À l'ombre du showbusiness [English translation]
À l'ombre du showbusiness [English translation]
In the show-business shadow
How much time ?
How much time will they smother our art ?
How much time will they share the music awards ? (1)
We don't care, we are true, come on
They try to smother our art, gotta be honest
They refuse to acknowledge that in this century
Rappers are heirs to poets
Our poetry is urban, art is universal
Our poetry is human
Our texts are pictures which unveil the ill-being of the starless fates
Our litterature, photograph of instants, (2)
Shall become a witness singing the past in the present tense
A piano, a voice, you see, the art of the poor ones only needs that
I rap with word power, without a trick
I am, by dint of words, an artist
I practise a sad, infamous art
Because it is through our records that voice in the ghetto rises
My rap is a proletarian art then minorities here are majority
Yet like any other art I think rap goes beyond differences
Gathers hearts before bodies
Making sceneries out of bodies
Ensuring harmonization of hearts (3)
What if I wrote better than Lionel Florence ? (4)
Born of the second France, I'm still waiting my first chance
Forgive my arrogance but they condemn my art to silence
While I'm crying my mates have finished their last dance
So yes I am a poet in the dead ones society
In the show-business shadow, my art is off the street
My art is a gemstone that was covered with concrete
That can only be melted by feelings
My art is committed
My art makes sense
My art holds an opinion
My art is intense
My art does not apologize if it bothers you
Because it pacifies our hearts
This is the cry of the indigenous ones
Oh how I love the language of Molière (5)
I am highly wordy, you know ?
There is a soul behind the colour of my skin
And if I practise a sad art
That's because my heart is like a sponge
We are rappers and artists even if it bothers you
(In the show-business shadow
In the show-business shadow)
I write poems of tears
Rains of fears (6)
They want to kill my art
But my works remain
In the show-business shadow
My verses are sparkles
Which radiate on hearts
That's all right if they rule me out
I grew up on black ice
Where every fall can be lethal
In the ballet of bullets
In the dialogue of metal
France put us aside
I wrote it, what one feels when one is rejected
Without decency, I described it
Come on
For twenty years we've been singing the suburbs
For twenty years they've been denigrating our writings in high places
For twenty years they've been suffocating our screams
Which transcribe the tensions of the hearts in crisis and the living conditions of our brothers in jail
For twenty years we have been opening windows on horizonless futures
For twenty years we've been laying our hands on open wounds that bleed rejection
Because equality of opportunity is but a project
(Charles Aznavour) (7)
(In the show-business shadow
In the show-business shadow)
In the show-business shadow
You need to be optimistic brother
Every great movement has suffered
Poets starved to death in the show-business shadow
Today, it might even be...easier
Doors are closed and locked
But they open little by little
And the more you believe, the more you can
The more you will succeed in the show-business shadow
Today it might be...simpler
Because there is a whole youth behind you brother
In the show-business shadow, the sun can rise..
- Artist:Kery James
- Album:À l'ombre du show business (2009)