Africa is beautiful and beautiful is usual in Africa
Continental wonderland of love this is Africa

What's in Africa? What's there to see?
I asked myself on the New Year's eve
I thought that I was good in geography
But I didn't know Lagos or Nairobi

I might be ignorant, I have to admit
About Africa I knew just a little bit
The great Sahara - sands of mystery!
The Nile river - so much history!

Africa is magical and magical is usual in Africa
Continental wonderland of joy this is Africa

Namibia, Nigeria, Niger, Angola, Algeria
Burundi, Benin and Libya, Lesotho and Liberia
Burkina-Faso, Botswana, Guinea-Bissau, Ghana
Djibouti, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Uganda, Rwanda, Gambia

I saw a film on Serengeti Park
A one of a kind, a must-see landmark
I watched a documentary on pyramids of Giza
They're much much older than Mona Lisa

I heard that oldest coffee plants
Take their roots in Ethiopia's land
And that samba, rumba, funk and jazz
Take their beats from African drums

Africa is beautiful and beautiful is usual in Africa
Continental wonderland of love this is Africa

Cameroon and Congo, Malawi, Mali, Morocco
Côte d'Ivoire and Kenya, Mauritius, Mauritania
Tunisia, Tanzania, Eswatini, Eritrea
Sudan, Senegal, Somalia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan

You can travel around cities of Africa
Like Cape Town, Cairo or Casablanca
If you're in love or plan to be
Go to Zanzibar, feel that ocean breeze!

Climb up mount Kilimanjaro
Watch the zebras cross the Masai Mara
If you're adventurous, you're a dreamer
Take a wild trip down Zambezi river

Africa is magical and magical is usual in Africa
Continental wonderland of joy this is Africa

Comoros, Chad, Cabo Verde, Democratic Republic of Congo
Ethiopia, Egypt, Guinea, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Togo
Madagascar, Mozambique, Central African Republic
Sao Tome and Principe, South Africa and Seychelles

Africa is beautiful and beautiful is usual in Africa
Continental wonderland, I'm on my way to Africa!

We are everything
They told you about
We are the beautiful dream
They wish to have again, and again
We are the fairytale characters
Who always win in the end
Heroes and heroines — beau idéals
We are the good people
Nothing can divide us;
Politics, tribe, trade, doctrine, greed, religion
Brave men and women
Who fought to be free
Red for their brave blood
That stopped flowing for our sake
Gold for our mineral wealth;
Diamond, gold, bauxite, manganese
Green for our rich forests
Which give us herbage and food
And the Black five-pointed star
For our emancipation from the British colony
Because our lives matter
Just like all free nations
Building a strong foundation of love
And high pillars of culture
Strength. Love. Peace
We are everything they cannot be
The four corners of the nation, not just part
Are as proud as we can be
We are GHANA!

Went to my magwinya lady today,
she's contained at the canteens on north campus,
As she rose up her left eye was bluish ****** grey,
A lump in my throat formed not as big as the one on her face,
my eyes secreted their salty solution,
my mind quickly processed confusion,
"M-m-m-m-may i-i-i p-p-lease have five magwinyas"
She smirked at my muttered utterance as she began to fill the thin transparent plastic with the oily flour-filled *****,
I reluctantly asked "What happened to your eye?"
She responded in Xhosa reasonably assuming my common cocoa coating meant our tongues matched until I told her otherwise.
Eventually she simply said, "Fight".
I said, "you got in to a fight?"
She said "Mmm".

I went over to my banana lady and said the magwinya lady has a black eye and she casually claimed, "Her boyfriend beat her yesterday."
Confirming what my teary eyes and lumpy throat knew to be true when I saw my sweet magwinya lady with a swollen eye ****** grey and blue.

Frustrated at the nothing I could do.
Powerlessly pirched on a brown bench as the black sparrows chirped pleading for a piece of my last magwinya,
Should I tell her to escape?
Is that even my place?
How many black eyes are blotched on this bruised land i, a fearful foreigner, trace?
I'll bury my brain in my book,
somewhat cowardly crook,
I'll see what i saw but take no second look,
like a camel's head in the sand,
I'll timidly tell myself these things are just too hard to understand.

Oh! you've forgotten this familiar voice so soon?
I am the laborer you employed on your snow field
When your frozen farm could not stand
I was he, who brought you loam from my mother's graveyard
The lurking waves are near
I am come knocking the moonlight door
It is me, the Afrikana
Will you open Sir?
Or just look me at the window and chide me once more.

Oh! landlord, you've forgotten this dark child so soon?
I am the tenant you welcomed into your garage
As your kitten took my place in the guest room
I have come with a basket of thorns woven by my people
For a share of what solely belongs to my ancestors
I am come knocking the moonlight door
It is me, the Afrikana
Will you open Sir?
Or just look me at the window
And hide me in your balcony.

It is me, the Afrikana
I am come on mother's last errand
With a golden necklace handsomely beaten from her shackles
I am come with your cross Sir
Knocking, knocking
It is me, the Afrikana
Will you open the moonlight door?

Diamonds and gold coast to coast
oil in the middle
Africa is a **** sandwich
held by mineral encrusted bread
chewed on by capitalists for centuries
who’ve choked on the arid taste before
only to come back for seconds
feeding on scraps and leftovers
using people as napkins to clean their mess
but recently their teeth have started to crack
as globalization creates visibility
the world witnesses the devouring
yet enough people are willing to let them eat
and unwilling to look beyond their **** eating grins.

God Bless The Transkei
And her forgotten offspring
Through the turmoil and adversity
Droughts Stretching Seasons With No End
Her Beautiful Mountains Stand Proud
Home To The Thembu
O Land Of Old And Wealth
May You Long Be Showered With Rains
Forever Your Spirit Rise And Conquer
For You Are The True Beauty Of Africa
Prosper And Grow Transkei Land Of The Pioneers

Dark skinned and gifted,
high on all my ideas and imaginations.
All that keeps me forever lifted.

Brightness in my smile,
ten thousand years of wisdom behind my eyes.
Like the motherland I live in,
dearest mother has birthed a precious child.

Kissed by the African sun,
always dreaming under it's moon.
It dawns on my pride,
as I rest in it's afternoon.

You're worth is the worthy one
you have inside.
Hold onto that,
carry with it your African Pride.

Empty in African terms,
is a "coca cola glass bottle."
Strange to some,
but never strange to us.
I grew up as a child,
riding long journeys in something called a "chicken bus."

I knew about robots,
far before TV screens would show it.
But in African terms,
those robots are just traffic lights.

Green to go,
red to stop.
Amber the colour of chance in between,
and only a few would get what I mean.

I grew up speaking our common slang,
calling things a lot, by using the words "a span"
Making jokes with friends,
calling each other bra, calling another a *****.
"The rents",
meant I was referring to mom and dad of the family.

It's a wonder how I didn't fail English,
with all the made-up words we said.

Playing games in the mud,
by 5 o'clock refusing to bath.
As kids we didn't know much;
or anything close to real love.
The silly games we played on the street was all but enough.

Thinking of it back now,
the scars on my legs tell many a story.
And when I have children of my own, the memories I had,
I hope becomes apart of their African legacy.

Kids under the African sun,
how the simple times of life are long gone.

The field was all he'd known
admiring the flowers
the butterflies
the snakes
they poisoned the field
the snakes.

The river is all he knows
Listening to the hum
of the river's flow
the trash
it polluted the river
the trash.

The field is all he needs
longing for the rich harvest
Of knowledge
the snakes
do not scare him
the snakes.

The river is the one in pain
the fish mourn
their home is dying
the river
it must be cleansed
my river.