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Kamal Imani - Keep Going​-​SpokenWord

from Up in the Attic (Old School Hip Hop Movie Soundtrack) by Various Artist

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about

This is Classic Spoken Word from a contemporary poet. A semi-autobiography of Poet Kamal Imani as he takes you from his early years being raised in Harlem to the Bronx and then Teaneck NJ. He speaks about many of the downfalls, strife, struggle and stress that he and his family went through, but how they kept going forward due to the power of love, hope and faith.

lyrics

Kamal Imani 7/1/2012

There's an unseen force inside of us. We must trust it and tap into it.
Some people call it God! It enables us to keep going.

I was born in Harlem
I don't remember my Father being around much.
I do remember opening the door for 2 men who wore stockings over their faces and carried swords
They robbed our Apartment on Morningside Avenue while my little sister and I were watching Sesame Street
I was 3 and she was 1. They took TV's and Stereos and some other things but they didn't take the little TV that we were watching Big Bird on from us.
My family came home and told me that I shouldn't have unlocked the 6th lock on the door
There were 6 locks on the door.
My victimization process had begun

I've been violated in other ways. That I block out. Because I guess I'm not ready to tell you.
But I will tell you that- I keep going.

At 5 years old we moved to the Bronx. My mother's company Ma Bell was on strike.
She carried me on the pick it line and we sang "We've come along way baby, to get where we are today, We're gonna have to fight now baby, We've come a long long way".
That was my introduction to protest.

My mother worked overtime. We were latch key kids
My mother maxed out on her credit cards at Alexanders Department Store, Buster Browns and Florsheims to make us happy.
I would watch my mother faint in our Bronx apartment more than once.
But she'd come to and get up and keep going.

I used to go to the super market to help ladies carry their grocery bags home. Sometimes I'd get in the cab with them. They'd give me money. That was my introduction to entrepreneurship.
At the age of 7 while playing outside with my friends I was recruited by a gang called the Jr. Black Spades
The police came to my house the next day. They wanted to ask me some questions.
They asked me if I had stole a ladies pocketbook out of her stroller.
I was shakingly scared and I told the truth. No I didn't. They said that's what my friends in the gang told them.
That was my introduction to loyalty and trusting my friends.
So without my friends. I kept going.

At one time we had waterbugs. Big gigantic roaches that would hit the runway on our kitchen floor and fly around the kitchen with the flys. We had mice. I went to a friends house and on their heads were lice. I went outside and a man had a gun to anothers head. They had been shootin dice.
This was an early introduction to life not being so nice.
But I kept going.

My mother fainted again. She taught me the price of sacrifice.
The super of our Bronx tenement building brought her smelling salts again and helped her up.
She later married him. The marriage didn't last long.
But somehow I knew they loved each other.

Without his companionship and financial support and one extra daughter, Once again. My mother kept going.

I was playing with my friends one day and this guy was bullying and I really didn't feel like fighting.
So I ran into the street and a car slammed on it's breaks and it missed hitting me by about an 8th of an inch.
The man was yelling at me. I was crying. Later that day Ms. Thelma told my mother what happened. I didn't even know who Ms. Thelma was. I learned an understanding of community.

My father wasn't around much.

My Grandmother lived in the suburbs out in Englewood NJ. She said that she had to get us out of the inner city.
She brought a house in Teaneck NJ but my mother still had to pay the mortgage, the taxes, the water bill, the garbage bill, the gas and electric, the food, our clothes, the repairs and I would witness despair and she would have nervous breakdowns.
Whatever help she got from family and friends was never quite enough.

But she kept going. She kept going for us.

I was 11. I became a paperboy. I got paper routes with the Teaneck Suburbanite and later the Bergen Record.
I starting buying my own clothes and extra food to help my mother and family out.

As a teenager in the hip hop era, I learned to promote parties. That would bring in money and it was a lot of fun.
I learned marketing 101

I would leave my friends in a split second if I thought we were about to get in too deep in a street situation.
They would get mad and call me names, but I never wanted my mother to receive a call from the police or some one saying that I was either dead or in jail. So even though they called me names and I would loose some friends or street credibility, I would keep going. I was learning to walk my own path. To walk the beat of my own drum.

Some of my friends ended up dead and others in jail.

In life I've tried many things. And in many things I have failed. My mother and Grandmother are physically gone. My father has alzheimers and doesn't really know who I am. I think.

I now have a beautiful highly supportive wife and a sun who gives me energy and makes me laugh.
We have lost a child, lost jobs, lost health due to stress and duress, but we've held on to the unseen hand
and we've continued to do our best.

We did all the things we were supposed to do. Get good grades and finish school. We have certificates and degrees
but still find ourselves in a bad economy.

I've been through poverty. And, now as a self made entrepreur! I vow to live a life of prosperity for sure.

So I keep going!

You must keep going!

There's an unseen force inside of us. We must trust it and tap into it.
Some people call it God! It enables us to keep going.

Terrence Kamal Oats AKA Kamal Imani
(Inspired by Les Brown)

credits

from Up in the Attic (Old School Hip Hop Movie Soundtrack), track released July 1, 2012
Produced by Kamal Imani

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about

Kamal Supreme Teaneck, New Jersey

Kamal Supreme is an internationally known Hip Hop Legend and dance music producer, spoken word performance poet and hip hop lyricist. Kamal fuses his creative lyricism with dance, Bhangra, Reggae, Dancehall and hip hop beats!
cipherkam@gmail.com or contact Mr. Kevin Barksdale at 201-923-921
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