Get all 54 Sankofa releases available on Bandcamp and save 10%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Impossible Bottle Service, Sonny Kovah, Most Anything of Value, 12 Crows on a Wire, Bleeding of the Golden Goose, Kung Fu Buffet, Mystery Album???, 11:59, and 46 more.
1. |
Kafka Days
02:45
|
|||
|
Finding myself stuck, trapped within the same place
Clipping the wings of guardian angels, singing their maydays.
Trying to maintain in spite of the cage, gray.
no matter what I do, the distance these days stay.
Time is drifting by so agonizingly.
Ready to throw it all away and give it all a mighty heave.
The clock is twisting the wickedest knife in me.
And my value to this world is simply how I ride a beat.
A clever line or three, in times of crisis I just might retreat.
Sublime and blinded with guidance, tied to the price of grief.
Let's find a swine and slice a deep to find some sustenance.
Arrested list of must of beens, it's time that I can toughen skin.
From consensus to contentious in a sentence.
I clench fists and bring this message to attention's tension.
And then shift my weight preparing for the launch.
A world insane, gone so perilous and wrong.
I'm staring at these walls, waiting for the view to change.
A new terrain to walk upon, I'm often wrong and lose the pace.
no hallucinations guiding me upon the path I seek.
I can't tell if I am all awake or half asleep.
Entire industries dedicated to making excuses.
And in less responsibilities and name of a credit card, they won't accept it.
No need to accept it, Just proceed to the exit.
Or dosey doe from the roast beef, and note the wreckage.
|
||||
2. |
Review Designs
03:13
|
|||
|
Giraffe tracheotomy, so let me clear my throat
The last place we ought to be is near the weirdest clone
Wearing a bearded cloak with my near and dearest fear exposed
Gasfaces on the autobahn betray anomaly
The turf they claim is solely clumped upon a soccer cleat
I’m cockily drowning out the ocean with Demosthenes
I’ve gotten assembly lines dedicated to making a mockery
And trendy swine are trying to sell me their philosophy?
I’m not in the market for it, I’m staying home
Far away from all the roads that lead to ancient Rome
My tarnish blade had waged a war that sort of grazed the bone
The strongest weapon in my arsenal is saying no
The change that I carry in my pocket misses pay phones
A life of gray tones, waking up, survey the gravestones
I’m leaving breadcrumbs for if and when the test comes
And if I pass with flying colors, then it’s on to the next one
Deaf dumb and blinded by the light of dying stars
The next rung that I can climb will find defiant hearts
I’m trying, by and large, it’s kind of working, I suppose
Popping wheelies on side roads, my eyes are closed.
I got my car towed and ended up at Ivanhoe’s
So frying highs combine with trying times, it’s five below
The knife, it glows, blade spring-loaded from the handle
Striking fast upon a violent path, proposed to cancel
I chose the channel, Videodrome has got me trapped
And every sloppy act I listen to’s a copycat
Nagasaki dap, my contraband, sing the song of San
Bring it on with raucous zombie sap, linger on the lamb
The sting is gone, but damn the side effects are mighty, yep
Fight inside a mess, will not succumb and ply BS
Providing flesh to press upon the slides of microscopes
Watching every cell of mine dance when I’m supplying dope
My mind is soaked, bobbing in the afterbirth
A fascinated hunter, scanning for a track to murk
Chapter, verse, run in panic, underhanded, taciturn
No heads or tails, the phrase I coin is strictly casket/urn
The last to learn is the first to try and teach us
My allegiance is to people, neither steeple nor my adidas
Rhymes are reason and probable cause, sign of the loss
Believe it or not, I’m leaking adhesive that is reaching a lot
Review Designs the name of this jam
STephen, that’s me and that’s who I am
Talkative and bright ‘cause you know that I’m San
Kofa comes next, I don’t give a damn
See, I do, but DMC was so fresh
I had to pay tribute with a bit of his flow yes
I keep my trepidation hidden in a second basement
As for any expectations, let’s escape them
Ejector seats on these musical wheelchairs
Bereft of teeth for the chewable meals, scarce
A market full of bull, but no real bears
People claiming game? I came to play, the field’s bare.
|
||||
3. |
Bodega to Trader Joe's
03:39
|
|||
|
The ugliness, the clumsy kiss, secrets from the ones we missed.
so now it comes to this circumferences, a dumpster's pungent drips.
A trenchant truncheon splits skin within the tongues and lips.
