The tempo, the tempo, the tempo, the tempo
The tempo frees my imagination, reminds me
That my music was born in a cotton field, yeah
The tempo frees my imagination, reminds me
That my music was born in a cotton field
The tempo, the tempo, the tempo frees my imagination, reminds me
That my music was born in a cotton field, the tempo, the tempo
The tempo frees my imagination, reminds me
That my music was born in a cotton field
The tempo frees my imagination, reminds me
That my music was born in a cotton field
The tempo frees my imagination, reminds me
That my music was born in a cotton field

The five senses sharpened, I am ready
The music enters my head, I let myself be guided
I find myself in a place where everything is white
Is it Paradise? Yet a smell of blood
Floats just above the open hi-hat
Which guides my pen and my mind in these few verses
For each word engraved, a drop of sweat
From those who fell in these fields of misery
Their lives hung by a chain
But their free souls now soar over the plains
They spent their lives between death and love
My skin color reminds me (what) every day (yeah) every time that

The tempo frees my imagination, reminds me
That my music was born in a cotton field
The tempo, the tempo, the tempo frees my imagination, reminds me
That my music was born in a cotton field

The island of Gorée, the origin of my pen
From my rhythm resonate sinister complaints
That we hear in our verses, in these practiced compositions
Come out of the mouth of a sage with pierced nostrils
Who gathered in his valley
Dust from the sky, a destiny overturned
In the holds of a slaver, rope around the neck
The smell of death, these percussions are the memory of that time
And each bass drum hit wounds the brain
The snare drum recalls that whip that lacerates the skin
The hi-hat, these breaths of passivity
Each word in my thoughts for a murdered slave

The sample constantly returns
Makes us victims of the everyday
How many people already know their future
Work hard to barely earn enough to survive
For the mind to be at peace, it is fed with fictitious freedom
Here we are, slaves without chains
But the cotton fields are far away
Today without constraints, we toil in the concrete fields
The conditioning is so perfect, so accepted
That some wait to be told to think
Would the precious heritage be forever lost?
Is it only in my head that the songs continue? (the tempo, the tempo, the tempo)

The tempo frees my imagination, reminds me
That my music was born in a cotton field, yeah
The tempo, the tempo frees my imagination, reminds me
That my music was born in a cotton field (the tempo, the tempo)
The tempo frees my imagination, reminds me
That my music was born in a cotton field
The tempo frees my imagination, reminds me
That my music was born in a cotton field

I have a certainty
The evaporation of letters frees from the yoke, from servitude
And if today many make use of it
It is to break the chains of new forms of slavery
In vogue in our societies, in the West nothing new
The keys are words
Otherwise why would the Nazis have made book burnings
In Toulon, books would be sold in total freedom (yeah)
But our texts via the airwaves take to the skies
Our voices will not be prisoners (no)
A bias for music, this unique atmosphere
Breaks the laws of psychic enslavement

The tempo frees my imagination, reminds me
That my music was born (what) in (yeah) a cotton field (where)
The tempo frees my imagination, reminds me
That my music was born in a cotton field, the tempo, the tempo
The tempo frees my imagination, reminds me
That my music was born in a cotton field
The tempo, the tempo, the tempo frees my imagination, reminds me
That my music was born in a cotton field, the tempo, the tempo
The tempo frees my imagination, reminds me
That my music was born in a cotton field, the tempo, the tempo
The tempo frees my imagination, reminds me
That my music was born in a cotton field, the tempo, the tempo
The tempo frees my imagination, reminds me
That my music was born in a cotton field
The tempo frees my imagination, reminds me
That (yeah) my music was born in a cotton field
The tempo frees my imagination, reminds me, the tempo, the tempo
That my music was born in a cotton field, the tempo, the tempo
The tempo frees my imagination, reminds me
That my music was born in a cotton field
The tempo frees my imagination, reminds me
That my music was born in a cotton field, the tempo, the tempo
The tempo frees my imagination, reminds me
That my music was born in a cotton field
The tempo frees my imagination, reminds me
That my music was born in a cotton field, the tempo, the tempo
The tempo frees my imagination, reminds me
That my music was born in a cotton field, the tempo
The tempo frees my imagination, reminds me
That my music was born in a cotton field, the tempo, the tempo
The tempo frees my imagination, reminds me
That my (huh) music was (what) born in a cotton field (where?)
The tempo frees my imagination, reminds me
That my music was born in a cotton field, the tempo, the tempo
The tempo frees my imagination

CONSULTER LES PAROLES ORIGINALES