“LIONESS” Slam Lyrics | Spoken Word by Mac Alunge
LIONESS
SPOKEN WORD PERFORMED BY MAC ALUNGE AT THE FIRST EVER NATIONAL WOMEN’S CONVENTION IN CAMERRON ORGANISED BY FRIEDRICH EBERT STIFTUNG ORGANIZATION AT PALAIS DE CONGRES, YAOUNDE ON JULY 29, 2021
FULL PERFORMANCE
(Track 2 to Track 7)
Every woman in every place
Every girl in every space
Every mother from every race
Should be heard and represented with authenticity and grace
Black woman, own your beauty and glory
Even if the world is too cowardly to reward it
Be authentic and unapologetically you
Let your confidence and bliss be contagious
So from the edge of the Fako Mountain
To the ledge of the Bambutus Mountain Chain
From the Lake Chad Basin
To the Mungo River
Women of our fatherland, emerge
For our women with vision
Taking action in one direction
With collaboration, will change our nation
See the power in here
Feel the glory in the air
Women everywhere
Your time to shine is here
We hope you are aware
That you are rare
And starting from here
We all will get there
Show up in every sphere
In all settings be there
Brightening up the atmosphere
And letting your voice be heard
So come on the buyam-sellams
The women teachers, the women lawyers and activists
Administrators, farmers
Soldiers and athletes, all women
From engineering and technology
To construction and industry
Entertainment, Entrepreneurship
Medicine and academia
You are the heroines that light up the dark
Leading with your courage
And dreaming with your heart
Who knows how far you’ll go
So assume your position
It’s time to take action
In building our nation
Welcome to the first ever National Women’s Convention
A mother holds the future of a nation
As she births and nurtures it, in her child
She teaches and coaches, advises then listens, endorses, opposes, encourages,
disciplines, praises and grooms her child
Into the leader that will lead us all into the future of our dreams.
Between her menses and the child birth that cracked her pelvis
From the classroom to the office
Whether running her home or defending a thesis
Woman always fixes, she nurtures, she raises she’s always at service
She leads her every circle with her wise voice
Cares for everyone else without an invoice
She continues to sacrifice with no thought of vice
And cares not whether anyone will notice or even be nice
And she does all of these even in the middle of a crisis
No one could ever imagine the pain a woman feels
Over the child she loses
Over the spouse she misses
As she cries in anguish over their corpses
Dear woman,
The senseless violence and killings have brought you unimaginable pain
Life has been drained out of your years of life,
Your heart has been broken beyond word, beyond thought
And a broken heart is like a broken rib,
No one else sees it
No one there feels it
But it hurts every time you breathe
Your heart has been shattered into pieces
Our mothers our sisters our aunties and spouses
Make us all one promise, one promise please
That you will all unite and rise,
Let the pain of one woman be the pain of all women
For no woman is free until all women are free
A wise woman once said
That life should not be about
Waiting for the storm to pass
But learning to dance in the rain
Sometimes the brightest lightening comes with the greatest storm
Study adversity; in it you may find the miracle
So turn you womb into wisdom and hang on through the rain
For you will surely the rainbow
It’s hard, it’s so hard
But please try; try turning your scars into beauty marks
See no regrets, see lessons
Within calamity see opportunity
Not the misery retained but the beauty that remains
Dear woman, let your hopes not your hurts shape your future
From the creation in Genesis
To the days of Moses and now the crises
Women have always cleaned up messes and led the masses
Your bravery and bliss have kept our homes and communities in one piece
So in spite of the injustices and your bruises
Refuse to stay broken
Pick up the broken pieces of yourself
And build peace, piece by piece
There is no enemy
We own our own remedy
We make up one body, we are one family
Soldiers in the same army
Enemy, a blind invention of humanity
Designed to distract us from harmony
Causing division, pain and misery
Obstructing the anatomy of our economy
But if we do have an enemy
He would be the idea that we are each other’s enemy
He will be the one who made us forget the true meaning of living
And obscure our perception of the truth of victory
I may be no artist with a grammy
Neither are we actors with an emmy
But as many as we can use our voices in agony
We’ll redefine our roles as family in this one body called humanity
There is more wisdom in the human body
Than in the deepest philosophy
Two hands work in synergy for balance
Two legs walk in synchronic alliance
One body, different organs
Each with its mission, unique slogan
Working together in unison
Each at its pace from its own place
We each wear different hats
But we are all in the same boat
Many hands, one mind
For none of us is as smart as all of us
Yet identity could be a prison
If defined by the tragedy of our history
And not the glory of our destiny
For an eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind
Just as our eyes need light
Our minds need enlightenment
Though the light at the end of the tunnel
Seems to be an unending train
So come to the Littoral and celebrate the Ngondo
Then move up to the Southwest and jubilate at the Mbando
Enjoy the climate of Fako
And on the football field let all be Ngando
So from the SAWAs of the coastal plains
To the BAYAs of the East
From the BETIs and the BAKAs in the South
To the TIKAs and the NGEMBAs of the grassland
We are beautiful
To each other, we are wonderful
Together we are powerful
And to God, we are grateful
What divides us is nothing
Compared to what unites us
So recognize and celebrate that which is common and that which is different
For where everyone is included, everyone wins
Woman you a seed carrying a tree
There is a need and you are the key
There a bigger you trapped inside of you
You must find yourself and set her free
It is never too late to be what you might have been
The past is dead; it only lives if you give it life
Rise above the limitations of culture
Do not be scared to start a new venture
It is not who you are that holds you back
It is who you think you are not
Have confidence in everything
For with confidence you win before you begin
Fear kills more dreams than failure ever will
So inhale courage and exhale doubt
Believe in yourself
For no one can make you feel inferior without your consent
If only you could see
That even in your loneliest hour
And in the darkness of your silent pain
The astonishing light you still radiate
For women as powerful as you cannot be contained
You are lioness
Every mountain is within reach if you just keep climbing
These women see the edge of tomorrow
That is why they face neither east nor west
They face forward
Together women will eliminate poverty and hunger
Provide good health and quality education
Fight for gender equality and equal representation
As well as clean water to every living human
They promote a world of clean energy
Of decent work and economic growth
Of flourishing industry innovation and infrastructure
As well as equality at all levels
For with sustainable cities and communities
With responsible production and consumption
As well the appropriate climate action
We will preserve life below water and on land
Women are taking the lead
For peace, justice and strong institutions
They have come together as one force
To heal our nation and world
So all across the nation
All around the world
Women are longing to be free,
No longer in the shadows
Or forced to stay behind
But side by side in true equality
Let it ring around the world and never ever cease
Equality, Development and Peace