Cast inside a glum abyss, no passesby can run the risk.
The haunted kids experimented once the bunsen's lit.
Days are numbered in the single digits, it's just some are brisk.
Stumble to the cliff feeling numb when healing comes.
Rapunzel with a pic, inner castle revealing rungs.
They run and hide inside of stunted pride to deny events.
Missing the crucial stitch the monogram the lie of nine attempts.
Pondering plans of brutal hits to cover the chasm up.
A tragicomicon, the movement shifts to who was had enough.
A lasting touch that crushes soon forgotten by the movement.
A tidy rug to wrap the ribbon of a nice solution.
Reducing prices might entice, simply mask the symptoms.
masochism for the crass and captured who last asked to listen.
To fight the dullness, we splash the canvas with brightest colors
And fight the famine inside of phantoms with impassioned magic
Carcinoma Marsha Brady, Marshawn Lynch, and Carson Daly
Hard to grin with heart remaining, starve their hearts and march the cadence
Carbon dated hatred from a sadist out in Barcelona
Survivors swaddled in a dark pagoda starve in comas
The rising tides of shark-infested waters provide surprises
Each passing day’s a burden, testaments enticing eyelids
Weighing down, the other shoe aloft with Damocles
Trying to resist but time is stronger and my hand is weak
A vice to conquer, fighting tooth and wish, the nails are gone
Stilts made of pedestals and splintered drift, impaling prawns
A kiss from bruising lips, whispers drifting through the fog
A new façade, suitably subdued, induced to choose a god
Pursuing flaws like being human’s just a dire fate
And thus we lie awake, mistaking time for a higher grace
Some place aligned, goodbye poison cake, the icing laced
The martyr’s departure embarking soon, boom, arriving late
Bodega to Trader Joe’s they pay savants to play the songs.
Parading in suede the color of Gray Poupon, embrace the bond.
A putting with proof whose taste is wrong in crooked pursuits of Vegas swans.
Hastened with thirst that worsens, these days are long.
Placed upon a silver platter filled with pilfered status.
Insidious city built is stilted, it’s guilt and madness.
Robotic farmers milk the sadness and, is silt established.
Waltzing wurlitzers twirling thin, the filth of fabric.
The ill schematics of a land whose plan is tilt and damage.
Any rose unwise enough to rise on up will wilt and vanish.
And still they chatter with the whitest teeth and a wind up key.
And that reminded me of the time that I would climb inside the leaves.
Easier to ascend than to return to the earth again.
Sometimes I bleed it dry and cry as I will curse the pen.
An urgent end, the unwelcome guest made himself at home.
So now I find it hard to breathe and I am rendered melted bone.
|
||||
4. |
Submarine Dubs
02:53
|
|||
|
Enter the dragon, descendent of a sensitive senator’s son
Limbs splayed, perpendicular in a web the predator spun
Indebted to none, get a Beretta, for the fetish or fun
Second to someone uncompetitive dunce, dreading the drum
Tethered to sun, the rope is grinding into my shoulder now
Behold the golden sow, no calf to halve, hold, and mold around
Exorcise these demons with speed who then patrol the grounds
Heavy the dust of powdered spines beneath this molten crown
Rolling around in agony, dragging a bit of the raggedy doldrums drowned
Who told of founts who so them wholesome clowns in bold amounts
The trolls who trounce with bellicose billy goats and silly hopes
Spilling notes until we stoked the flames containing ill we stoked
Cracking jokes with jackalopes for half a pack of smokes
Window pane a painful constellation, grab a sack and go
Trash can be so attractive, bathe within the facet’s glow
Open casket casanova, shown within a passive note
Trash can be so attractive, bathe within the facet’s glow
Open casket magnetic, shown within a passive note
They crack smiles with blackened teeth framed with rabid need.
And grab a screen to try and find the sight that they haven't seen.
The trap it gleams a sickly red, a risky slick regret.
A tractor beam that briskly swept through the quickest breath.
The dual cassette decks that dubbed the dreams in submarines.
Above the cloud that some had puffed with loud conducted means.
Luxury trucks and buxom queens who pose amongst the fiends.
Slumped in something from Supreme, a bump to jump the team.
School of hard knocks Tecumseh deans becomes serene.
Holding jars of the plump and green, an abundant theme.
The drummer sticks speak of chromes to cream and wonder if.
Funds can sponge the dungeon grief, or smother it?
