George Bush Don't Like Black People

By Legendary K.O.

I ain't saying he's a goldigger,

but he ain't messing with no broke niggas
I ain't saying he a goldigger,

but he ain't messing with no broke niggas

George Bush don't like black people
George Bush don't like black people
George Bush don't like black people
George Bush don't like black people

Hurricane came through, fucked us up round here
Government acting like it's bad luck down here
All I know is that you better bring some trucks round here
Wonder why I got my middle finger up round here

People lives on the line you declining to help
Since you taking so much time we surviving ourself
Just me and my pets, and my kids, and my spouse, trapped
In my own house looking for a way out (pause)

Five days in this motherfucking attic
Can't use the cellphone I keep getting static
Dying 'cause they lying instead of telling us the truth
Other day the helicopters got my neighbors off the roof (off the roof)

Screwed 'cause they say they coming back for us too
That was three days ago, I don't see no rescue
See a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do
Since God made the path that I'm trying to walk through

Swam to the store, tryin' to look for food
Corner store's kinda flooded so I broke my way through
I got what I could but before I got through
News say the police shot a black man trying to loot

(Who!?) Don't like black people
George Bush don't like black people
George Bush don't like black people
George Bush don't like 'em

I ain't saying he a goldigger,

but he ain't fucking with no broke niggas
I ain't saying he a goldigger,

but he ain't checking for no broke niggas

George Bush don't like black people
George Bush don't like black people
George Bush don't like black people
George Bush don't like black people

Five damn days, five long days
And at the end of the fifth he walking in like "Hey!"
Chilling on his vacation sitting patiently
Them black folks gotta hope, gotta wait and see

If FEMA really comes through in an emergency
But nobody seem to have a sense of urgency
Now the mayor's been reduced to crying
I guess Bush said, "Nigga's been used to dying!"

He said, "I know it looks bad, just have to wait"
Forgetting folks who too broke to evacuate
Niggas starving and they dying of thirst
I bet he had to go and check on them refineries first

Making a killing off the price of gas
He would have been up in Conneticut twice as fast
After all that we've been through nothing's changed
You can call Red Cross but the fact remains that...

George Bush ain't a goldigger,

but he ain't fucking with no broke niggas
George Bush ain't a goldigger,

but he ain't fucking with no broke niggas

Come down Bush, c'mon come down
Come down Bush, c'mon come down
Come down Bush, c'mon come down
Come down Bush, c'mon come down

George Bush ain't a goldigger (Hmmn)
George Bush don't like black people
George Bush don't like black people
George Bush don't like black people

Come down George, c'mon come down
Come down George, c'mon come down
Come down George, c'mon come down
Come down George, c'mon come down

(Fade out)

Audio George Bush Don't Like Black People

Protest Hip Hop

Kanye West is a musical powerhouse with the nation's top-selling album at the moment. Now, even the words West utters offstage and outside the recording studio carry weight, and inspire outrage and creativity.

West's harsh criticism of President Bush during a nationally televised benefit concert nearly three weeks ago ratcheted up the volume in an international debate about the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. It also has sparked one of the more potent political protest songs of recent years, George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People, by the Houston rap group the Legendary K.O. Tribune rock critic Greg Kot reports.

In an interview, Randle said he was shocked by the bluntness of West's comments but not their substance. Nickerson lives near the Astrodome and Randle near a convention centre in Houston, both of which are being used to house New Orleans refugees. "Not till you see these people face to face and talk to them can you appreciate the level of hopelessness," said Randle, who by day works as a financial adviser at a Houston bank. "The one common feeling was that they felt abandoned, on their own little island."

Four days after West's comments, the rappers put together the song in their home studios.

"I finished my verse at 6:15 [p.m.], and we had it on the Internet by 6:30 and circulating to our friends and people we know in the music industry," Randle said. The group, which has put out four albums since 1992, claims the song was downloaded for free 10,000 times the first day it was made available on its Web site, www.k-otix.com. Response was so heavy that it crashed the Web site, and Randle said they have been receiving feedback from around the world ever since. `Not just a hip-hop audience'

"What's surprising to me is not the level of the response but the demographics of the people responding," Randle said. "It's not just a hip-hop audience. I got an e-mail from one guy in Austin [Texas] who described himself as a `typical middle-class conservative white male' who didn't necessarily agree with the politics but liked the fact that we were speaking out."

How long the song will remain on the Web site is questionable, because the Legendary K.O. did not clear the use of the sample with West or his record company. But in the Wild West of the Internet and underground hip-hop, such creative appropriation is commonplace and, in the case of George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People, downright thrilling. Not only does the song do justice to West the producer and commentator, it also ranks with the best protest songs of recent years.

"We're not interested in profiting from the song," Randle said. "We'd like Kanye to hear it and maybe work something out where we could jointly license it to benefit charities."

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posted 22 September 2005