Be a little more Mandela Be a little bit more Malala Be a bit more Dali Lama Do you follow? When you ready take the lead When you ready take the lead When you ready take the lead Cause the change is in you and me Dark cloud over the cradle in the vein of Cain and Abel And of fables like Aesop rockin the Labor Days label Definitely juxed indefinitely under the bus Peasantry is on the run from drones above and golden guns Patrolmen's buzz Soldier's lament Colin Powell's scowl Nixon's legacy Obama's failures in his hour Illegal aliens in barracks or they say refugees in shackles What kind of nation calls itself the greatest then goes backward on acting As a shelter a harbor a homeland for the derelict The displaced the oppressed open shores all American Everything we claim to be native borne of genocide Get a 10 at crime on a scale of 1 to never mind I'd defer to the body count the on-the-ground accounts The counting down the crowns the never-ending warring roundabout The war on citizens the war on innocent the war on women and children The war on the young black and gifted magnificent Be a little more Mandela Be a little bit more Malala Be a bit more Dali Lama Do you follow? When you ready take the lead When you ready take the lead When you ready take the lead Cause the change is in you and me In the shadows of war memorials The echoes of oratorials Clamor against the names of warriors engraved in stone They say war is primordial By nature we territorial But I know hatred's learned and we are instilled with love I think about these survivors Who walked through bullets and fire Wielding weapons of reckoning more powerful than artillery Recognize who I align with Guide my strength to the spineless Deal in methods that organize and educate auxiliaries Swarm akin to k**erbees borne on Robin Island And on Pakistani buses and in schools for every child In the face of vitriol violence in place of spiteful alliance There is spiritual highness that can transcend foes and faux Phantasmagoria grows as stories of rifts proliferate I dream in every color sister brother lift and liberate Civil rights in city-states for every life And living saints Who sacrificed so we can take their life force and regenerate Be a little more Mandela Be a little bit more Malala Be a bit more Dali Lama Do you follow? When you ready take the lead When you ready take the lead When you ready take the lead Cause the change is in you and me It looks like Student teachers struggling to reach the future leaders In a school system designed to keep the status quo intact It looks like Human collateral for opposing the practices of racist policing With tactics that rely on blows to backs It looks like Parisian citizens candlelit in remembrance a**embled on the streets With the message that fear won't hold us back It looks like Hard conversations that can feel like confrontation with people that you love But a mindset that's stuck in the past It looks like Iraq war veterans making beats and writing lessons saying peace while fighting post-traumatic stresses and debt It looks like Anti-racist and anti-fascist and anti-cla**ist and Black Lives Matter It looks like Manny Faces and Caits and Mikal and Maddy Folks who make it their work to make it work with a pa**ion It looks like Whatever you envision the mind truly a prism Just gotta mine the wisdom and step outside the prison Be a little more Mandela Be a little bit more Malala Be a bit more Dali Lama Do you follow? When you ready take the lead When you ready take the lead When you ready take the lead Cause the change is in you and me