"Galveston" is a song by Lupe Fiasco, released exclusively through the streaming service Apple Music on June 10, 2022, as part of their compilation album, Juneteenth 2022: Freedom Songs.
"Galveston" is named after a city in Texas, which received news of the United States' emancipation of the slaves in 1865. The track explores the origins of the holiday, where Fiasco said it was not a "celebratory story," though added about Juneteenth, "It's a holiday that has been so undesigned for so long. Take the opportunity to design what Juneteenth means for you and how you choose to celebrate it for you and yours. [...] All are welcome. It's not just a black holiday. It's a people's holiday. A reminder of overcoming some of the bullshit that's in this world. And we're going to do it with style. We're going to do it with grace. We're going to do it with flare. But, we're going to do it with dignity and remembrance as well."[1]
Synopsis[]
"I try to make things that establish emotion and utility so that not only can people feel it, but they can actually do something with it," Lupe Fiasco says. "There's only so much utility you can have in music, but it all boils back down to education and instruction." For the veteran MC's contribution to Apple Music's Freedom Songs 2022, a collection of covers and originals inspired by the 2022 Juneteenth celebration, Fiasco created "Galveston," a song that forces us to reckon with the unimaginably high cost of freedom. "'Galveston' is about taking Juneteenth, which is normally a celebration of a very specific set of events—the manumission from slavery of Black folks—and approaching it from a different angle," Fiasco says. "Looking at it as the impact of it, versus the event. And one of the impacts of Juneteenth was that the abolition of slavery—it introduced all of this other extra tension and new realities, and some of those new realities weren't that good. So, 1865, you get abolition of slavery, Emancipation Proclamation, all that good stuff, end of the Civil War. But that same year, you also get the birth of the Ku Klux Klan. So, to me, it was a life-and-death type thing where death was brought to one thing, but then it created life—it gave birth to another thing."
Background[]
Fiasco told Zane Lowe of Apple Music 1, "For me, 'Galveston' is not a celebratory story. It's a ghost story. It's a warning to the past to we celebrate. [...] I'm sure that my ancestors who were at the point of emancipation and felt that shock wave of them being considered or labeled as being free, quote unquote, by the federal government at that time were highly celebratory for a couple days. Emancipation proclamation, June 19th, 1865. Or at least when they found out in Galveston. But, then guess what else gets born in 1865? The Ku Klux Klan. When we get an opportunity to celebrate something or opportunity to overcome, they rip it from us. Martin Luther King Jr didn't die from natural causes. He got shot. Malcolm X didn't die from natural causes. He got shot. Even the people that we celebrated, make murals on, they would snatch from us in a way to bring us down."[1][2]
Lyrics[]
[Verse 1]
Expect to take my place, spotter take my weight
What dominates my dates now contemplates its fate
Forced to be entrepreneurial, historically entrepreneurial
Along with authority there is a funeral
So let the poetry go with the burial
Charcoal shade skin creature
They'll bleach you when they see a color like synesthesia
From the inner reaches to a n***a features, rejoice (Galveston)
Feel a shockwave from my choice
When you not slave, you can hear it at the top octave of my voice (Huh)
[Chorus]
There's a rebone connected to my mesone
I need some freedom connected to my fee bone
I need to celebrate with a T-bone connected to my T-bone
An ottoman to put my feet on and a porch to sip my tea on
Blessings got me destined, I ain't blinded no more
Blessings got me destined, I ain't blinded no more
B— B— Blessings got me destined, I ain't blinded no more
Blessings got me destined, I ain't blinded no more
And there's a rebone connected to my mesone
I need some freedom connected to my fee bone
I want to celebrate with a T-bone connected to my T-bone
With an ottoman to put my feet on and a porch to sip my tea on, really hope so
[Verse 2]
In the aftermath of after masters
Hang the skeletons from the rafters
Hang like pelicans around the bathtubs
Stain like accelerants after arsons
Dark as carbon, in droves
The part that gardens for the park apartments
From the garbage, into the
Third heaven of the nation's millennium general assembly energy
Entity, liberty on a killin' spree
Feelin' glee underneath the drillin' tree
On Jupiter Hammon and Phyllis Whe'
Make a heart melt and a skillet breathe
Do a cakewalk around the guillotine
Rub a rattle snake until it's giggling
[Outro]
But you can't rest so peaceful
Indentured servants is gonna shine and deceitful protect your people
And that finesse there is so lethal
Jim Crow bust like Desert Eagles
Gon' come back 'round like extra sequels
And it's all gon' be legal (Galveston)
Birthplace, Ghost Town
Day of the dead, prayers are said
In the form of a hoedown
French-fried 'til they golden brown
Triple Ks, brown gold vers' white sheets
Poltergeist get exorcised on the nineteenth
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Elibert, Mark (June 20, 2022). "Lupe Fiasco Breaks Down 'Galveston' Track Featured on Apple Music's 'Juneteenth 2022' Compilation".
- ↑ "Lupe Fiasco: "Galveston" An Important Reminder of the Reality of Juneteenth | Apple Music". YouTube. June 19, 2022.