Market Value
Next time you visit The City That Never Sleeps
Beyond the Jags, Rolls Royces, SUVs and Jeeps
See the skyscrapers, condos, and tokens of excess
The expensive real estate that’s all meant to impress
Symbols of success, the hustling on the concrete
Charging Bull, eager lenders of legal tender, Wall Street
The financial foundation of the nation of the Home of the Brave
Stands on the graves of 15,000 to 20,000 African slaves
The stock market was built off the back of the slave market
They’re under you when your cabbie decides to park it
Near Wall, Water, and Pearl Streets, when you’re around
Recognize you’re walking on a sacred burial ground
From slave traders to day traders, from jingling bells to ringing bells
Stock whips to stocks, bondage to bonds
Stockpile people to stockbreed, a new industry was spawned
Human stock was exchanged, even kids, most certainly
NYSE should stand for ‘Neath, Youth Sleep Eternally
And the truth cuts deep like a double-edged saber
This country got rich off centuries of free labor
African slaves built Wall Street, and I mean literally
As waves of them arrived in the states litorally
This history isn’t taught in American school curicula
Find the hidden truth, hear it loud in your auricula
Two-step on the lies, cakewalk on the bullshit
Cha-cha slide to the love, Hallelujah in the pulpit
So next time you do Broadway to see some new quartet
Next time you splurge on Fifth Ave & acquire more debt
Respect the lives lost; make sure that you come correct
Now you’ve got 2 reasons in NYC to say “Never forget.”
Think Ink|Thinq Inq 