But to be fair, the beast lunges with its teeth bared and hungers.
For something more than it has, flying high and orbiting back.
Times are trife and days are long, survey the nascent trace of dawn.
and try to find a piece of this to leave my little name upon.
Times or trife and days are long, survey the nascent trace of dawn.
And try to find a piece of this to leave my brittle name upon.
|
||||
5. |
All Ricochets
03:16
|
|||
|
The source of stress is sorceresses wearing orchid orphan dresses
Absorbed in messes supporting flexes, sets endured the message
That morph in weapons and tore intestines in morsels, several
Assorted freckles on a thickened swarthy wrist support the bezel
The corner store’s a rental, parental figures are hoarding metal
That’s more than ornamental, stashed inside velour and Ecko
The gold standard is factored pride, the source is mess growth
The need to hold on is stronger than that force to let go
addressing aggressive traits in despots making hasty exits.
Gasoline vapors wave lazily on blazing messes.
Days and months of wasted efforts visiting dreams to taste them better.
Withered dreams are chasing treasure as their safe endeavor.
Sunlight trapped in tipping green bottles, pour the Becks slow
Cards pulled the daily operation, trains the metro
The Porsche, impressive, rims reflecting light then catches drops
The slosh of stomach acid with passion to blast kalashnikovs
The splash of loss, bubbles bursting within the flooding gutters
Most are bystanders and some are runners who then summon courage
The water rushes by from hydrants trying to cool the heat
The children splayed as parents pray the reaper’s keeping deep asleep
addressing aggressive traits in despots making hasty exits.
Gasoline vapors wave lazily on the blazing messes.
Days and months of wasted efforts visiting dreams to taste them better.
Withered dreams are chasing treasure as a safe endeavor.
Somewhere inside the sound of a siren, the scythe is hiding
Biding its time to find a suitable soul to glide inside, grim
Slicing away, the price is paid whether or not the righteous pray
Risking it all for mighty cakes just to seek that icing’s taste
The force of weapons, resourceful reverends keeping score resplendent
Sports endeavors the source of effort, pressure is more tremendous
Tour with menace, endorsed lieutenants, eat pork engorged with venom
Remorse deformed and deadened, Kevorkian the lore ascendent
Addressing aggressive traits in despots making hasty exits.
Gasoline vapors wave lazily above the blazing messes.
Days and months of wasted efforts visiting dreams to taste them better.
Withered teens are chasing treasure as their safe endeavor.
Upstate guests tore the bedding, the morgues are reddened with florid necks
Breaking under the pressure, vertebrae cannot absorb the stress
No matter what the coffers hold, always something more to get
A new drop that comes through hot, the hungry are sure to sweat
A plunder of gorgeous ornaments, boarding them for the orphanage
Corpulent source remorselessness, hare skinned for the tortoises
Going to war equipped with a sureness that the corner is sacred
Not seeing that cold brews and Frappuccinos are coming to take it
Addressing aggressive traits in despots making the hasty exits.
Gasoline vapors wave lazily on blazing messes.
Days and months of wasted efforts visiting dreams to taste them better.
Withered teens are chasing treasure as their safe endeavor.
|
||||
6. |
In Case That It Isn't
03:44
|
|||
|
Clocking in and clocking out fighting the frown that crossed my mouth.
Might have just been a toxic cloud that left the caustic drops and how.
Can I repair my pair of Sneeps with melted Vibram souls.
Apologies for every lie that I just might have told?
Running on some kind of road with unexpected twists and turns.
Inside the slime of quips, my tongue of septic disses squirms.
A fist that's earned its keep beneath the tape and gloves obeys the grudge.
Burning years to ashes and smashing the passive days to dust.
Should I complain of stuff and make a labor of disdain?
Leaving the fatal entertain and gruff cradling the flame.
Abacus is for the paint by number apparitions.
Attack the system but the system laughs and hasn't listened.
The Frank Capra captioned hidden in this picture show.
Subsisting on the gristle of my bitterness and did it grow?
Thirsting for the proverbial fertilizer on a cursed shore.
That undertow was something though, submerge the door.
Sated, the beast naps in a bed of ribs that he snapped.
A pair of T-Macs is the facto grease trap that leaks fats.
so thank you for wearing our hearts on your sleeves.
The latest fashion trend to breathe and then leave.
It's no sweat the ghosts stay in old age with dope ways and cold breath.
