these songs shouldn't even exist
i grew up in a house without instruments
but took whatever we had to make music with
it's not what your given, but what you do with it
snot-nose have-nots had to learn that quick
for them years top ramen was our only dish
we learned to remix every single thing in the fridge
and shared anything we had with every neighborhood kid
when half of East Africa had a key to our crib
it's how i learned the village isn't just a place you live
but a way of being that you carry with
over oceans and cross whole continents
we are not lost souls but we are a bridge
broke language we carry traditions in
old lyrics our bodies rewritten in
at my best, it's not me, i'm just listening

there's ghosts in my pen that won't let me go
they take hold of my body till i press record
a living echo of what came before
ancient dreams that have changed the world
we weren't supposed to make it, i pray for guidance now
it feels like the real ones are dying out
there's no room for ego, no time for doubt
i'm trying to carry on a legacy i learned at my Mom's house

come on...
we needed any kind of job
a chance at education, a life at all
we all were escaping war
walked across a desert
took a boat from the shore
just trying to eat
take my kids if you can't take me
i didn't want to leave
i take home with me
sahara sands fertilize the amazon
butterflies... man-made lines are wrong
birds fly with the seasons
the world is still breathing
migration is natural
migration is natural
migration is natural

Mom's front door used to be like a portal
to another world that we came from before
with smoke from the bunna and that stove-top shiro
so much love i didn't know we were poor
but when i went to school, and when i went to my Pops
it was a different language that i had to learn hard
i don't mean pronunciation but what's in the heart
they teach you to isolate to go far
but i know i will never be alone at all
and i have failed if i rise while my people fall
i'm the first in my tribe to make music a job
now it's the most shared profession in my family y'all
i think we all still healing generational scars
didn't hear about war from my uncles and aunts
but they all went through it and i know that it haunts
their dreams, i can't sleep i hear them call

there's ghosts in my pen that won't let me go
they take hold of my body till i press record
a living echo of what came before
ancient dreams that have changed the world
we weren't supposed to make it, i pray for guidance now
it feels like the real ones are dying out
there's no room for ego, no time for doubt
i'm trying to carry on a legacy i learned at my Mom's house

come on...
we needed any kind of job
a chance at education, a life at all
we all were escaping war
walked across a desert
took a boat from the shore
just trying to eat
take my kids if you can't take me
i didn't want to leave
i take home with me
sahara sands fertilize the amazon
butterflies... man-made lines are wrong
birds fly with the seasons
the world is still breathing
migration is natural
migration is natural
migration is natural