Concentration camp blues
Never make the news
These settlers rigged the game when they made the rules
Let me try to paint a scene of chasing lonely rez kid dreams
With nights banging out beats on that laptop screen
With nothing but your heart telling you you're right
I spent years in the dark just to find my light
Shout out my mother and my aunties because they raised us all
In a settler colonial state that called them squaw
I'm from the rez, commod fed and raised on ball
That means I've bled, tears shed over things I saw
So I ain't one to judge with loved ones doing time and everyone on drugs
We used to run around the rez now we pray and smudge
And now I understand why ancestors prayed for us
In the beginning a reservation was a camp of concentration
It was either that or lands hard fought maintained and protected by Nations
A reservation is a nation
Beyond concentration camp blues
These are dark times, hard times otehi yelo
Cante iyoksica hoksila miyelo
If you gotta know, I got a heavy heart
Every part and valve weighed down with a heavy scar
And I got them in the place I'm from
Some call it reservation, some call it concentration
Concentrating the trauma of genocide up in a nation
This system murders us, call it premeditation
Tragic death becomes a circumstance
They outlawed our songs and wouldn't let us dance
And now it gives me the blues
They say we're red to them we're dead
My people set up to lose
Concentration Camp Blues never make the news
Concentration Camp Blues never make the news
These settlers rigged the game when they made the rules
These settlers rigged the game when they made the rules
Our cultures hold the truth to see you through
The fire's in our youth ancestors return soon