Noname is a Chicago born rapper, poet, and activist. Her songs are full of jazzy slam poetry style lyrics that revolve around topics of feminism, systemic issues, and her struggles with being in the spotlight. Her deep, thoughtful, and powerful lyrics are displayed so well in this song; I always come back to it when I am feeling down about the world and it brings me comfort that I am not the only person who is distraught over how little control us plebs have in larger issues.

“how do you make excuses for billionaires you’re broke on the bus” – American society tells us that the best and the brightest are the ones who float to the top; that meritocracy is real. This couldn’t be farther from reality. Wealth is often generational and the richest of them all maintain on passive income alone while not paying the same tax rates of average workers. Yet a lot of us are conditioned to look at billionaires as heroes when in reality we are trapped in cycles of wealth inequality due to the system that rose them up.

“the rainforest cries, and everybody dies a little. i just want to dance tonight” – Being a young person in our modern age can bring about a lot of feelings of anxiety and sadness. Watching the beginning stages of the effects of climate change, seeing the houseless population continue to grow, and feeling like we have no control has left me in deep depressions. Our youth is spent worrying about our next paycheck rather than going out and enjoying our time.

“the only animal to ravage everything in its path, turned a natural resource into a bundle of cash” – If the only goal that we have as a society is is to get rich as individuals and have a cut throat attitude to our neighbors, then we are doomed. As a scientist, as a human, my heart is troubled by the way that people have treated our world. The natural world is only seen as something to put a price tag on without the regard of respect for our home planet.