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