in the Abbasid Caliphate Al-Rawandi, Al-Razi and Avicenna could calibrate Classical thought with the Qu'ran and contemplate – And that was all great — But that Shangri-la Of free thought got stopped by the Shari-ah law It's all a see-saw — all in, or Allah – And in between, no free-speech law free of flaw Reformation and Revolutions And so in went in the West – And yet Free Speech didn't rest in the breast And in the 15th century it did spread When Gutenburg hit with the printing press Luther pinned his words Upon the church in Wittenberg And ripped a schism in the church And then within the western world And revolution then emerged With the question getting heard As to which of several versions of religion one should serve Word — Reformation – Your profession of faith Is sure a personal expression But you better be safe For the church and the state Still determined the stakes And it wasn't that rare To get burnt at the stake For Giordano Bruno It sure was brutal – Literally burned For serving his truth; though Galileo had to lie to live He hid a truth 'Sure the earth's static' – Then he added 'yet it moves' From the mid-16th To the mid-17th Many more Europeans Would die for their beliefs – And while some died for science Other Europeans silenced The speech of other people Through conquest and violence Meanwhile on a another continent The colonists were confident Their conscience said Free Speech for all — By 'all' they meant Caucasian men But the concept spread, and Olympe De Gouges Pled the cause of the enslaved and for feminism too In the French Revolution — till she who had reached Far ahead of her time lost her head for free speech The Modern Age But what they could not kill Was a thought from the quill of a John Stuart Mill Though all humankind all minus one are not chill With a thought, that one's got a right to talk still And none is free till Everyone is – You can read it in the narrative of Fredrick Douglas Who freed himself, and freed his own mind By the writing and the reading by which freedom's defined And in time it was news fit to print – When Ida B. Wells tells the truths of the lynched When the leaders out in Selma went and used the bridge When Mandela said he's sooner serve truth than to live When the truth hurts big, then let it be uttered – Free speech one Martin Luther to another – Never let em vet what you're permitted to preach – 'Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech.' A century ago A demagogue scoffed At the 'Marxist press' And their 'news that was false' – Does that bring anyone to mind? — *light cough* The guy wrote a book by the name of Mein Kampf Oh my God! The Weimar Republic – Why didn't they prohibit it from ever being published? It was hot off the presses — some bestseller shit — Would Hitler not have hit if it hadn't been a hit? That hits different. — And then when they did Try to censor them is when the Nazis really got big As martyrs for a cause — and a precedent was further Then set for the censorship they met with him as Fuhrer It's enough to make you furious Censorship and murder – Silence all objectors Recondition all deserters – "Perverters of the Workers must be Purged from the State" – That or the reverse: "The Commie perps are at your gate!" And now our language of alert Has been subverted by the urgent Overstatement every side has made against its other version Insurrection, Treason and Sedition by the arch- And utter enemies of Freedom Either way we choose to march And in the Too Much Information on this internet of ours Now the office of the censor is the autocratic powers Of the platforms driven by their profit as they scour While we post our speech and wile away our hours ...If things seem freer than when all were accosted You can still get shot up for drawing Mohammed You can still scroll a phone that was made in a spot that Has a government that doesn't let you scroll where ya wanted Is your own mind free? Can they tell you what to do? There's no vaccine For the fact that ever-new Enemies of what's true Speak louder than you ...Why can't she speak With her nipples out too? Conclusion And so to conclude No freedom of speech has been true absolute All we can do is judiciously choose To whom we will listen when seeking the truth And when fools speak And single out groups The best way to silence them And clip their roots Isn't to refuse their right to speak But critique 'em even louder Than you used Even when the speeches are evil we cope Leaning on the note that if we don't Let the evil be spoken Then when we speak We too will be choked – It's a slippery slope But we roll with hope. – And this sound Whether it's suppressed or spreads around Whether it's viral or never gets found Whether any platform takes it down Is a speech Dedicated to the peeps Who were dedicated each To what must get said – For the many that have bled And as many get bleeped – This has been a history of free speech

