[engine starts]
♪ ♪
[Tall Paul performing "Prayers in a Song"]
[rapping]
♪ I feel the latent effects
♪ Of assimilation
♪ Inner city Native
♪ Raised by bright lights
♪ Skyscrapers
♪ Born with dim prospects
♪ Little peace in living
♪ As a child, hot headed
♪ About the fact
♪ I wasn't wild
♪ Like they called my ancestors
♪ Imagined what it'd be
♪ To live nomadic off the land
♪ And free
♪ Instead I was full of heat
♪ Like a furnace 'cause
♪ I wasn't furnished
♪ With language and traditional
♪ Ways of my peeps
♪ Yeah I used to feel
♪ Like I wasn't truly Indigenous
♪ Now I say
♪ Miigwech gichi-manidoo
♪ For showing me my true roots
♪ Definitely Native
♪ Take responsibility
♪ For being educated
♪ My people and customs
♪ Originating from early phases
♪ Of history
♪ It's deeper than frybread
♪ And contest powwows
♪ Tears shed in the sweat lodge
♪ Prayers go out to
♪ All those I've wronged
♪ And who have wronged me
♪ Gotta treat 'em like family
♪ Gichi-manido wiidookawishin
♪ Ji-mashkawiziyaan
♪ Mii dash bami'idiziyaan
♪ Miizhishinaam zaagi'iiwewin
♪ Ganoozh ishinaam
♪ Bizindaw ishinaam
♪ Mii-wenji nagamoyaan
♪ Nimishomis wiidookawishinaam
♪ Ji-aabajitooyaang anishinaabe
♪ Izhitwaawin
♪ Mii-ji-bi-gikendamaan
♪ Keyaa anishinaabe bimaadiziwin
♪ Becoming aware of a heartbeat's
♪ Fragility so I
♪ Pray for my creator's will
♪ And humility
♪ It seems my prayer's weak
♪ I can't speak
♪ Not a linguist
♪ Does he hear my English
♪ When I vent I fear
♪ The answer to the question
♪ This is symbolic of anguish
♪ I feel regarding language and
♪ The obligation of revitalizing
♪ Something sacred
♪ Failure to carry through
♪ Is disgracing a nation
♪ My first tongue's in need
♪ Of a face lift but
♪ Deciphering conjugations
♪ Like trying to find my way
♪ Through a maze in the matrix
♪ Complex hard to start without an
♪ End aside from being fluent
♪ I gotta push the limit
♪ If I'm gonna keep pursuing
♪ So I use it in a way that
♪ Relates to my life and vocab
♪ Bring some entertainment to it
♪ Spit it on a track
♪ And I take it out the class
♪ Can't let what I lack
♪ Become a self-defeating habit
♪ That'll make me want to quit
♪ Gichi-manido wiidookawishin
♪ Ji-mashkawiziyaan
♪ Mii dash bami'idiziyaan
♪ Miizhishinaam zaagi'iiwewin
♪ Ganoozh ishinaam
♪ Bizindaw ishinaam
♪ Mii-wenji nagamoyaan
♪ Nimishomis wiidookawishinaam
♪ Ji-aabajitooyaang anishinaabe
♪ Izhitwaawin
♪ Mii-ji-bi-gikendamaan
♪ Keyaa anishinaabe bimaadiziwin
♪ It's far fetched but grandfather
♪ Please help me learn it
♪ Help me assist in keeping it
♪ From burning, don't let me quit
♪ And flee from working
♪ For a worthy purpose
♪ Enlighten me and help me
♪ Comprehend effects of my
♪ Service, I need a spark in my
♪ Desire from something higher
♪ Prior to negative reminders
♪ Killing my stride
♪ Sometimes I'm the type that
♪ Likes getting results overnight
♪ Without sweating or stressing
♪ Overnight, so I pray, creator
♪ Give me strength
♪ Then I can move on
♪ Creator show us love
♪ So it can spread around
♪ Communicate with us, from above
♪ Hear me now, my prayers
♪ In a song I speak 'em out loud
♪ Grandfather help us to
♪ Revitalize the language
♪ And ways so we walk the red road
♪ That you paved, communicate
♪ With us from above hear me now
♪ My prayers in a song
♪ I speak 'em out loud
[fading beat]