Black History Month-Remember Gary Byrd & Stevie Wonder’s Rap Song-The Crown?

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I wanted to kick off Black History Month with this song.. It’s a hard to find record that features well known radio talk show host Gary Byrd and  soul singer Stevie Wonder. It was one of the first message songs coming out in 1982. It was dope because Stevie Wonder bridged the gap between Hip Hop and R&B by producing the song. Byrd bridged the gap because he was able to tap into the young emerging Hip Hop generation by doing what he and Black radio jocks a generation before us had done which was spit rhymes.. He formed the GB Experience and wrote this dope joint.. Enjoy Black History month

People of the world wherever you be
welcome to Cosmic YOUniversity.
Where life is the journey and love is the trip

And the study of them will make you hip.
I’m professor of the rap and when I speak
I guarantee that my lines will not be weak.
They say a mind is a terrible thing to waste

That’s why I’m here and on the case.

Rapping up every mind with a special degree in socio-psycholo G.B.E.
The Gary Byrd Experience is my course

When you take my class you will feel the force.
‘Cause I know the roots that the rap is from

When I speak to you I am not dumb.
Hear my rap and begin to dance
and I promise you this you will advance.
You may have seen the Raiders of the Lost Ark

But you still lefl the theatre in the darkl
So clap your hands to the beat as the Wondersound

And the G.B.E. shine on the Crown.

You wear the Crown
I wear the Crown

So proud to say that we all wear the Crown
the Crown.

I do recall so very well
when I was just a little boy

I used to hurry home from school
I used to always feel so blue

Because there was no mention in the books
we read about my heritage.
So therefore any information that I got was education.
Bums
hobos at depot stations
I would listen with much patience

Or to relatives who told the tales that they were told to pass ahead.
And then one day from someone old
I heard a story never told

Of all the kingdoms of my people
and then how we fought for freedom

All about the many things we have unto the world contributed.
You wear the crown. – We wear the crown – we wear the Crown.

It’s not Star Wars
it’s not Superman
it’s not the story of the Ku-Klux-Klan.
The crown will appear in the G.B.E.
but it’s never seen on your T.V.
It’s in black and white in your gold mind
a picture so old it defies time.
Alex Haley drew it in his book
it’s what Kunta kept in his other foot.
Ghana Songhay and old Mali
they are the roots of your own family tree.
Kingdom so vast and knowledge wise

They removed cataracts from human eyes.
And yet today some refuse to see
and live in fear of their discovery.
Now in fourteen hundred and ninety-two Columbus sailed to ocean – true.
But years before in Alkebu a ship set sail with a chocolate crew.
2000 years before Columbo came
the Olmecs paid tribute to their fame.
Stone heads with faces eight feet high
that the Hulk could not lifl to his thig
Though the facts historians avoid
first to arrive was the Africoid.
It may shock the House and Shockley
too

And if you’re not prepared it may shock you

While some had doubts that the world was round.
In America guess who wore the Crown.
I wear the Crown
you wear the Crown

So proud to say that we all wear the Crown
get down.
You wear the Crown
I wear the Crown

So proud to say that we all wear the Crown
the Crown.
 

Lyric transcription courtesy: http://www.allthelyrics.com/lyrics/gary_byrd/the_crown-lyrics-906707.html

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