1. |
Our Autonomy
01:40
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Our Autonomy
These are the defining lines
drawn like borders across my life
These are such desperate times
through this suffering we unify
our autonomy, no authority
can take this away from you and me
Every-time we spread our wings
confronted by authority
kill the cop inside your head
and this our sweet revenge
our autonomy, no authority
can take this away from you and me
our autonomy, no authority
can take this away from you and me
all these systems (burn it down)
all these structures (burn it down)
the end of their world
is the beginning of ours again
our autonomy, no authority
can take this away from you and me
our autonomy, no authority
can take this away from you and me
These are the defining lines
binaries and commodities
nothing taken nothing given
without consent
our autonomy, no authority
can take this away from you and me
our autonomy, no authority
can take this away from you and me
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2. |
This is Not a Dialogue
02:03
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I’m not sure how you can rationalize and try to make it make sense
lets bring this back into its proper context
did we lose a bit of focus there?
yeah, what was unclear?
we embrace the ruins (born in this decay)
against their fucking rules (there’s another way)
tearing down their walls (no one should be caged)
may the bridges we burn
light our way
There’s nothing to debate
we ain’t trying to get along
when fascists agitate
this is not a dialogue
we embrace the ruins (born in this decay)
against all their rules (there’s another way)
tearing down their walls (no one should be caged)
may the bridges we burn
light our way
in many ways this is all a ceremony
as the intention was set… by our ancestors
to heal
I’m not sure how you can rationalize and try to make it make sense
lets bring this back into its proper context
did we lose a bit of focus there?
yeah, what was unclear?
we embrace the ruins (born in this decay)
against their fucking rules (there’s another way)
tearing down their walls (no one should be caged)
may the bridges we burn
light our way
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3. |
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In between crimson canyon walls
echoes of our lives unfolding
carved so generations can know
that this cycle can be broken
Everything for everyone,
Nothing for ourselves
This is the wretched of the earth
understanding the trauma of the land
We are so deeply connected
more than we think we understand
I know it’s hard, but you’re not alone
just meet me half way
we’ll end this cycle
we’ll pry it up from it’s fucking roots
Everything for everyone,
Nothing for ourselves
From black and white photographs
and anthropologist Eurocentric texts
We pause to listen back
when our elders are right here
and somewhere a library is burning…
Everything for everyone,
Nothing for ourselves
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4. |
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false notions of unity
someone’s utopia is always another’s suffering
You wanted a primary contradiction
tried to force us into your narrow political vision
your reactionary lateral violence
our ancestors are the critics you wish to silence
take a side
left or right
fuck your contradiction
we want total abolition
this is unsettling
no way around it, it has to be
step back, can’t talk about land back without understanding
what that really fucking means…
take a side
left or right
fuck your contradiction
we want liberation
no spiritual surrender
no spiritual defeat
academic armchair nation building statists
you’re not our saviors, we’re not your proletariats
we reject the imposition of your assumed authority
stop trying to revive dead words from someone else’s dead hxstory
take a side
left or right
fuck your contradiction
we want liberation
we will not live in a cage of bloated manifestos
our autonomy is collective defense against the colonial
fuck your contradiction.
fuck your contradiction.
we want nothing less than total liberation.
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5. |
The Spectacle
01:51
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Stepping out into the madness
Unsustainable, ain’t it tragic?
Bright lights, big deal
It ain’t nothing if you cant feel
Chorus:
Whoa oh, all eyes on us
Whoa oh, The Spectacle
Didn’t ask where we going
Caught up in all the momentum
A quixotic attempt to grasp the meaning
a primary contradiction
Chorus:
Whoa oh, all eyes on us
Whoa oh, The Spectacle
I cant find it, maybe its right here…
I seemed to have misplaced…
Calling out
into the darkness
Stepping out into the madness
Unsustainable, ain’t it tragic?
Bright lights, big deal
It ain’t nothing if you cant feel
Chorus:
Whoa oh, all eyes on us
Whoa oh, The Spectacle
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6. |
Violator
02:26
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Let’s talk about hetero-patriarchy
& missing and murdered relatives
how Indigenous resistance
must be militant queer & intersectionally l feminist
let’s talk about restoring mutual aid
collective support and solidarity
colonial systems force dependence
& break our communities
let’s talk about authoritarianism
how violence is systemic
in all colonial institutions
no where is safe when its always war
burn it to the ground
from the ashes we will build
a life once thought forgotten
reconnected
No more missing and murdered Indigenous womn,
girls, trans and two-spirit relatives.
It is our responsibility to hold our relatives,
our brothers accountable & dismantle,
abolish cis-heteropatriarchy now.
violated, there's no trigger warning
when global warming is a consequence
of war against our mother
violated
forced sterilized
forced assimilated
forced down our fucking throats
and where did you come from?
where are you going?
our bodies are the frontlines
this is war
burn it to the ground
from the ashes we will build
violator, the future is ours.
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7. |
Going in Circles
03:11
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Comfortable with the contradiction
Opportunistic dialectism and a shit ton of overly academic terms
Caught in the afterthought
Repackaged all regrets that you bought and we’re just tracing the damage patterns
CHORUS:
Did you forget where you came from?
Are you just going in circles?
Did you forget where you came from?
