[Spoken word: Ade Bantu]
Against all odds we have survived the brutal commodification of black bodies
The cracking of whips and the horrors of the middle passage in the bellies of slave ships
We have remained alive despite European and Arab invasions Colonization, illegal occupations and forced annexations
We have pulled through in the face of vicious dictatorships
Rigged elections, countless wars and murderous conflicts
Africans have remained defiant, standing tall, holding their heads high as they invoke the spirits of Hannibal, Nzinga, Lumumba, Mohammed Bouazizi and the great Mandiba
We refuse to lose and sign our own obituary
Defeat has never and will never be in our vocabulary
The future is now
It is ours
It is not an abstraction
It is not a myth
We the children of the sun lay claim to it