You were taken, captured in your homelandYou were stolen, from your mother's hands
No one remembers you now, but I will promise you
I will cry for you
Buried somewhere, you escaped the nightmare
All the horrors, trapped in a world without prayers
Your name is lost forever but I will promise you
I will celebrate your memory
and I will cry for you
I always wanted to write a song about the African holocaust. The hundreds of years of Institutionalized Slavery in the 'New World'. I wish people would listen to this CD just for that lyric. I actually did become so emotional in the studio that I cried when we were recording this, which is why my voice started to shake. This song came about because I once thought about how difficult it was to trace our complete ancestry as Africans. So many of us died anonymous deaths here after leading anonymous lives as chattel. Or what of the disappeared and those who simply did not survive the voyages? Unceremoniously thrown overboard, to lighten the load of the slave ship. To be kidnapped and brutalized in a foreign new world was no minor difficulty. The burden of truth makes people squirm with nervousness whenever the subject of slavery is addressed. I've done interviews in support of the CD: "Thunder in the Jungle" and my more danceable, rhythmic Caribbean music is more what people expect from an 'Island" musician. Only reggae artist can be serious, right?
"I Will Cry For You" Lyrics: Rasheed Ali From: Thunder in the Jungle CD http://cdbaby.com/cd/rainpeople
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I am listening to your CD as I write this post. There are so many more similarities between people of the diaspora than there are diffrences that sometimes it overwhelms me. That is why I refuse to use the term African-American most of the time. That label is so limiting. We are indeed a minority when we think of ourselves only as descendants of African living in American. But we have connections--brothers and sisters all over the world. We are the majority. We are a mighty people. We just have to seize our power and use it wisely. We are the people who did survive the holacaust. We did not die in the middle passage, we did not die when raped, we did not die from heartbreak when our babies were torn from our breasts, we did not die in the cotton fields or sugar cane fields. We are survivors. We live to tell the story. Everyone knows who we are and we scare them with our joy, with our enthusiasm, with our love and power. We are Africans in a strange land.
ReplyDeleteYour music is awesome and inspiring.