That will hate the ladies, that make the babies Time to heal our women, be real to our womenĪnd if we don't we'll have a race of babies Why we rape our women, do we hate our women? Got our name from a woman and our game from a woman You know it makes me unhappy, what's that When you come around the block brothas clown a lotīut please don't cry, dry your eyes, never let upįorgive but don't forget, girl keep your head upĪnd when he tells you you ain't nutting don't believe himĪnd if he can't learn to love you you should leave himĪnd I ain't trying to gas ya up, I just call em how I see em I say the darker the flesh then the deeper the rootsĪnd uhh, I know they like to beat ya down a lot Keep your head up, because the redemption of the world is drawing near.Some say the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice Keep claiming your own dignity and worth. Keep striving for justice, for mercy, for righteousness. For neither of them are these words meant to be platitudes, but rather, they speak to a deep truth that even when all hope seems lost, even when you’re fed up, the only real option is to keep your head up. As Jesus looks upon a world that seems hellbent on its own destruction, where power and might are the only things that seem to actually mean anything or hold any value, it seems just as odd that he too might tell the oppressed and the downtrodden to, in the words of Tupac Shakur, “keep ya head up.” Yet, that’s exactly what Jesus does. Having come out of a world that seemed like the future was absolutely hopeless, Tupac Shakur chose to write a song about keeping your head up. Women, especially as featured in this song, were often left to raise children all on their own, either because the father was dead, could’t afford a baby, or had moved on to… less fertile pastures. The men often took to the hustle to make enough money to eat and pay the rent. The deck was still stacked against young African-Americans born into the poverty. Much later in life, and now on the other side of the continent, Tupac wrote “Keep ya head up” in a situation in which not whole lot had changed. Fed up with racial profiling and police violence, the Black Panther Party, of which Tupac’s parents were both active members, was, at times, at war with the powers-that-be. The world of East Harlem in the 1970s, the world in which Tupac was raised, was not that far removed from the vision that Jesus offers for the end times. Read more: 2Pac – Keep Ya Head Up Lyrics | MetroLyrics We ain’t meant to survive, ’cause it’s a setup I blame my mother, for turnin’ my brother into a black baby They got money for wars, but can’t feed the poorĪnd the truth is, there ain’t no hope for the future You know it’s funny when it rains, it pours I try to keep my head up, and still keep from getting wetter It’s gonna take the man in me to conquer this insanity Last night my buddy lost his whole family I try and find my friends, but they’re blowin’ in the wind It’s hard to be legit and still pay your rentĪnd in the end it seems I’m headin’ for the pen While it is the chorus, which features a sample from The Five Stairsteps “O-o-h Child” that has been my earworm for the week, the verses actually have something to say about apocalyptic vision that Jesus offers the crowd in Sunday’s lesson.
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