Third of ten poems written by the late and great Nigerian Poet Ikeogu Oke

Oke, Ikeogu

English

VCU Scholars Compass

  Dear Mama Ikeogu Oke  Journal of Hip Hop Studies, Special Issue If I Ruled the World:  Putting Hip Hop on the Atlas Volume 6, Issue 2, Winter 2019, pp. 15 – 16 DOI: https://doi.org/10.34718/3nv1-9752  1Oke: Dear MamaPublished by VCU Scholars Compass, 2019   15 Journal of Hip Hop Studies  The Tupac Shakur Memorial Poems/Songs   Ikeogu Oke  A Sequence  No. 3: Dear Mama  (For Rap Music, to the Memory of Tupac Shakur)   Mama, O dear Mama, You were a tough nail beneath their hammer; They knocked and knocked and you stood still, And proved your love with a strong will.  Chorus: Strong, resilient Mama,   To be sung,  Unyielding beneath their hammer,  the other   I can say without a stammer:   stanzas rapped  It could only have been Mama!   Unbent, unfazed, unbroken, Your spirit was tough, your strength was oaken, The blows you bore went unspoken; A mere rock would have been broken!  Repeat chorus.  A mere steel nail would have Shattered, and turned to pulp beneath their hammer, And gone with my coffin unsung to the grave; But they couldn’t even dent dear Mama.  Repeat chorus.  Yes, they couldn’t dent dear Mama, A woman of steel harder than diamond, Yet soft like a berry and sweet like an almond; They couldn’t dent her charm with their hammer.   2Journal of Hip Hop Studies, Vol. 6 [2019], Iss. 2, Art. 6https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/jhhs/vol6/iss2/6  16 Journal of Hip Hop Studies Repeat chorus.  Bold, beautiful Mama, My Mama divine, I compare your taste without a stammer To the ultimate vintage wine.  Repeat chorus.  A mere rock would have melted, under Their fiery blows; a mere pearl split asunder, By the pounding of their strokes; but Mama, My dear Mama, stood unruffled by their hammer.  Repeat chorus.  And she did all that for her chum, And proved herself the world’s best Mum, Standing tough against a system That’ll break her child that’s not like them.   Repeat chorus.  February 4, 2018    3Oke: Dear MamaPublished by VCU Scholars Compass, 2019

Dear Mama

https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1109&amp;context=jhhs

Dear Mama

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