Lyrical Themes and References
The title "Year of tha Boomerang" is a reference to Sartre's quotation "it is the moment of the boomerang", referring to anti-colonial violence in the preface to Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth.
The lyrics appear to be about minority representation and equality, as they contain several references to struggles against racism, sexism, and colonialism. These include the lines;
"Tha sistas are in so check tha front line/It seems I spent the 80s in a Haiti state of mind"
As well as;
"It's dark now in Dachau and I'm screamin' from within/'Cause I'm still locked in tha doctrines of tha right/Enslaved by Dogma, ya talk about my birthright/Yet at every turn I'm runnin' into Hells gates/So I grip the cannon like Fanon and pass tha shells to my classmates"
The song also contains the anthemic reprise; "I got no property but yo I'm a piece of it/So let the guilty hang" - in reference to the persecution by those in power of the masses, or the repressed.
'All power to the people' was the central motto of the Black Panther Party. The Mount Tai mention is a reference to a Maoist passage the Party's founder, Huey P. Newton, was fond of: 'To die for the revolution is heavier than Mount Tai'.
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Famous quotes containing the word themes:
“In economics, we borrowed from the Bourbons; in foreign policy, we drew on themes fashioned by the nomad warriors of the Eurasian steppes. In spiritual matters, we emulated the braying intolerance of our archenemies, the Shi’ite fundamentalists.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)