Diaspora by Youngblood Brass Band Lyrics
O siri jogou jogou
O siri chamou chamou
O siri tocou tocou
Foi para jogar
La-la-e la-e-la-e-la-la
Capoeira, ladainha
La-la-e la-e-la-e-la-la
Sangue novo, sangue joven
Then:
I saw senegalese shaman spinning seance spirituals
Where the gods sat back and smiled at their singing child
I heard century-old griots disclose millennia-old secrets
To sleeping capoeiristas under metropolitan trees
I tasted goat's blood gumbo up in congo square cook-offs
In front of armstrong's bell and knew it was worth the wait
I inhaled government-manufactured crack / stacked skyscraper wax
Counted the rings on records / passed peyote to the grand canyon
And called it hip-hop
Consoling with consonance / remote-controlled confidence
Its roots in a continent assumed life-incompetent
That's a hell of a sentence / and a sentence to hell
In the noise of the now i'm too deafened to tell
Shango said we fake his dance very well
But the anger is remembered and amends are hard to come by
Gazing second-hand at glory blurry
Bolstered by their minds' wine and pelvic thrust sustenance
Oshun sent her smell bedside / now i'm d.u.i of ancestry
And what's not quite guilt / more like regret
It's not my fight but i act like a vet
Then obatala awoke / advising truth and rest
So here we float between decent prose and the present's constant wind
Waxing nonchalant on misappropriated dark continents
Wondering why two great human abnormalities are compassion and common sense
Throwing secret new orleans/yoruba signs while scholars condescend
The spirits have left the room and i'm left to write their scent
Despite aforementioned salvation
The pen cannot repent
Now:
Calm encased in cadence / la bateria playing fourteen times nameless
Righteous revelers pounding dry pavement
To hear the earth answer back rocks that beat
Jones-ing elves and metro-gnomes summon sleeping giants
Living crowds coalesce and explode
Lifting the shroud of death from wrecked homes
And wave my writes like an eternally burning flag
Always fire-colored and -covered
Coveted summer cavorting with lovers too loud for flesh
The type i haven't met yet but i'm sure you're becoming
After us, nothing / before screams, humming
Dream something and we'll play it / next melody drifting downriver
Sun-dressed and -kissed and -shone for new b-boys
No one ever dies / not in my sky
We are soaring so simply it's missed by reason and exists as silent song
Artists wake up human to put attitude and violence on / put off tomorrow
What say we say what we mean to feel more often?
I'm real sure i'm less shot
I steal words from hip-hop like 'what' / but i love it like you
Don't you love it when it's like you?
And we say 'that's my jam' because it is
Because it's like that when it likes you
Giving group affirmation like 'yes y'all' / and it goes on
Because you don't stop / because if you did
The world would fall apart and these beats would return to the womb
Of the universe where they'd wait another six billion years
For life to sound like 'boom-bap' again
So move
O siri chamou chamou
O siri tocou tocou
Foi para jogar
La-la-e la-e-la-e-la-la
Capoeira, ladainha
La-la-e la-e-la-e-la-la
Sangue novo, sangue joven
Then:
I saw senegalese shaman spinning seance spirituals
Where the gods sat back and smiled at their singing child
I heard century-old griots disclose millennia-old secrets
To sleeping capoeiristas under metropolitan trees
I tasted goat's blood gumbo up in congo square cook-offs
In front of armstrong's bell and knew it was worth the wait
I inhaled government-manufactured crack / stacked skyscraper wax
Counted the rings on records / passed peyote to the grand canyon
And called it hip-hop
Consoling with consonance / remote-controlled confidence
Its roots in a continent assumed life-incompetent
That's a hell of a sentence / and a sentence to hell
In the noise of the now i'm too deafened to tell
Shango said we fake his dance very well
But the anger is remembered and amends are hard to come by
Gazing second-hand at glory blurry
Bolstered by their minds' wine and pelvic thrust sustenance
Oshun sent her smell bedside / now i'm d.u.i of ancestry
And what's not quite guilt / more like regret
It's not my fight but i act like a vet
Then obatala awoke / advising truth and rest
So here we float between decent prose and the present's constant wind
Waxing nonchalant on misappropriated dark continents
Wondering why two great human abnormalities are compassion and common sense
Throwing secret new orleans/yoruba signs while scholars condescend
The spirits have left the room and i'm left to write their scent
Despite aforementioned salvation
The pen cannot repent
Now:
Calm encased in cadence / la bateria playing fourteen times nameless
Righteous revelers pounding dry pavement
To hear the earth answer back rocks that beat
Jones-ing elves and metro-gnomes summon sleeping giants
Living crowds coalesce and explode
Lifting the shroud of death from wrecked homes
And wave my writes like an eternally burning flag
Always fire-colored and -covered
Coveted summer cavorting with lovers too loud for flesh
The type i haven't met yet but i'm sure you're becoming
After us, nothing / before screams, humming
Dream something and we'll play it / next melody drifting downriver
Sun-dressed and -kissed and -shone for new b-boys
No one ever dies / not in my sky
We are soaring so simply it's missed by reason and exists as silent song
Artists wake up human to put attitude and violence on / put off tomorrow
What say we say what we mean to feel more often?
I'm real sure i'm less shot
I steal words from hip-hop like 'what' / but i love it like you
Don't you love it when it's like you?
And we say 'that's my jam' because it is
Because it's like that when it likes you
Giving group affirmation like 'yes y'all' / and it goes on
Because you don't stop / because if you did
The world would fall apart and these beats would return to the womb
Of the universe where they'd wait another six billion years
For life to sound like 'boom-bap' again
So move