Are you just going in circles?
Existential but not consequential
it’s essential but non denominational
Bipartisan don’t mean shit in this imperialist context
Fuck this system and the ship that brought it in
Decolonial isn’t an aboriginal sin
500 years later we still resist
it should be unsettling and it should be very fucking unsettling
CHORUS:
Did you forget where you came from?
Are you just going in circles?
Did you forget where you came from?
Are you just going in circles?
All the ashes scattered
where our fields once stood
and they’re still reading between the lines searching for something good
There's nothing redeeming here
This ain’t no song for redemption
So fuck your reform, it’s straight abolition
So fuck your reform, it’s straight abolition
CHORUS:
Did you forget where you came from?
Are you just going in circles?
Did you forget where you came from?
Are you just going in circles?
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8. |
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It happened so fast
no time to look back
running ragged on the streets
happened so fast
flash bangs and tear gas
the moment our anger transcended suffering
how far will we bend, until we break?
It happened so fast
structural whiplash
a crashing culture of domination
like oil and gas and an empty glass
with a rag and a match
it wont stop once it’s burning
it wont stop once it’s burning
how far will we bend, until we break?
how long can we bleed for someone else?
how long can we bleed for someone else’s gain?
with empty hands
against fascist forces
this is how history takes it’s courses
fuck all your laws
fuck all your flags
honor all stolen lives and liberate all stolen land
how far will we bend, until we break?
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9. |
Pouring on the Salt
02:27
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Pouring on the Salt
pouring on the salt, cause nothing is your fault
and we’ve tried this before
did get us anywhere?
it’s all in the way we say it,
guess it’s better than nothing at all
don’t wanna break the fall, we just want it all
and its not much more, cause we’re almost there
its all in the way that we say it,
guess it’s better than nothing at all
nothing at all
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10. |
Fire to the Cages
03:13
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free the captives
fire to the cages
make sure they can’t build again
And my hearts filled with rage
but it wasn’t born in this cage
im aching for freedom
and these eyes filled with fire
so desperate to conspire
against all forms of oppression
after we free all the captives
we’ll set fire to the cages
and make sure they can’t build again
and the land knows our pain
as she swallows all the rain
so we can grow again
free the captives
fire to the cages
make sure they can’t build again
and our wrists cut and bruised
from chains that are fused
to the trauma of generations
and we can all heal
not without blood spilled
for total liberation
free the captives
fire to the cages
make sure they can’t build again
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11. |
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These are roles we’ve come to know
slipping through our hands again
all the ways we tried hold
just to end up here again…
and don’t waste your breath
if you’re gonna prove anything
‘cause I know you won’t accept
what you don’t want to see...
I know its only, the calm before the storm
I know it’s only, the calm before the storm
no point in holding back
theres no point anymore
we’ve come to far to lie like that
but that’s not what the truth is for…
and i will own all my mistakes
just to do it all again…
and i will own my mistakes
just to do it all again…
I know it’s only, the calm before the storm
I know it’s only, the calm before the storm
all the times i've fallen though
all the times we’ve made amends
all the times we’ve held onto
something that was just pretend
all the ways we tried hold
just to end up here again…
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12. |
Complication No. 364
02:14
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open your heart
bleed into this empty shell
open your mind
you know I won't tell
maybe I was wrong, giving you so much to use
like all the rest of my enemies,
against me
it's not so complicated
and you played your part
it was never personal
not from the start
but it's not what matters anyways
it's not what matters in the end anyways
it's not so complicated
if I don't see you again
I wish you well
If I don't see you again
I wish you well.
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13. |
Towards Peabody's Demise
03:54
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The mountains -- our strength and guides -- gesture for us to return.
Sitting within a house made of dawn made of glass. Our mother's liver torn and burnt black...
like ash for protection, only to offer the slowest possible ending.
Coal dusted breath and barbed wire hand shakes
while pockets lined…
...relocation is genocide.
We forget that no law can be above nature.
We forget that this system was imposed through violence and that current still flows through, its power lines.
Yellow dust offerings, cancer.
Born for fractured water.
It's jobs some say, and I wonder, what are those some willing to destroy to feed their passing hunger?
Diichishi’ nisłii’ (Hunger is. killing. me.)
No. It's capitalism.
We used to recognized ourselves as children of Yołgay Asdaan.
Amidst empty footprints, she weeps softly in quite folds of scarlet canyons.
The holy ones still know us in all our contradictions, our steps are theirs carrying us through desecrated seasons.
They cradle us as we dream in this nightmare.
As we fall into wet concrete and are beaten into nothing by our own children.
They make sure we are never home. less.
They make sure our words are meaning. less.
Can we remember what it is to be with our own power?
Colonial politics can only define what we are not.
The political discourse of sacred mountains, of sacred pollen, of sacred ground corn, of sacred tobacco, and sacred minerals, is the politics of liberation.
This is the language that still lives within us.
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Appropriation Flagstaff, Arizona
www.appropriationproject.com
Appropriation is an anti-colonial music & performance art
project by Klee Benally.
"We agitate towards collective disruption of the dehumanizing forces attacking Indigenous existence. We seek creative and direct ways to stimulate aggression against the spectacle of settler colonial order. We manifest to negate colonial existence, to destroy what destroys us."
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