[INTRO] (congas, shaker, distant rim shot) You know what my grandmother told me? She said... "Don't ever forget where your bones came from." I didn't understand it then. I do now. [VERSE 1] There's a rhythm in my walking That I didn't learn at school There's a song inside my breathing That was singing before I knew My hands remember working My eyes remember rain My feet know every road That my mind can't explain I carry names I never heard I carry stories without words Something ancient keeps on knocking Every time I close the door [REFRAIN] It's in the blood... Not the kind you see. It's in the way your spirit remembers what your mind can't keep. [SPOKEN BREAK] They tell you history is something that happened a long time ago. But history... is sitting in your kitchen. It's standing in your mirror. It's humming when you don't know the song. [VERSE 2] I hear drums in the city I hear prayer beneath the noise I hear somebody's grandmother In the laughter of a child I hear oceans in the language I hear fire in the name I hear people who survived Refusing to disappear And maybe that's the miracle... Not that we remember everything. Maybe it's that something in us refuses to forget. [GROOVE BREAK] (bass enters deeper) Don't tell me where I came from. Let me feel it. Don't give me a photograph. Give me the rhythm. (percussion builds) Yeah... That's it. Right there. [FINAL REFRAIN] It's in the blood... It's in the breath... It's in the rhythm Between life and death. It's in the hands That reach for one another. It's in the child. It's in the mother. It's in the song Nobody remembers writing. It's in the fire That refuses to stop igniting. [OUTRO] (percussion gradually strips away) My grandmother said... "Listen." So I did. And underneath everything... I heard us. (single rim shot) Us. (silence)
