Learn Truth
2013 · Nature Sounds NSD-159 · New York City, New York
- Artist
- R.A. the Rugged Man
- Title
- Learn Truth
- Release
- Legends Never Die
- Year
- 2013
- Label
- Nature Sounds # NSD-159
- Format
- Album
- Language
- English
- Country
- New York City, New York, USA
- Genre
- Hip Hop · East Coast Hip Hop · Hardcore Hip Hop
- Primary theme
- Post-War
Annotation — Civil Rights Songs
R.A. the Rugged Man - East Coast Hip Hop / Hardcore Hip Hop artist, born Richard Andrew Thorburn on 10 January 1974 in New York, USA - whose father was Staff Sgt. John A. Thorburn, a Vietnam veteran - the subject of the song "Uncommon Valor: A Vietnam Story", which he performed in collaboration with Jedi Mind Tricks.1 On this album, the song "Learn Truth" (Nature Sounds # NSD-159), in collaboration with Talib Kweli, was a protest, anti-war song, referring to multiply historical events and atrocities, from the Former Yugoslavia, to the Iraq War, and back to World War Two, and of course the Vietnam War: "from Genghis Khan to Vietnam, I can smell the napalm" - a jellied gasoline mixture, with polystyrene, benzene, and gasoline. Declared a war-crime since 1980, the US government extensively used this weapon during the Vietnam conflict, dropping 388,000 tons on Indochina between 1963 and 1973.123 The song also contained Civil Rights messaging: "redneck Klan members doin' church bombings".Sources1usafrotorheads.com: Thorburn john a↩2Times Higher Education: Napalm an american biography by robert m neer↩3Napalm, An American Biography (book website)↩
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
Lyrics
English: Take a piece of America back / You will only learn / It's called truth, it's called - it's called / It's called truth, you will only learn / Death by suicide bomb, Protestants, Bibles, a Quran, or Islam / From Genghis Khan to Vietnam, I can smell the napalm / Rape victims, ripped stockings, redneck Klan members doin' church bombings / Innocent fetuses being aborted with no options / Humans government ruinin' / Worryin' what weapons could be used to be nukin' 'em / Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem / Slaves treated like property, to Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima to Nagasaki / Adolf Hitler to every murderous Nazi / To the Gambinos, to the Gottis, to every Mafia atrocity / Child pornography, babies starvin' and dyin' in poverty / Serbians fightin' Croatians in Yugoslavia / Muslim women bein' raped, up to 40,000 in the war in Bosnia / The 50 million killed in the Second World War The government poisonin' the minds and the bodies / Of the babies that are born poor / Airplanes blown up by Islamic extremists / In religion there's always drama / Whether worshippin' the Prophet Mohammed or Jesus / Smallpox to Napoleon' troops dyin' from typhus / From the Spanish Flu to the Black Plague, today it's the AIDS virus / Bodies in coffins, political extortions / Racist mobs murderin', Willie Turks, Michael Griffith and Yusef Hawkins / Check the murder rate, is it human nature to murder and hate? / The Catholic Church claimed women were witches and burned 'em at the stake / Pedophile…
About the artist
R.A. the Rugged Man - East Coast Hip Hop / Hardcore Hip Hop artist, born Richard Andrew Thorburn on 10 January 1974 in New York, USA - whose father was Staff Sgt. John A. Thorburn, a Vietnam veteran - the subject of the song "Uncommon Valor: A Vietnam Story", which he performed in collaboration with Jedi Mind Tricks. (1) On this album, the song "Learn Truth" ( Nature Sounds # NSD-159), in collab.
Themes
Napalm · Anti-War · Genocide · Atomic · Reagan · Anti-Government · Civil Rights · WW2 · Hitler · Iraq War · Bosnian War · War Lineage · Violence Metaphor · Cocaine