Lyrics Brother Ali

Brother Ali

Uncle Usi Taught Me

Mm-hmm

Uncle Usi taught me

Can't teach what you don't know

Can't lead where you don't go

Can't reap what you don't sow

Can't fool the people no more

You know me I'm a globe traveler, soul ambassador

Reporting live from the world wide massacre

No mask for the truth that animates me

See it and I speak it wherever it takes me

I'm in the Republic of Iran at a conference

Talkin' 'bout the cops and their nonsense

And how they like to hunt black folk with no conscience

And how they want to preach human rights, its preposterous

Request from the audience spit that Uncle Sam Goddamn

Drawing out the round of applauses

I was rocking a capella before this

Because I know that rapping in Iran is lawless

Ahh sh-- you know me though anything for the people

The clapping kind of tapped in to my fat rapper ego

I fell into the trap plugged in my Mac and let the beat go

Didn't think that nobody would hear though, here we go

Can't teach what you don't know

Can't lead where you don't go

Can't reap what you don't sow

Can't fool the people no more

Oh, here he go

Can't teach what you don't know

Can't lead where you don't go

Can't reap what you don't sow

Can't fool the people no more

This is how it go

Friday we greet each other at the mosque

But here there's only one and the government preacher talks

Which struck me as odd but nothing could prepare me for

A big ass mob chanting "Death to America"

It felt like somebody talking 'bout my mama, wait

It's all real but I'ma still feel some type of way

You mean the system and I'm with you on that

But you got to be more specific than that

You ain't talkin' 'bout the families getting whipped in the back

I'm trippin' cause I've never felt defensive like that

Okay so meanwhile footage of me spitting these raps

Is playing on every TV station they have

They jail people for that

The local rappers all start clapping back

Death threats all in my social media apps, hm

I started lookin' at the people that brought me here

Like, "what the hell y'all got me on man I'm out of here"

Can't teach what you don't know

Can't lead where you don't go

Can't reap what you don't sow

Can't fool the people no more

Oh, here y'all go

Can't teach what you don't know

Can't lead where you don't go

Can't reap what you don't sow

Can't fool the people no more

This is how it go

This that international gang banging and

My homeland hit Iran with the sanctions

And my credit cards and telephone ain't happening

But I can't imagine a better land to be stranded in

Almost everyone that see me coming

Want to take me home and they trying to feed me something

But I took the last forty dollars that I had

And headed to the airport in a cab and there I sat

Starving cause there's only one flight a day

I can't even buy a ticket tryna find a way

Somebody seen me on TV and recognized my face

And let me write an email to my wife in the states

I'm in the airport three days, wondering if I'm even safe

Finally got a seat on the plane

Now imagine my exhausted embarrassment

Get back to America they interrogate me like a terrorist

Really?

Can't teach what you don't know

Can't lead where you don't go

Can't reap what you don't sow

Can't fool the people no more

Watch where you go

Can't teach what you don't know

Can't lead where you don't go

Can't reap what you don't sow

Can't fool the people no more

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