The toll paid is trolls fade no doe rays, it's just me.
In old haunts that hold strong the souls bond and roll on.
A soul torn in five parts of why start to go wrong?
My heart departs upon an ark and bark the Parthenon dark.
Worn dull from years, so let the sharpening start.
Got a life raft to bypass the trite trash so why ask
if my mask It has a grin attached, the passion is back.
The task at hand is slipping through my rock biter fingers.
Samaritans of nothingness stop by and linger.
Got me trading brass knuckles for some rope and glass shrapnel.
Judgment passed, a smashed gavel, powder in the black gravel.
Now we're in abandoned chapels taking shots and chanting babble.
Unison the rabble rousing voices, but can it travel?
Another nail awaiting the strike of time's hammer
In a land where bystanders want to try and apply standards
Lives slandered
When the insincere begin to steer
And won't relinquish the wheel
Hands super glued feet bolted to the pedal's steel
Let them deal with problems problematic got a lot of them
Maudlin robbers corroborate and hop away so positive
The times that end alone, a velvet glove extends the drone.
Beelzebub cement and stone, his bent agenda then is known.
The dead awaken to the stench that emanates from trenches.
Playing Halo hookie on the heads of 10 who paid attention.
Simpler days condone tasks that threaten to break the present in half.
Holding a feather aloft from a coffin improbably hobbled impossible grasp.
Hidden a bit of debacle, forgiven an awful approach that the novelist wrote.
Toppling obelisks odelisques grovel and grope passing provocative notes.
The passion surpasses the hatred of bases whose rage is addictive placed in a prison.
A mosaic of fragments the day is depicted obey and just listen in case that it isn't.
|
||||
7. |
Concrete Floors
02:29
|
|||
|
Holy water Mountain Dew, baptismal font the sacrament
A lack of laughter captured in this sack of skin and saccharin
Accidents happening inside the sound of the cackling
Trying to drown the rat within and failing, of course it had to swim
Remorseless sword, imagining glorious wars of legend status
Providing petulant wretches a pail to fetch their madness
We dredge the marshes for the skeletons of lesser varmints
To build the proper reliquary for the next alarmist
So rest in garbage to clown shows, odes to the freshest garments
This weapon’s sharpest as the crow flows to the next I target
A festive harvest giving scarecrows a blessed carcass
My breath the sound of boots cadets connect in marches
The echo fades, becoming whispers in the concrete
A theme transmitted in dreams, as seen in long sleeps
Sheets hold close, tales told by the frail souls
Blood spatters on the petals of a pale rose by the railroad
Pantera karaoke, screaming into the corner drunk
We came though through the front and exited the rear, sort of stunned
Bar patrons paid no attention, they were busy flicking ashes
Shouting this and that to each other over the grips of passion
I’m slipping past it in my car, the doors now boarded up
Condemned signs stapled to the plywood, a morbid touch
The raindrops on my windshield can’t quite cleanse the sight of it
A caved in roof likely caused the loss of licenses
Now where do regulars go to forget the life they lead today?
Probably down some blocks to The Rock to fetch that special glaze
I don’t remember where we ended up after that spot
Probably at Curly’s with office chairs and the deck, propped
Some moments leave greater impressions on us than we could imagine
The thousand loudest words obscure the picture, keep in a caption
The thieves and the has beens, beefing with police in traffic
Weaving in and out, a stumbled route completes the tablet
|
||||
Sankofa Fort Wayne
My rhymes kick in like a turbobooster.
Fort Wayne.
Sankofa recommends:
The Mr Blonde / Mr Pink Tape
by Rock Solid x Burnt Bakarak
My guy Burnt teamed up with his friend from way back Rock Solid to release a bunch of beats I want to rap all over.
go to album
Smoke Filled Room
by Juga-Naut & Giallo Point
Started following Juga-Naut upon hearing him break down life and rap relating to Kool G Rap on Crate808 and I've been a fan since. Wordplay, skill, the dope backdrops, what's not to love?
go to albumIf you like Sankofa, you may also like:
The Most Delicious Gold
by Sankofa
supported by 18 fans who also own “Weird Summer”
go to album
supported by 8 fans who also own “Weird Summer”
go to album
featured on Bandcamp Radio Jan 12, 2024
go to album
Barz with The Legend
by Napoleon Da Legend X Nejma Nefertiti
featured on Bandcamp Radio Feb 12, 2021
go to album
