Teach the student what needs to be taught
What are you selling us the creator dwellin' us
In fact you'll start to illuminate, knowledge to others in a song
Just like I told you, you must learn
With Elie Whitney, Holly Selosy, Grand Bill Woods
When one doesn't know about the other ones' culture
Can't you see where KRS is coming at
We need the 89 school system
No one told you about Benjamin Banneker
Harriet Tubman freed the slaves at night
'Cause we're just walkin' around brainwashed
Lewis Latterman improved on Edison
You're tryin' make me you by seasoning
Filled with straight up facts no mystery
Just filled with facts and you will never get weak in the heart
Or a jet Black family, so I include with one concern, that
A brilliant Black man that invented the almanac
Knowledge reigned supreme
The point I'm gettin' at it might be harsh
The ignorant is ripped to smithereens
I believe that if you're teaching history
It's calm yet wild the style that I speak
You must learn
You must learn
But you won't know this is you weren't shown
I sit in your unknown class while you're failing' us
Insulting to a Black mentality, a Black way of life
'Cause I don't accept everything that you're telling us
Let me demonstrate the force of knowledge
'Cause Black and White kids both take shorts
So what I'm sayin' is not to diss a man
What do you mean when you say I'm rebellious
Garrett Morgan made the traffic lights
I failed your class 'cause I ain't with your reasoning
One that caters to a Black return because
And this has got to stop, See Spot run, run get Spot
'Cause you don't know that you ain't just a janitor
African history should be pumped up steadily, but it's not
Just like I told you, you must learn
Made the walky-talky
It seems to me that in a school that's ebony
Up my mind with see Jane run, see John walk in a hardcore New York
Ignorance swoops down like a vulture
It doesn't exist no way, no how
Madame CJ Walker made a straightin' comb
Charles Drew did a lot for medicine
