Videos

Rapsody – “NINA” (Video)

blame it on Shake August 23, 2019

At the stroke of midnight, Rapsody released her new album, EVE, and shortly after, she was hit with a serious amount of (well deserved) praise.

Dedicated to the celebration and empowerment of women of color worldwide with each song being named after a legendary black female, both past and present, the gifted emcee is right back with a video for the album’s intro, “NINA,” which finds her laying down one of her best verses over a Nina Simone sample, flipped wonderfully by producer Mark Byrd.

Check out the Kids From Nowhere (Rapsody + $wank) directed clip below.

“Emit light, Rap or Emmett/ Till I drew a line without showing my body, that’s a skill/ Bad to the bone and the grill/ You’d be dead wrong if looks killed/ I’m still on my spill, in the spirit of L. Hill/ Eye on the sparrow, Nose like a pharoah’s/ Our bloodline trill for the young and all the lil’s/ We all gon’ get mills/ Talk a lot of game but we get paid to like Jemele/ Was raised upon a Hill/ The valleys a sunken place/ I’m just tryna build like I came with some kettle weight/ Know I’m a God emcee cause n***a I made the devil wait/ ‘Fo I brought hell, you ain’t gotta tell me I’m hella great/ I don’t speak on it nowadays, I just meditate/ Y’all can have the bars, n***a I spit hard metal gates/ Henry Louis Gates when I cop me some new estate/ Make room for myself, I’m in a way different mental place/ I keep it real, all y’all look anime/ I’m fine like Anna Mae, black don’t crack like Angela/ Black and brave like in the A/ It don’t come with apologies unless it’s Tip and some Andre/ When you greet me it’s Namaste/ Spread love the Brooklyn way or like marmalade/ No matter if you street street or more like the promenade/ We gotta come together like the corn and the dookie braids/ For the present and future days, Imma say what I gotta say/ I am Nina and Roberta, the one you love but ain’t heard of/ Got my middle finger up like Pac after attempted murder/ Failed to kill me, it’s still me/ Woke up singing Shirley Murdock/ As we lay these edges down brown women we so perfect/ Went from field n***a to still n***a, being cropped out the picture/ But we all know who got the juice, my sistahs/ Imitating us in all the Hollywood pictures/ And still they’ll never be us, n***a/ I’m from the back woods where Nina would/ Sing about the life we should/ lead a new dawn, another deed; I tried to do some good/ Felt more damned than Mississippi was/ They denied Nina in Philadelphia/ And still she persevered like all the 400 years of our own blood/ Africa! Old Panthers looking back like ‘who gon’ come up after us?’/ Outside the movies, I make sure before it move you/ It moves me/ Now bow down to a Queen, please/ Survival.”