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Sweet Song

from Gold by Iyeoka

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lyrics

Sweet Song


My name is Iyeoka Ivie Okoawo
My father named me after my grandmother
My name means I want to be respected

She does not know her beauty
She thinks her brown skin
Has too many flaws
If she could see her image
In the Unogbo River
Where her mother was born
She would know

But the city holds no clear streams
West side streetlights
Shade the sunsets miracles
And the concrete covers
The soft memory of the earth’s
Unborn seed

Black is the color of her press and burned hair
She thinks her curls are too tight and short
If she could feel her natural birth locks blow
In Arimogijas fresh breeze
On the hill her father once stood
She would know

But the girl does not know her own beauty
She thinks her lips are too thick
If she could hear Benin men
Whisper thoughts across the Atlantic ocean
Praying to touch her heart
To win her for just one kiss
She would know

But She thinks her eyes are dark and troubled
No one told her ebony was the color
Of the universes wings
She thinks her nose is too flat
Her breasts too small, her legs too long
She never learned how to dance you know
Never learned how to run naked
On the banks of a golden pond
Embracing her existence
Guided by the light of a tropical dawn

She forgets her name means
Precious child who harbors the beauty
Of an ocean pearl
She forgets she received
Her soul from her grandmother
Adopted the spirit of her mother
If she could recall
The celebrations they had at her birth
She would know

If I could reach her
She would know
I would make it so there was cause
For her to know
That she is more than a motherless child
Victim of an impressionable fate
Helpless before an inconsistent society's
Interpretation of what beauty stands for

But I cannot reach her
If she chooses to be blind
Only she can choose to see

But the city holds no clear streams
West side streetlights
Shade the sunsets miracles
And the concrete covers the soft memory
Of the earth’s unborn seed

credits

from Gold, released September 23, 2020

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all rights reserved

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Iyeoka Boston, Massachusetts

Nigerian-American recording artist, poet and TED Fellow from Boston, MA. Iyeoka’s powerful vocals melt like better over an eclectic mix of afrobeat, pop, jazz, dance and rock.

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