Mbaba Mwana Waresa (mbaba) wrote in forgotten_gods, @ 2009-05-22 22:10:00 |
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Current mood: | wistful |
Current music: | "Mamaland", Yvonne Chaka Chaka |
Who: Joy and OPEN to anybody! (Bring your instruments, let's form a band.)
What: ...Funtimes? Meeting old friends or new, depending on who shows up. Also, music.
Why: 'Cuz she's lonely and needs funtimes of any variety. Also, because I have been listening to this for a long time and cannot help but imagine Joy's version of it, which would be slower and softer and acoustic and wistful. Lyrics are here.
When: Friday evening
Where: On a random street corner in Manhattan
"Who's that man calling me stranger in my land, my mamaland?"
Joy loved the original version of that song, sure enough. She loved that lady singer, the one they still called the Princess of Africa in her own Zulu lands. She loved the music and the words, so full of pride and hope for her Africa. But tonight she felt a little blue, a little dry and cool and wistful, and that was why she had taken a seat on her bucket on the corner of this busy little street and was playing out a little different version. Her fingers moved slow and steady on the strings, taking the bright chords and turning them soft and sad and wistful.
"Who's that man telling me go from my land, my mamaland?"
Maybe it was Blues back in the city -- a good boy at heart, and they shared so much history, but she always felt darker and cloudier when he was around. Or maybe it was something else, something that brought back the memories of the days when her people were in chains, when Mbaba was in bondage right alongside her people. Those memories of long hot days of toil, of pain and pinching bellies and no hope in sight, always brought Mama Mbaba low.
"This is my heart, where I belong," she sang, letting her grief at being torn from her homeland, still fresh in her immortal soul even after centuries, come through her fingers on the strings and her voice. "My roots are here in Africa...."
Africa, Africa! When this northern land got warm in the summer, the south wind brought a taste of Africa with it, and it always brightened her spirits. Soon it would be midsummer and those long, hot days of June and July would ease Joy's soul. For now -- it was warm, it was spring, and there would be rain tomorrow. But still, she sang a wistful song of her homeland.
"Iwee 'nakupenda, iwee mamaland," she sang, quiet and sad. "Iwee, iwee mamaland." Oh I love you, oh mamaland, oh, oh mamaland.