Woman cry, give life

Mother Mary and baby the burden she carry all time

Woman cry, when give us life

And she beg He forgive us

The sin and dem sinners all time, whoa

Foreign man take me from land

Banished my name, I survive all the same

Nuff commotion, way across ocean

Through whip and chain, I survive all the same

So dem a go make war before we free

Why dem a go make war before we free?

So dem a go make war before we free

Why dem a go make war before we free?

Tie my neck, ship, it don't wreck

Bind me to tree, I survive, they will see, ah

Whip they crack, scar me 'pon back

So we gon' see who survive, make I free

So dem a go make war before we free

Why dem a go make war before we free? (Make I free)

So dem a go make war before we free

Why dem a go make war before we free?

Follow, follow, people, they know they follow

People, all know they copy, people all in my grotto

They see me like a genie, try to keep me in a bottle

Petty, petty people, keep them incommunicado

They tie you up in strings, they play niggas like pizzicato

Lose sight of the picture scripture, now they not so steady

Meanwhile I'm like Curtis Mayfield, getting people ready

To see into the future then cut through like a machete

Or Cutlass, all these trappings leavin' n**a gutless

You can't make moves for justice, you can't make no adjustments

Drowning in corruption, Charlie addict to convenience

Now they got you caught up and callin' freedom extremists

We're not in agreement, I won't lay down politely

I closed my mouth for years and they still tried to fight me

I sat down on the bench and they still tried to bite me

They think they buried my career and promoted my peers to spite me

But they can't tell me nothing Charlie, they don't underwrite me

I've had a lot of money thrown at me but none of that shit excites me

It's just another kind of cage to get up in my psyche

To use me as an instrument to further push their puppet show

But I'm not inexperienced and this not my first rodeo

I'm not so shallow Charlie, I call it too precisely

Separate bone from marrow, so much soul that they dislike me

Intuitives (intuitives) Charlie, we be like fugitives (fugitives)

Until the universe responds to show them who the student is

Woman cry (woman cry) gives life (gives us life)

Mother Mary and baby the burden she carries all time (burden she carries)

Woman cry (woman cry) gives us life (gives us life)

And she beg He forgive us

The sin and the sinners all time (begs He forgives us)

So dem a go make war before we free

Why dem a go make war before we free?

So dem a go make war before we free

Why dem a go make war before we free?