Afterlife of Chains, Stolen Time

acid house boom bap, acoustic rock afro-jazz · 3:31

Listen on 93

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
Wilderson speaks of social death's domain
Where slavery's logic still remains
Not just the past but present too
The afterlife of chains we never knew
Black bodies caught between the worlds
Neither subjects nor full persons unfurled

[Chorus]
Loss of future, stolen time
When the past won't let us climb
Hartman, Wilderson, Mbembe's call
Coulthard sees through it all
Social death and colonial shame
Recognition's just another game

[Verse 2]
Hartman walks the castle door
Seeking mothers lost before
The Atlantic holds no answers clear
Just echoes of ancestral fear
The archive speaks but cannot heal
The wounds that centuries reveal

[Chorus]
Loss of future, stolen time
When the past won't let us climb
Hartman, Wilderson, Mbembe's call
Coulthard sees through it all
Social death and colonial shame
Recognition's just another game

[Verse 3]
Mbembe shows the postcolony
Where commandement rules with irony
The grotesque dance of power's mask
Makes mockery of freedom's task
The future blocked by yesterday
While present fades to gray

[Bridge]
Coulthard warns of liberal lies
Recognition in disguise
Red skin wearing white mask dreams
Nothing's ever what it seems
Indigenous ways pushed aside
For settler state's colonial pride

[Chorus]
Loss of future, stolen time
When the past won't let us climb
Hartman, Wilderson, Mbembe's call
Coulthard sees through it all
Social death and colonial shame
Recognition's just another game

[Outro]
Four voices singing one refrain
The future lost to history's chain
Until we break these structures down
Tomorrow's hope cannot be found

← Tomorrow Was Never Yours To Lose | Futures Cut From Darkened Waters →