At the occasion of the Angolan general elections, the Luaty Beirão’s militant song « Se Bond4 Sozinh4 » (She’s killing herself alone) aims to spark a debate and ends with the authoritarian regime in place for now 38 years.
Luaty Beirão aka Ikonoklasta is a Luso-Angolan musician and rapper who has mainly voiced the Angolan people’s complaints and the State and government’s corruption since 1994. Persona non grata in his own country, he spent 8 months in jail last year with 16 other Angolan friends for having gathered to read a revolutionary manifesto. The initial sentences were between 2 and 8 years of prison, and the charges were eventually dropped 2 years later. Here goes the rapper’s own electoral manifesto: words that he put to music so they can spread wider and further and deeper in the (lethargic?) Angolan society. It’s a clear call to vote against the current running political party – MPLA – that has hold the power for the last 38 years via the figure of authoritarian and corrupted leader José Eduardo dos Santos.
INTRO
1500 reasons not to vote for MPLA, they don’t even fit all in this sound. Don’t be masochists.
VERSE EXTRACT
Go stand in line
and dip your finger in the ink
and feel that you’re taking part
in this so-called democracy.
CHORUS
My friend, choose another way to kill you
You’re killing myself by voting for MPLA.
Luaty Beirão explains : « My name is Ikonoklasta, my music is militant, my cause is Angola, my commitment only exists towards my conscience. I am not here to (un)please anyone, though I know both will happen. The main thing is to spread, leave a trace, spark a debate, provoke reactions, create spaces of citizenship, and move forward!
Here is my electoral manifesto. If you ever have the time, the mind or the patience, you can do your own(s), though I doubt you’d do it.
The audio is crap. I’ve recorded this with a phone, but I make it available here for who is audacious enough and wants to listen to that thing: https://goo.gl/UBQwe6
I hope there will be less masochists in 2017. »
LYRICS
One million homes
That only existed
In vague promises
You don’t have meat? Then eat tuna
The starving roads
Eat our motorbikes
There’s a lot of trouble
But there was only one Mussum [famous Black Afro-Brazilian humorist].
They gave you
State-controlled buildings
Now you have
State-demolished buildings.
They’ve made your life a hell for 5 years
Now they bring you anaesthetic:
Trucks full of beers.
“Water for everyone”?
(For the) inhabitants of the Cidade Alta only.
A guy died in the Kunene [region of the Kunene river]?
Yeah my friend, drought kills.
And the solution for the zuna [the poor suburbs]?
It’s punches,
Extortion of money
And arbitrary detention in prison.
But now everything seems promising
They’ve opened jobs for the electoral campaign
Occupation: ass-licker
If you run they still catch you.
(…)
This regime kills
And nobody speaks
But when it touches you
They want Angola united
A solitary life
A sedentary life
This is what those people left to us
40 hands full of nothing.
My friend, choose another way to kill you
You’re killing myself by voting for MPLA.
Go stand in line
and dip your finger in the ink
and feel that you’re taking part
in this so-called democracy.
