In this video I am rehearsing the words to a song I wrote together with my friends Banker White and Chis Velan. I am paying tribute to Sengbe Pieh, the Mende slave from my home country of Sierra Leone, whose heroic story is the subject of the film 'Amistad'. I hope you like it and please leave me comments below. I will share the finished track in my next entry...

lyrics:
How can we forget our slavery days,
Its marked our history in so many ways.

When I look back a few hundred years,
check the history , we were living in fears
Half my country's population were sold as slaves
Sierra Leoneans and West Africans waking to their graves (waking to their graves)

In january 1839 they capture a man and they call him 'Cinque'.
but he was a proud Mende warrior born as Sengbe Pieh

He was the son of a local chief, born in the country Sierra Leone
on the Amistad from Cuba to America he took back what was his own

He was a proud man that stood up and fought for his rights
and the America people debated what to do for so many nights

They said "back to Africa this proud man deserves his freedom."
They said "back to Africa." Let us all begin again
I always say prayer for the good work they have done
For those who died through the fight, may their souls rest in perfect peace
(may their souls rest in perfect peace)

My own history was not so different than a slave
I lost my parents as a child and my heart made their grave.

I was beaten and tortured at the age of eleven.
How can a small child learn to believe in heaven?

A solider and a killer is what they wanted me to be,
but my belief in freedom is what allowed me to see

to see that God made me a black beautiful man
and my heart kept telling me if you believe it you can!

So I keep the faith and call myself Black Nature...