Three Rivers

[Intro] Look [Verse 1] Imagine an island where the party never ends Where it's less about money and it's more about friends Where the vibes can't done It's less about fundin' and more about fun Tropical sun, this life in the 60s comin' from the Caribbean You know Ian, Delroy, Vivian, Winston Who got drafted to England Windrush babies from Kingston to Brixton To say they're the life of the party, you're wrong My Jamaicans the entire party, you can't see? Big Notting Hill carni, you can't see? And the ride's fiber glass, G, you wan' see? Imagine a place wherе you raise your kids The only place you livе says you ain't a Brit They're deportin' our people and it makes me sick 'Cause they was broken by the country that they came to fix It's like [Interlude] They came at the invitation of the British Government Their passports were stamped 'indefinite leave to remain' But for some, who were children then, that was a false promise Thirty-seven years of paying taxes and I got a letter saying I was an illegal immigrant I came here to England at the age of ten and I've lived here all my life [Verse 2] Look, imagine a world that's flawed and full of evil Where dictators and leaders are persecutin' your people The bodies of the innocence are pilin' to the steeples The ironic part is they're preyin' on the feeble That's life in the 90s, you're Eastern European And you're seein' people dyin' 'cause they're fightin' for their freedom They show you violence for havin' a voice You move out with your kids in hope of havin' a choice Life throws you a spanner, you can't handle the pain So you gamble and you drink and then you gamble again You argue with your wife and then you sleep on the couch You hit your children and start freezin' 'em out You try and work things out, but it's never the same All the women in your household are livin' afraid When you look into the mirror you're reminded again That you've become the dictator you were fightin' against It's like [Interlude] We're fightin' for our rights, for our motherland And then we - we - we are fighting for our homes We are fighting for our, our fa- [Verse 3] Look, imagine a world that's fucked and untrue Where the many pay a price for the few And every day the sun rises a little later That's how it is when your oppressor is your liberator That's right now livin' in the Middle East Pray salah for the peace Death from a sky littered with stars You run away with your kids so you can give them a chance But your asylum has got you in a different war Because the British wanna know what you're livin' here for We rely on migration more than ever before They're key workers, but they couldn't even get in the door When you're at Heaven's gates, what you tellin' the Lord? You wouldn't even let a kid into some steadier shores That's a life they may never afford Surely you would wanna give your people chances that were better than yours? No? [Interlude] Ten years of conflict, and twelve-thousand children have been killed or injured The children here are just a tiny fraction of the estimated six-million that are in need of emergency medical assistance It's thought perhaps as many as three-million are no longer living in their own homes And up to two-million children no longer attend school The opportunities of this generation have been changed forever by this conflict [Outro: Daniel Kaluuya] I went to silence when I needed to know who the, who the fuck I was, bro And like, I won't hear anyone else, shut everyone else out So I could just hear myself, bro You know what I'm sayin'? 'Cause we live in this world, yeah You stand still, the way the tides set up It will take you away from yourself, you feel me? So then I was like "Aight, cool" But, I had to get silent, but it's not like man's goin' against the tide 'Cause goin' against the tide still makes it about them Still makes it about the poison that you've internalised in your mind, you feel me? It's like "Bro, why am I in this water?" Man, this water don't even like me, it's not even for me It's not takin' me where I wanna go, it's not takin' me where I wanna go It's who the fuck I am, bro, you know what I'm sayin'? So the tide will tell me that bein' black is an obstacle See what I'm sayin'? I had to, switch Rivers, bro It's like bein' black is an asset I am who I am because I'm black And I love everything about it, you feel me? And that's who the fuck I am