From the African Belly

Thursday, June 08, 2006


From the African Belly

I have been meaning to write this one for a while...


Hear the beat
Of the African drums, which expand in the heat,
Made by ashen hands in the still of the night,
Melodic songs, which tell of a primitive plight.
Hear the beat
Of the African drums, which begin in the African heat,
And flow over chilled Atlantic waves,
Following paths once made by the African slaves.
Hear the beat
Hit the home of the kin of its player: the urban street,
Making foreign sounds that retell of the time
When began the white man's forever ongoing crime.
Hear the beat on the street
Hitting walls of concrete.
See the beat in the heat
As it sings of deceit.
Feel the beat repeat
The black man's defeat.

Deep down in Africa it all did start,
It was deep in its belly and not in its heart,
When the white man came down,
And enslaved all that was brown,
To toil far away in the cotton filled hills,
And work every day in their wooden built mills.
It was deep down in Africa, deep in its belly,
Where black men forgot what it means to be free,
Forced to hunt for ivory and dig for the diamonds,
Fearing the white men's superior weapons.

On the coasts of America it continues today,
Where non-white communities progressively decay,
Still enslaved by the white man's deceptions,
Like money and all of its false misconceptions,
Bound down by drugs and lost hopes of great fame,
All of which are collectively an elaborate game.
Ironically, the black man values all that is white,
A habit the white man himself in the black man did once incite,
Like valuing diamonds and silver and ivory and crack,
But to live and survive the black man don't need none of that.

Now hear the beat in the African belly,
Whose notes and whose sound can be heard from New Delhi,
It's so tense and so tight cause it sings of what could be,
Of a world where wronged races emerge from the debris,
And dance to the song that tells us that we're still free,
A song and a beat from the African belly.

Hip hop
Keep your flow right
No matter if they say youre wrong
Because your rite
To exist is the essence of your song

From My Soul
William Christopher McDonald