[Intro]
Together, we're gonna make it
Lord, trouble, we sure can take it
But we're almost home
We're almost home
Yeah
[Chorus]
Mama, yeah
Mother Africa, yeah
(Mother Africa)
May I never forget the beat of your drum, you own a piece of my heart (Piece of my heart)
Your illegitimate son wants to come home, don't you keep me in the dark (Mama, uh, check it)
[Verse 1]
Ayo, my grandpa's darkskinned, my grandma's darkskinned
My other gramp's lightskinned, I wondеr what bites him
Pro-afro pick, pro-Black mix
And it's a whole lot of soul that sold that shit
That soul glows from shore to shorе
I used to stare back at Africa, not really sure
If we gon' make it aboard the Black Star Line
Lookin' back at those who actually got to cross that line
Left America for Africa, Jamaica to Ethiopia
Jamaica changed London and you think something's holdin' us?
That's funny, you could picture every Black man outta Africa lost
Lookin' at every man like this is the cost?
We paid, not the slaves we played
Not the roads we paved, not the goals we made
But the gold we bathed in, died in and stayed in
Now we almost made it back to bein' butt-naked (Yeah)
Man, I can't take it
[Verse 2]
They be like, "Go back to Africa, you porch monkey coon-coon"
Sing another tune, lazy loon, entertain us with your moves
Yeah, we like the things you do, but you're nothing but baboons
We're the sun, you're the gloom, we're the joy, you're the doom
Got a lack of go-getters, see, you're just another nigga
Just a thug with a trigger, plus a slug in that thug
You's a Blood, you's a cuz, you's the mud, you's the dust
You's the rug that we brush our dirty feet on
The rock that we lean on, the labor that we feed on
Without you, we would be gone, stronger than some King Kong
Your knowledge, we can't speak on, your land is what we leech on
You're jealous 'cause you be on, indigenous for eons
The type of stuff I think on, they tell me that I think wrong
I tell 'em that I think right, all my life, we had to fight
Not a piece of this land that ain't been touched by a Black hand
Tryna dodge a ghost face like we Pac-Man, screamin' (Yeah)
[Verse 3]
People talkin' 'bout Wakanda, but what about Rwanda?
Your relatives are probably there skinnin' anacondas (Woo)
Ancestors' bloodstream flowin' through my mantra
Nappy hair, strong body, we ain't smokin' on that ganja
Look what I told a novice
Just because Obama was up in the Oval Office don't mean we all accomplished
I swear I almost lost it
Colonizers, modernizers, we a global market
Queens wearin' weaves tryna look like Pocahontas
Rather like it natural
Like your great-great-great-great-granny in the past, boo (Yeah)
Let me ask you, is Cape Verde such a bad stay? (Yeah)
I'm tryna find out where I'm from in this rat race (Yeah)
They lookin' at me like a bum with a black fade (Yeah)
But little do they know that I'm past great
Castrate every whack thought 'bout this vast place (Yeah)
And make it a mandate that everyone can stay (Yo, Factz)
[Verse 4]
So much lineage this brother's yet to discover
Born to a Nigerian pops and Black-American mother
Got me wonderin' what tribe from my mom's side
Was brought to America to build it for free with their freedom denied?
One side came in planes, the other shackled to the bottom of boats
Yeah, we survived the oppression through a legacy of hope
One step, foot on the soil, transported through the Transatlantic
West Africans in America fightin' for basic human rights
Enduring embarrassment from Angela to Harriet
Burdens of this country, all my forefathers carried it
Deprived of wealth through various generations
Sharecropping and Jim Crow and redlining
Visions of returning to the motherland, I seek to find 'em
This redefining of refinement, revolution incitin'
Protest for rights, travelin' to face dedication at the climate
[Verse 5]
Ayo, my great-grandma was darker than the queen of Mali
Darker than Louis Arm' singin' "Hello Dolly"
Probably the perfect example of a motherland, man
Even though she lived on another man's land
And my fam been Black since my mom had me
We the two whitest Blacks in my family, you can see
My grandpa would be T'd, he light as the master far
Now I'm not light as him, but I mean, we came far
Grandpa's name is our scar, when he say our star
He mean Central African Republic 'cause he that hard-rooted
He went deeper than Alex Haley and Roots went
To realign this family with this movement
Even though we still ain't change our slave names yet
And the Blackest man I never met was Malcolm X and Nat Turner, uh
Brought it back like the stamps on the backs of Blacks hung and burnt up and that was that
No justice, reparations, or apologies (Uh)
And they still tryna build freeways over our properties
I wonder what, what it was before we was in colonies
That made us kings and queens of our dynasties, ayo
[Chorus]
Mama, yeah
Mother Africa, yeah
(Mother Africa)
May I never forget the beat of your drum, you own a piece of my heart (Piece of my heart)
Your illegitimate son wants to come home, don't you keep me in the dark (Mama)
Mama, yeah
Mother Africa, yeah
(Mother Africa)
May I never forget the beat of your drum, you own a piece of my heart (Piece of my heart)
Your illegitimate son wants to come home, don't you keep me in the dark (Mama)