Uncovering Allusion
Fo(u)r Women


Sojourner Truth, "Ain't I A Woman?" (1851, recorded
by Anne Feeney 2004)
Ursula Rucker. “For Women.” Ma’at Mama. !K7 Records (2006).
Nina Simone. “Four Women.” Four Women: The Complete Nina Simone on Philips. Verve (2003)
Talib Kweli & Hi-Tek: Reflection Eternal (Train of Thought) “For Women.” Rawkus (2001).
















Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I A Woman?

Speech given in 1851 at the
Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio
Song interpretation by Anne Feeney,
Original Recordings
. Anne Feeney (2004).

That man over there say
     a woman needs to be helped into carriages
and lifted over ditches
     and to have the best place everywhere.
Nobody ever helped me into carriages
   or over mud puddles
      or gives me a best place. . .
And ain't I a woman?

     Look at me
Look at my arm!
     I have plowed and planted
and gathered into barns
     and no man could head me. . .
And ain't I a woman?
 

 
   

 I could work as much
and eat as much as a man--
   when I could get to it--
and bear the lash as well
   and ain't I a woman?
I have born 13 children
     and seen most all sold into slavery
and when I cried out a mother's grief
     none but Jesus heard me. . .
And ain't I a woman?

  That little man in black there say
a woman can't have as much rights as a man
     cause Christ wasn't a woman
Where did your Christ come from?
     From God and a woman!
Man had nothing to do with him!
     If the first woman God ever made
was strong enough to turn the world
     upside down, all alone
together women ought to be able to turn it
     rightside up again.


c. 1797-1883


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Nina Simone. Four Women.” Four Women: The Complete Nina Simone on Philips. Verve (2003).


 My skin is black
My arms are long

My hair is wooly

My back is strong
Strong enough to take the pain

Inflicted again and again
What do they call me?
My name is Aunt Sarah
My name is Aunt Sara
h


My skin is yellow
My hair is long

Between two worlds

I do belong

My father was rich and white
He forced my mother
Late one night

What do they call me?

My name is Siffronia
My name is Siffronia
 

My skin is tan
My hair is fine
My hips invite you

My mouth like wine
Whose little
girl am ?
Anyone who
has money to buy
What do they call me?
My name is Sweet Thing

My name is Sweet Thing




















My skin is brown

And my manner is tough
I’ll kill the first mother I see
My life has been rough
I’m awfully bitter these days

’Cause my parents were slaves

What do they call me?
My name
is
 Peaches




















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 Ursula Rucker. "For Women." Ma’at Mama. !K7 Records (2006).

 

 

My skin is brown

My hair is platinum blonde, today

Burgundy tomorrow

My nails is long

I know no sorrow, cause

Ain’t nothing i care to know, but...

Where my check so i can get my tix for the jay-z show and

I do aspire to be a video-ho do

And i know

Pop-eye got shot last night

But

That’s how it go

In da ghetto

In da ghetto

What do they call me?

Read the tattoo on the left breast

My name is...lexxus

Yeah girl

My name is...lexxus

Get it right



My skin was young, so young

It burned and tore

My hair was pressed and curled

And tied with ribbons that sunday morn

September 15, 1963

I screamed

In the basement of the church, i screamed

The last day i would ever see

Ma and pa would never know the woman

i would grow up to be

I was an involuntary offering for humanity

Why did they hate me?

Why dey hate me, so, so, sooo

What did they call me?

Four little girls

Four little girls

My skin is tough

This woman

This

Lunch and home, mistake and love maker

Double shift worker

Sometimes warrior, sometimes weak

This wife

This single soldier

God-given, god fearing, god doubting

This, bearer of wisdom and fruit and pain

This... Once girl...sometimes still

Saint, sinner, teacher, multi-tasker, friend,

This everyday wonder

This...woman

This...nation-builder

This...raiser of leaders, of losers, of babies, of

Boys who will become men

Girls who will become women

This...woman

Some call me mama

Hey mama

Hey mama

Hey mama

My eyes are a rainbow

I reflect the spectrum

I have seen much

My heart weighs heavy

Even with joy i feel so much

My hair is electric

I am ablaze, i am the source

I can feed you or starve you

Breathe life into you or bleed you

I can fuck you or love you

I don’t care how they call me

I know who i is

Call me...

Crazy, divine, ma’at, true honeybun, supreme

Pontifica, electric lady, holy prostitute

I don’t care what you call me

I know who i is

I know who i is

I know who i is

I know who i is

I is...

Mammy, mulatto, welfare mom

Matriarch, mid-wife

I is

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Talib Kweli & Hi-Tek: Reflection Eternal (Train of Thought) “For Women.” Rawkus (2001).

 
[Talib Kweli] (Spoken)


Yea, so we got this tune called "For Women" right
Originally, it was by Nina Simone
She
said it was inspired by, you know
Down south.

