Fatoumata Diawara, Lauryn Hill - Black Woman lyrics

Woman cry, give life
Mother Mary and baby the burden
She carry all time
Woman cry, when give us life
And she beg He forgive us, the
Sin and dem sinners all time, whoa

Foreign man take me from land
Banished my name, I survive all the same
Nuff commotion, way across ocean
Through whip and chain
I survive all the same

So dem a go make war before we free
Why dem a go make war before we free?
So dem a go make war bеfore we free
Why dem a go makе war before we free?

Tie my neck, ship, it don't wreck
Bind me to tree, I survive, they will see, ah
Whip they crack, scar me 'pon back
So we gon' see who survive make us free

So dem a go make war before we free
Why dem a go make war before we free?
So dem a go make war before we free
Why dem a go make war before we free?

Follow, follow, people, they know they follow
People all know they copy
People all in my grotto
They see me like a genie
Try to keep me in a bottle
Petty, petty people, keep them incommunicado
They tie you up in strings
They play niggas like pizzicato
Lose sight of the picture scripture
Now they not so steady
Meanwhile I'm like Curtis Mayfield
Getting people ready
To see into the future then
Cut through like a machete or Cutlass
All these trappings leavin' nigga gutless
You can't make moves for justice
You can't make no adjustments
Drowning in corruption
Charlie addict to convenience
Now they got you caught up
And callin' freedom extremists
We're not in agreement
I won't lay down politely
I closed my mouth for years and
They still tried to fight me
I sat down on the sidelines and
They still tried to bite me
They think they buried my career and
Promoted my peers to spite me
But they can't tell me nothing Charlie
They don't underwrite me
I've had a lot of money thrown at me
But none of that shit excites me
It's just another kind of cage to
Get up in my psyche
To use me as an instrument to
Further push their puppet show
But I'm not inexperienced and this
Not my first rodeo
I'm not so shallow Charlie
I call it too precisely
Separate bone from marrow
So much soul that they dislike me
Intuitives (Intuitives) Charlie, we be like fugitives (Fugitives)
Until the universe responds to show
Them who the student is

Woman cry
(Woman cry) gives life (Gives us life)
Mother Mary and baby the burden
She carries all time (Burden she carries)
Woman cry
(Woman cry) gives us life (Gives us life)
And she beg He forgive us
The sin and the sinners all time
(Begs He forgives us)

So dem a go make war before we free
Why dem a go make war before we free?
So dem a go make war before we free
Why dem a go make war before we free?