Past Life

One two, One two
What good is a past life?
What good is a past life?
Currents pull deep, are they bringing me to shore?
Lighthouse or siren, I don't know anymore
Currents pull deep, are they bringing me to shore?
I don't know
Currents pull deep, are they bringing me to shore?
Lighthouse or siren, I don't know anymore
Currents pull deep, are they bringing me to shore?

Mummy carried me for nine, I carry her pain forever
And it can rain at any time like LDN weather
Grandma carried her for nine. She's pregnant with pain and fear
I'm trying to do the work to make the buck stop here
Mummy carry me for nine, I carry her pain forever
And it can rain at any time like LDN weather
Grandma carried her for nine. She's pregnant with fear and pain
If I could find some meaning then I could break the chain

In a flash of lucidity, he became aware
That he was unable to bear his soul
The crushing weight of so much past

Never known the lightness of being
Every moment heavy
Every choice made hold the pressure of a fucking levee
I hear the other side calling my name
Six billi ways to die and they all in my brain
Played ad infinitum the Moors ran through Spain
Now I'm killing them with Latin when I'm talking on pain
Shit remains, transfers, epigenetics
There's trauma in my DNA. P-pain in my aesthetic
There's loss in my lineage, and I just can't forget it
It's evolve or repeat. They say the past is prophetic
But I just want an old me, to scoop me up and show me
What the fuck to do with all this motion that controls me
I heard that if you run from it then it comes back in folds three
And that I need to study it, fruit to root the whole tree
Break it down and build it back, and gild it all in gold leaf
Make it something beautiful so I can answer boldly

What good is a past life?
Don't forget your past life

What good is a past life?
Tryna break these chains
What good is a past life?
Tryna make a change
What, what good is a past life?
I'm taking all this pain
What, good is a past life?
Put it back in your past life

As the Griots told tales in the courts of the kings
I take it on myself to tell the story of my queens
See I come from a long line of strong, hurt women
Let me quench you with a glass of a history I swim in
Take it back a century a child was christened C.C
My mama's called her mama and her friends called her Sis B
Grew up on the emerald isle, it's verdant and It's lush
But the crust of the earth cracks underneath that brush
When she was just five, ground shook her nanny rushed
Put her body round the child so only nanny got crushed
Little Sister B was trapped days in her arms
Alarm bell a ring In a village called Farms
But she grew to be a woman and a mum to four girls
Little Gweny was the middle child, she wants to see the world
When Gweny was a teen well that's when she got word
Mum said take a boat to England to stay with me and Ern'
Imagine fifteen leaving the isle where you're grown
For a brave new world, on a boat, on your own
Home for six days 'till the engine a blown
Like the ocean tried to take her, Moko Jumbi said no
But knowing what I know that was a omen of a kind
Cause Ern was a sick man won't waste another line
But Gweny got to England and England weren't fine
Gained a home but this home stole the twinkle out her eye
I tried to see my grandmama innocent, a child
Or a young woman trying to keep the dreams she had alive
I think she felt cheated. Like that dream was just a lie
So when it came to raise a child, she felt like something wasn't right
But Christmas *** came Queen Helen the first
Reason for my being way deeper than my birth
My mama had my sister and my sister had hers
Three female generations pray they lived to beat the hurt
'Cause Gweny never did and spent the end all by herself
Tchotchkes and trauma pains stacked up on her shelf
But her life was worth a damn her existence is my wealth
Write her into history so when they ask me now, I tell

Don't forget your past life