Dear Kobe Lyrics

Kobe

Kobe Kobe

Kobe

Kobe Kobe

Kobe

Kobe Kobe

Dear Kobe

Their eyes were watching

For you the way

They watch for Jesus Shuttlesworth

And Malcolm X and Nipsey Hussle

Over on Slauson and Crenshaw

They came in cars

On planes by bus by grit

They got there by foot

They were in wheelchairs

Their sandpaper palms gripped canes and walkers

They were slouching Baby Boomers

Salt-and-pepper-haired Gen Xers

Tattoo-faced Millennials

They be Beyoncé

And Jimmy Kimmel

And 7-feet ballers who crush the ground

Like jolly green giants

They marched from all over

With purple and yellow gold

Steamed to their chests

They marched through

The musty scents of Downtown Los Angeles

The way 20th century Europeans

Marched from freedom ships to Ellis Island

The way 21st century immigrants march

From Mexico into the barbed-wire borders

Of the promised land

The way chocolate-legged country dwellers

Marched from Mississippi

To the salty beaches and sleepy 'hoods of California

A massive army of humanity hemmed up

Block after block

Looking for the Staples Center

Looking for that angel in America

Who got a city of billions

'Round the world saying

Your name, Kobe

The lines of flesh speed text

As police and arena workers

Shoo people to move like

You moved on that basketball court

A Black Mamba

Yes

But also an African ballet dancer

Who broke a-loose the chains

Of plantations and copied and pasted Beethoven and basketball

With Biggie and Beverly Hills

As your body leaped and lunged

Into the open mouths of nameless ancestors

Who done seen some things

And them ancestors blew Michael Jordan

And Dr. J

And your daddy and your momma

And Philadelphia and Japan and Italy

And the holy ghost of Dizzy

And Coltrane into your veins

Just means

The people marching to be like you, Kobe

And they be

White Black Latinx Asian Native American Pacific Islander

Christian Jewish Muslim Atheist Agnostic

This gender That gender No gender

They be Kendrick's cool hip-hop they be Sinatra's cool jazz

They be lakers matching jellybeans

With Amy Winehouse and Marilyn Monroe

As you Kobe and you Gianna wax poetic

With John Lennon and Marvin Gaye about love love love

They be a rainbow coalition

Of thousands

Marching over

Your mid-range jumpers and 360-degree dunks

As they scrape field hollers and spirituals and your blues

From your veins, Kobe

Wearing number 8

Wearing number 24

Wearing Gianna's number two

Street hustlers selling tee shirts posters

Clipped and chipped memories of you

Putting an entire nation on your shoulders

Winning five championships

Teaching us the magic of the mamba mentality

Telling us to keep shooting

Even when the odds are slanted

Like that cloudy hillside in heaven

You be heaven to us, Kobe

'Cuz you never gave up

That's why they come to you

Like you are a saint or a king

Royalty

Yeah

A political leader

Yeah

A self-help guru

Yeah

A storyteller

Yeah

They come to you

Because

You could

Chest-pass a basketball

Through the smashed windows

Of centuries of dreams denied

They come to you because

You crumbled in front of us

And got back up

And confessed

And apologized

And sculpted yourself

Into a husband

A lover

A father

A girls' dad

Vanessa Bryant's multi-lingual soulmate

Her tears her words

The biblical permission

We need to release

Your joyful angel's wings

Into the healing arms of the Pacific

Kobe

Forever

Forever

Forever

Kobe Kobe

Kobe Kobe

Kobe

Kobe Kobe

Kobe Kobe

Kobe

Kobe Kobe

Kobe Kobe

Kobe

Kobe Kobe

Kobe Kobe

Kobe

Kobe Kobe

Kobe Kobe

Kobe

Kobe Kobe

Kobe Kobe

Kobe