Africa (Goin' Back Home)

(album: The World's Greatest Entertainer - 1988)

When I left to go Africa people said...
Don't come back with no with craft on your head
I just left the comment blank and kept my cool
Because they only said what they was taught in school
Brainwashed education
Of our nation
Publicized in its prime
To be behind the time
Adequate excuse
And all verbal abuse
Our history is a mystery
So what's the use?

Sala mali cume, mali cume salaam
Sala mali cume, mali cume salaam
Sala mali cume, mali cume salaam

Now I took me a trip to Africa
A seven hour flight from America
I got off the plane and what did I see
But some brothers and sisters who look like me
Warm greetings, hello, hi's
Alot of mosquitos and a whole lot of flys

Young ones try to persuade you to buy
To feed their families so no one dies
Of hunger, shelter, clothes and starvation
In the ghetto it's the same situation
Over big water so far I roam
To find my way back home
To find my way back home
To find my way back home

Now I woke up at two in the afternoon
In the middle of December which felt like June
I got on the bus, then all of us, caught a boat
As we listened to the jams we wrote
As the boat stayed afloat and we was close to shore
I seem an Island one I felt I seem before
I was gonna ask the guide, but I forgot his name
So I said, "It ain't nuthing, all Islands are the same!"
Shame, who's the blame for that inside shame
Then I found out Goree Island was the name
Aim was to proceed with the mystery
Of the hidden, forbidden history
Goree Island was the last place the slaves was brought
Before taken to America, sold and bought
And I could feel it in the air when my feet touched land
To be the first rap group to rock Africans
Our distant brothers, great, great grandmothers
To one another, it's you I salute
Because a man without history is like a tree without Roots
So I say now...

Now I took me a trip to Africa
A seven hour flight from America
I got off the plane and what did I see
But some brothers and sisters who look like me
Warm greetings, hello, hi's
Alot of mosquitos and a whole lot of flys

Young ones try to persuade you to buy
To feed their families so no one dies
Of hunger, shelter, clothes and starvation
In the ghetto it's the same situation
Over big water so far I roam
To find my way back home
To find my way back home
To find my way back home

Salaam alaikum, alaikum salaam...