In the south, they used to call her Mother Antie
She said No Mrs.
Just Antie
She said if anybody ever called her Antie
she'd burn the whole goddamn place down
I'm over past that
Coming into the new millenium,

we can't forget our elders


[Talib Kweli]
I got off the 2 train in Brooklyn on my way to a session
Said let me help this woman up the stairs

before I get to steppin'
We got in a conversation she said she a 107
Just her presence was a blessing

and her essence was a lesson
She had her head wrapped
And long dreads that peeked out the back
Like antenna to help her get a sense of where she was at

Imagine that
Livin' a century, the strength of her memories
Felt like an angel had been sent to me
She lived from nigger to colored to negro to black
To afro then african-american and right back to nigger
You figure she'd be bitter in the twilight
But she alright, cuz she done seen the circle of life yo
Her skin was black like it was packed with melanin
Back in the days of slaves she packin'

like Harriet Tubman
Her arms are long and she moves like song
Feet with corns, hand with callouses
But her heart is warm and her hair is wooly
And it attract a lot of energy even negative
She gotta dead that the head wrap is her remedy
Her back is strong and she far from a vagabond
This is the back of the masters' whip used to crack upon
Strong enough to take all the pain, that's been
Inflicted again and again and again and again and flipped it

to the love for her children nothing else matters
What do they call her? They call her aunt Sara.

 
Woman singing in the background

[Talib Kweli] (+ Background Vocals)


I know a girl with a name as beautiful as the rain
Her face is the same but she suffers
an unusual pain
Seems she only deals with losers
who be usin' them games
Chasin' the real brothers away like she
confused in the brain
She tried to get it where she fit in
on that American Dream mission paid tuition
For the receipt to find out
her history was missing and started flippin
Seeing the world through very different eyes
People askin' her what she'll do when it comes time to choose sides
Yo, her skin is yellow, it's like her face is blond word is bond
And her hair is long and straight just like sleeping beauty
See, she truly feels
Like she belong in 2 worlds
And that she can't relate to other girls
Her father was rich and white

still livin' with his wife
But he forced himself on her mother
late one night
They call it rape that's right
and now she take flight
Through life with hate and spite inside her mind
That keep her up

To the break of light a lot of times


(I gotta find myself) (3X)


She had to remind herself
They called her Safronia the unwanted seed
Blood still blue in her vein and
still red when she bleeds


(Don't, don't, don't hurt me again) (8X)

[Talib Kweli] (+ Background Vocals)


Teenage lovers sit on the stoops up in Harlem
Holdin' hands under the Apollo marquis
dreamin of stardom
Since they was born
the streets is watchin' and schemin'
And now it got them generations facin' diseases
That don't kill you they just got problems
and complications that get you first
Yo, it's getting worse,
when children hide the fact that they pregnant
Cuz they scared of giving birth
How will I feed this baby?
How will I survive, how will this baby shine?
Daddy dead from crack in '85,

Mommy dead from AIDS in '89
At 14 the baby hit the same streets
they became her master
The children of the enslaved, they grow a little faster
They bodies become adult
While they keepin' the thoughts of a child her arrival
Into womanhood was heemed up by her survival
Now she 25, barely grown out her own
Doin' whatever it takes strippin',
workin' out on the block
Up on the phone, talkin' about
(my skin is tan like the front of your hand)
(And my hair...)
(Well my hair's alright whatever way I want to fix it,
it's alright it's fine)
(But my hips,
these sweet hips of mine invite you daddy)
(And when I fix my lips my mouth is like wine)
(Take a sip don't be shy, tonight I wanna be your lady)
(I ain't too good for your Mercedes,
but first you got to pay me)
(You better quit with all the question, sugar
who's little girl am I)
(Why I'm yours if you got enough money to buy)

(You better stop with the compliments
we running out of time,)
(You wanna talk whatever we could do
that it's your dime)
(From Harlem's from where I came,
don't worry about my name,)
(Up on one-two-five they call me sweet thang)


\
Scratches + Woman singing in the background
[Talib Kweli] (+ Background Vocals)

 

A daughter come up in Georgia, ripe and ready

to plant seeds,
Left the plantation when she saw a sign
Even thought she can't read
It came from God and when life get hard
She always speak to him,
She'd rather kill her babies
than let the master get to 'em,
She on the run up north

to get across that Mason-Dixon
In church she learned

how to be patient and keep wishin',
The promise of eternal life after death

for those that God bless
She swears the next baby she'll have

will breathe a free breath
And get milk from a free breast,
And love being alive,
Otherwise they'll have to give up being themselves to survive,
Being maids, cleaning ladies, maybe teachers or college graduates, nurses, housewives, prostitutes, and drug addicts
Some will grow to be old women, some will die before they born,
They'll be mothers, and lovers who inspire and make songs,
(But me, my skin is brown

and my manner is tough,)
(Like the love I give my babies when the rainbow's enuff,)
(I'll kill the first muthafucka that mess with me,

I never bluff)
(I ain't got time to lie,

my life has been much too rough,)
(Still running with barefeet,

I ain't got nothin' but my soul,)
(Freedom is the ultimate goal,
life and death is small on the whole,

in many ways)
(I'm awfully bitter these days
'cuz the only parents God gave me, they were slaves,)
(And it crippled me,

I got the destiny of a casualty,)
(But I live through my babies

and I change my reality)
(Maybe one day I'll ride

back to Georgia on a train,)
(Folks 'round there call me Peaches,

I guess that's my name.)
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© Martha J. Bianco, Ph.D., 2006-2008