Akua Naru - The Journey lyrics

At once we were people on our land
African feet touch the sand
Free woman and man stand tall
Respond call conga djembe
We sing a song for our first born
Skin uncovered, unashamed original names
We served god through a pantheon
Then secular world came
Some prisoners of war betrayed by
Our own others chained, some stolen from
The shores by a foreign man
We never seen before, families torn
Put in chains the chattel slave trade
Black bodies chained, whipped, burned, maimed
Many tongues speaking the same pain
Confused, I can't understand a damn thing
World view rearranged, in
Elmina’s castle caged
Somebody say a ship came
Forced board, feet lusting for my soil
What the fuck is going on?


"Ain't I a woman?"
Somebody just jumped overboard
'Cross the Atlantic, skin
Branded, left stranded, laid in fractions
Heart in fragments, captured
Deemed as savage, pull my body backwards

You know, it's not a political thing I
Don't know what your experiences have been
And i⁠ the histories behind it
The terrorism that
My people have faced in this country
I mean sheer terrorism
No chords could strum the root of my pain
They set the journey aflame
For centuries⁠ not five minutes
Not six weeks, not a short
Period of time⁠ centuries of terrorism:
Linguistic, physical, psychological
Emotional, sexual terrorism
No chords could strum the root of my pain
They set the journey aflame

White man
Crush my womb, shattered, scraped, raped
Battered another miscarriage
Another baby born to a world of shackles
Fire crackers, havin' flash blacks
The middle passage
Spoon fashioned, semen, blood
Urine, dragging, human organs splattered
Scattered 'cross Caribbean, Carolina
Reduced to fractions
Divided by my black vagina
Enter in the battle in
This so-called "new world"
Look at this nigga-girl on Iriquois
Pequot Earth you up first
Smile, teeth strong, assess my worth
On the auction block, they say I'm
Ripe for birth, strong stock
Look at my buttocks
Hair like wire, you need brush not
Nothin' pretty to rub hot
Behind my chest heart beats the
First seeds of hip hop
Fire, burnin' rage is gun cocked
My water breaks, the beat drops
Mic' chords bind me, stop, rewind me
Let my memories rock, enemies drop
Oh lord, let us fast-forward
Promise to let my tape rock
And it won't stop

All the things about race
And racism and oppression
That you do not hear in commercial Hip-Hop
No chords could strum the root of my pain
They set the journey aflame
For the purposes of armed self-defense
Or even showing police doing
Something wrong, or⁠ housing discrimination
I could listen everything here
Nothi⁠ you never see⁠ he won't
Even consider playing it
No chords could strum the root of my pain
They set the journey aflame
Why? When it comes to raising the question

Sometimes I want war for these muthafuckas
And I'm restrained, nigga, negro
Colored, nigra, bitch, hoe
Mammy, harlot, minstrel aunt Jemima kinfolk
Nicki Minaj instrumental
Sista stomp hard! but we forced to tip toe
Three-fifths of a human
Two-fifths 'cause you woman abandoned oshun
Praying for Christ second coming
Jiving, shuckin' corn, word is bond
Used to sing work-songs about being free
Now freedom comes (w) RAPped in porn
Buying European wigs, Italian designers
Manolo Blahnik, Gucci and Prada
Somebody baby mama rhyme about the dollar
Identity draped in male desire
The illusion of free, but we for hire
Lost in buying power
Who got it made? Last week we was the maid
Breast feeding white babies
They grow, sell our children as slaves
Billie Holiday, hang from maple trees
A game of make-believe log on to facebook
Forget the rape of centuries
Grammar stays in present perfect
But us, we simple past on it (Come on)
Degraded by our brothers
They say shake your ass on it
Constructed before the white face
Now it's music on my space
Body parts separated from soul
Bought and sold nothing new though
My question crucial
What's the worth of a black woman, who go
'Cross the Atlantic, stranded on plantations
Projects college loan payments
Exploited, captured and framed in
White imagination
Black male sex arrangements christian names
Master’s house the first stage
That made my body famous beauty caged in
Tainted behind the lust for blue eyes and
Blond manes and I'm saying
It started with that slave ship
That set the journey flaming
That set the journey flaming, word up

It's something that I think we
Really can not afford to
Pretend we're transcending when we're
Living that legacy today
No chords could strum the root of my pain
They set the journey aflame
You know, we want to send our mind past it
So that we reach for whatever rings that
We want to reach for
But that doesn't mean forgetting
And not understanding
No chords could strum the root of my pain
They set the journey aflame
We don't want to be limited by history
But we always want to be informed by it