For Youth Voices students - Willie Perdomo's “41 Bullets Off-Broadway” lyrics

A special team shot a dream last night Off-Broadway Off-Broadway Streams of blood flood the Bronx tonight Off Broadway Off Broadway Is this what Africa means to me? Oh hell no Oh hell no It's not like you were looking at a plastic bouquet of white roses while pissing in your mother's bathroom and hope that today was not the day that you bumped into four cops who happened to wake up with a bad case of contagious shooting From the Bronx to El Barrio there were enough shots to go around we heard you fall face first into your lobby of equal opportunity forty-one bullets not giving you enough time to hit the floor with dignity forty-one bullets like silver-colored push pins holding up a bloody back to Africa announcement on the sheet rock where your body is mapped out Before your mother kissed you goodbye and blessed your dream to go make it in America she forgot to look at the evening news she forgot to tell you that mosquitoes k** in this country and kids get shot in schools and churches and are mourned for a whole year while you go away quietly Before you could show your I.D. and say, "Officer —" four glock clips went ahchoo and smoked you into spirit and by the time a special street unit decided what was enough another dream submitted an application for deferral it was la vida de la surpresa surpresa de la vida and you probably thought I was gonna say loca but be you prince be you pauper your color makes you a usual suspect around here By the time you hit the floor protest poets came to your rescue legal eagles were ready to fly into dream teams your mother was on t.v. looking suspicious at the defense she knew that justice will keep one eye open for the right price By the time you hit the floor they said they forgot everything they learned at the academy and the mayor told them go and beat up a million black kids who try to celebrate themselves while your spirit seeped through the tiles in the lobby of your equal opportunity through El Barrio through the Bronx there were enough shots to go around