Alright class, we're gonna get started. Everyone, please don't take your seats, Close your textbook, Stand up, and dance to this song What do you think of when I use the word School? You might shrug your shoulders and be like, 'S cool – It's a needful but imperfect institutional tool To make the people on the planet not be absolute fools Or you might have the view that it's only half true What they teach, and that in truth it's a tool that uses you – Subject to abuse, and the subjects you take Are designed to make your mind subjects of the state ...Some say it's great tho — A-OK – And the best way to go is to go and get A's – But whether you B for it or don't C it as best Society D-mands that you go or you're F'd When we were kids We would sing this hook 'No more pencils No more books' When they made us go to school And yet in the days when the tradition began Way before the institutions and the social demand The Ancient Greek "schole" from which "school" is rendered Did not mean work you had to do, it meant LEISURE Leisure? — Yessir — Free Time? — yes! — If you had food to eat, and other needs didn't press You might read or write, if you liked — free of stress – So yes — in a sense, School meant Recess You might spend your time with a Socrates And talk thoughtfully about God and Being And contemplate concepts of cosmic things Without and obligation or college fees And speaking of ironic etymologies 'Education' from the Latin educare means To lead out from, not to sit inside — And 'study' meant passion for a task — yeah, right Now you might ask why, like — Bruh, what da fuh...? How'd it all become the opposite of what it was? School meant Days Off; study meant fun Why's it upside down? I'm confounded. It's dumb Welcome to the club. Are you really surprised? Humans have a tendency to systematize – And the systems are fine, until the systems are blind To the very human beings for whom the system's designed It's a means to an end. And in the end that means That whoever's at the head gets to set the meanings And assign the readings, and to set the times And to regulate the rhythm of our lives and minds But way before pencils and way before books And way before the tests that everybody took There was Old School School. (Word) Alright let's go ahead and walk outside now Put our hands in the soil. ... Don't forget your improvised song is due... At any time It ain't about your interests, kid – It's how ya get 'er done Better aggregate your passions into learning outcomes Don't be burnin' out, son! Reevaluate your goals Gotta crack another statue from the economic mold Got you docile till you're old – 'They don't want us to know!' But the thing about 'Them' is The 'They' is Us, bro – Life is short, learning's slow – Why go back to the source When you could simply get it second hand? A requisite course And yes, you're being forced – And while at times it may be free So is all your social media – It's not that hard to see That that's another way of saying the commodity's me And the product is becoming what they want me to be You're so lucky – Old school study – So what are we to take from it And what disintegrate? How to disentangle the age-old angle Of obligation in the way When we educate – How to make it relate so it ain't Disembodied and a Knowledge but in name Without making that very same knowledge All but impossible to gain? (Dang) Make it a GAME — make Work Play – Never have to go to, and yet learn everyday – Make it into songs, teach lessons over beats And not just on the internet but also on the streets Education is an art And performance is a part Of its method and its manner 'Cause the head needs the heart – Hip-hop History SchoolHouse Rock Indigenous traditions – Times change. TikTok Here's a thought — Honor teachers in the game that go the hardest 'Cause in the end the teacher is the same as the artist – Let em play their part as pop-stars, getting famous Being bona fide philoso-rapper viral sensations ...I'm biased. ... Should I even talk? I'm a product of the system, a philosophy doc – And my knowledge, on which I base this critical thought Is predicated on the privilege of having been taught – I've thought of that a lot. ...If we lost what we've got Is it tantamount to tossing out the board with the chalk? But it may be worth a shot: and here's the reason why Like nails on a chalkboard, we're just squeaking by Education is the basis of society's design – The system that instills what's in everybody's mind And under this system, the society we find's Economically unequal, ecologically awry So redefine School: Not a tool of the state But a movement that arises from those who create – Whose mode of exchange isn't monetary wealth But Relationship and Wisdom. An end in itself No more tests No more rules No more half-truths Back to the roots – Back to Old School Schools You're so lucky – Old school study No more hassles (Old school study) No wack books No more teacher's dirty looks No more bureaucratic crooks (Old school study) And school boards with too many crooks No more standards (Old school study) No more rules No more half truths Back to the roots No more half truths (Old school study) Back to the roots Back to the roots Old school school Alright well, that's it for me today ... But we'll meet again for our next session ... Whenever we meet again. ... And until then... Study!

