New Jersey native Jerry Lewis had a son who formed a band called Gary and the Playboys, which really wasn’t much, and lent credence to the idea that the sons of entertainers should stay out of the business of their elder masters.

That evidently didn’t happen with Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, son of the late poet Amiri Baraka, whose best stuff (not the post-911 period) is damned good.

The son’s stuff is pretty damned good too.

Mayor Baraka’s got a new bunch of poems coming out backed by jazz.

In the meantime, at the end of his COVID-19 press briefing today, the mayor recited some of his verses from a lyric he wrote for a song called “Keep the Faith.”

Here’s a sampling:

“Making the dark stone the cornerstone…painted the color of the ocean floor… we held prophets in her bosom… strangled each other on social media… making them believe the back door they’re building for thmselves is only for themselves…

“We made it here by faith…

“We made something from nothing and turned the bottom into the foundation so when we moved the whole place shook.

“We made it here by faith, yeah, we made it here by faith.

“Our ancestors’ hands held up the sky so we could stand tall, dance across time and be beautiful deliberately…”