Bahia, minha preta [English translation]

Bahia1, my black

How will it be

If your arrow find the right way and arrives there?

And the straight line curve

If it goes beyond that blue black that walls you

The sea, the sea?

Cook this song,

Buy the equipment and know how to use it

Sell your talent and know how to charge, how to make a profit

Insist on what is beautiful

And the world will see

You return laughing to the place

That is yours in the blue globe

Queen of the South Atlantic

Hey! Bahia, mythical fountain, enchanted

Hey! Expand your axé2, hide nothing

Your singing of joy echoes far and wide, in time and space

Queen of the Atlantic

I call you Lady

Opô, Afonjá

Eros, Dona Lina, Agostinho and Edgar

I call you Little Girl of Gantois

Candolina, Marta, Didi, Dodô and Osmar 3

In the romantic vein

Your new world

The world will know

And what is hidden deep within will emerge4

And the Mediterranean and forest voice

Throw far beyond the civilisation now in a boreal tone

Queen of the southern Atlantic

1. 2. Axê is the language of the Yoruba people, a Sub-Saharan African ethnic group from West Africa and mainly parts of Nigeria, Benin, and Togo. The Yorubas constitute around 45 million people in Africa, are a few hundred thousand outside the continent, and bear further representation among members of the African diaspora. The Yorubas dispersed to the western hemisphere between the16th to 19th centuries, notably to Cuba and Brazil 3. All these people's names reflect the multicultural character of Bahia 4. That is, your culture will not remain hidden as some people would wish.