Négritude
Diaspora Bridges
2026
Lyrics
NÉGRITUDE [Intro Spoken] They taught us to forget. To forget our names. To forget our stories. To forget ourselves. But memory is a revolution. [Verse 1] They said Africa was darkness, We answered with the dawn. They said our history was broken, We showed where we came from. Not beginning in the chains, Not beginning in the hold, We carried kingdoms in our memory, We carried futures yet untold. Martinique, Dakar, Cayenne, Across the ocean, one refrain, The drum beneath the language remains, Calling our spirits home again. [Hook] Négritude... Not a wound, but a light. Négritude... Turning silence into sight. I am Black. I am whole. I am history. I am soul. [Verse 2] Césaire wrote against forgetting, Every word a rising tide, Speaking for the colonized, Refusing shame, refusing to hide. Senghor sang of Africa's beauty, Of rhythm, memory, and grace, Not asking permission to belong, But reclaiming a stolen place. Damas spoke with fire and thunder, Breaking masks that others made, Tearing down colonial mirrors, Where distorted images stayed. [Hook] Négritude... Not a wound, but a light. Négritude... Turning silence into sight. I am Black. I am whole. I am history. I am soul. [Bridge Spoken] We are not what empire named us. We are not what slavery called us. We are not what prejudice imagined. We are what our ancestors knew. [Verse 3] Black is not a thing to overcome, Not a burden, not a chain, Black is memory crossing oceans, Black is survival through the pain. Black is jazz and Black is poetry, Black is rhythm in the rain, Black is Haiti, Black is Harlem, Black is rising once again. From the islands to the continent, From the village to the street, The voices of Négritude remind us: To know ourselves is to be free. [Final Hook] Négritude... A river running through time. Négritude... A reason, a rhythm, a rhyme. I am Black. I am whole. I am history. I am soul. [Outro Spoken] Not forgetting. Remembering. Not surrendering. Becoming. Négritude.