Hip-Hop's from the Bronx, that's where it's born from But what is Hip-Hop's etymological origin A word's etymology is how it was formed and when Words are important, you should be informed of them Here's an etymological lexical chronicle Wrought to give thought in full to its topical vocable Hip-Hop, "a genre of audible, optical thought-in-flow Get taught it's part of hip-hop to know (you know?) And so here it is, the etymology of hip-hop Well Hip comes first, but at first 'hip' was hep Which meant up-to-date, with it, and in step Which in 1914 first appears with that name In the now rare, Vocabulary of Criminal Slang Which claims that it came from a detective's last name Who was, legend has it, always 'hep' to the game And so his name became a saying "He's hep" like he's heard of it But some say that's wrong, here are other alternatives Some say that it comes from ancient ploughmen and shepherds Who when herding would shout the word 'hep' to their herd "Hep hep" like "tut tut!" the kind of word you're using As you do in hop-hop, when you're gettin' things moving More likely sources, on the other hand say That it's from the Wolof language of Senegal, Mauritania & Gambia "Hepi" to open one's eyes, well that's eye opening And should come as no surprise Since West Africa was the home of the Griot, or Djeli Who practiced the ancient art of tale and poem telling And preserving a cultural knowledge by rappin' it But some say even that etymology, is inaccurate But wherever it came from, what matters is where it went It entered the vernacular of Black Americans In the 30's and 40's, in what they call the Jive Era 50 years before Jive and era era era And it's usage continued in the context of Jazz First among musicians, and then among the fans So a "Hepcat" went from being a jazz man To later being a white intellectual Jazz appreciator And ultimately as 'hip' made the transition from hep If that was a transition that you weren't 'hip' to yet And you still said 'hep', and not hip Well then you'd fall into the category of person's Who are not hip at all "Hop" as in jump, or a one-footed leap First appeared in the 1500s, from a deep proto-Germanic root word In modern form hüpfen To engage in a bouncing, springing-forth movement Combining then hip, which means conscious and aware And hop which means making a leap in the air You have conscious movement, that's how KRS explains it He's the teacher of hip-hop, I teach ancient languages DJ's a "Disc Jockey", it's an established acronym Less obvious perhaps the MCs (emcees) that rap to them Can stand for the master of ceremonies, or for mic checker Or the less known microphone controller Graffiti's Latin via Greek; and via Latin, from Italian And even ancient Romans wrote, but not on iron stallions "Breaking" is from brecan, Old English, to shatter Old English 800 is a good way to get plastered Rap rap rap rap rap is onomatopoeic And so whoever did invent it, when they thought it and said it Made up a word that recreated some impression that came before Like the rap rap rapping Edgar heard at his chamber door It came from ancient Danish err becoming a term of art It meant a light quick blow, it also meant fart And that's poetic justice cause it's obvious they're Some rappers who claims to "drop shit" that's just air That's rap, but what about trap In the past 10 years everybody's feelin' that Where's the word come from? And where's the word at It was slang for the spot where your drugs transact Trap dervied it from trep That in or onto which someone can step Implying a movement that comes to a stop Some people don't like it some like it a lot Why not I'm not really saying either way I'm trying to say the way it went and whence it came And since it came to get its name And then became a way of statement That's pervasive in the game, and oftentimes, it's like a homophone It kinda sounds the same I guess it's aptly titled, 'cause it's everywhere of late I guess they call it trap cause it's hard to escape Hip-Hop evolves, and undergoes changes And yet somehow it's essence transcends and stays changeless And the line between who's real? and who appropriates it Is whether you make it in such a way that no haters can say shit That's what I'm trying to do And I recognize genre Is nothing more than a means to catalogue an author And I don't care if you call what I do is Hip-Hop Or historical essays masquerading as song-words What I care about is this, regardless of your origin When a crowd hears your voice, be sure you inform them Make them hip to what's real Make them hop to what moves them Make them think, make them feel Give them thought, give them movement For this is the function of, language and music However you may make it, wherever you may do it Cause words are just words, and what's real is just facts And it's not just where they're from it's where they're at