Come on, sit next to me
I come here to count you my hours1 in the firmament of the stars
Neither in the jails, nor in the courtrooms
Much less breaking the rival teams with a blunderbuss
It's an open book, of my dreams, of my anger, of my memories
Of my trouble, of my screams and of my woes
Life does have its surprises
Me, the sunlight I see it decomposed on prism
Hey d'you remember? Our sangria parties
Without bundles (of money), I couldn't put a foot in front of the other without drinking
The Ham2 at 6 a.m., people climbed the wire fencing
Enemy of the world all of them were the fucking Diaz brothers3
ANPE4, I was used to my line, in me, my faith, my life
Seeing our posters on the city's walls
Between civilian's shoutings, ambulance sirens
Here is a thick bible, of itinerant Hip Hop
And, if we were making fun of the schmucks wearing Santiags5
To shine during the Manjack parties
All is just about image
As the cops come and talk to us just as if they were addressing
Primates, then it goes to bad ping-pong
I'm not a marmoset anymore, like Veust6, I became the King of Kongs
And I'm stepping on their buildings
The pen and the sheet of paper are for them the ultimate fear
Nothing surprises anymore since they murdered Ibrahim7
They want to spill my blood when i say "Bismillah alrahman-i-rahim"8
They treat it as the worst affront
Then they put khaki in our mouths and our faces
camouflage
The pages and then the books, the steps and then the elite
From the grey concrete to the lawns of Iris and Lily9
The luck has turned just like the cylinder barrel.
And the neighbourhood held out the logs and the flames to me just like to Galileo.
Chorus (x2):
Our hours of anger, our hours of bad luck, desert of calm
Our hours of crap, our hours of class
Our hours of love, our hours of hatred, our hours of evil
Youthful mistake here are our hours of glory.
When I first started, I was carrying the sound, on my shoulder for my crew
We lived just for the music, unaware of what we were going to become
We lived day-to-day, and the nights were short
I was 16, and the advices of my mother were ignored
You know, I never knew any pocket money, mate
So, I went and got it into other people's pockets
We protected each other, the best we could, with brawls, with stress
Between beer, "ham" (?) and treasons
Today, I'm proud, of what we've become, less of the past
Tired of feeling the evil that never settled down
Now it's the kickback that comes
But I regret nothing, because I had brothers and not friends
(Chorus x2)
Our footsteps on the slabs, 5 o'clock in the morning, loud party as usual
I can see us again, hands in the pockets, how much we were struggling
Between alcohol and dance, technical Knock-Out, the coming back was fatal
While the people was going to work
We were putting our fingers on the turntable's arms
The quivering pen feeling new styles coming
At the time when the traffic jam was holding the city
We were caressing our sheets of paper until the sleep coming
Ink was flowing freely from midnight to midnight, just out of love
So we didn't eat every midday, pasta or rice it was the party nights
The rest of the time it was döner, mate, white sauce without onions, two cans
Without any dough, okay, but the head full of dreams
Intruders on the scene, wearing a cap was rare
The mouth way too big, to be muted
During the off-peak hours, we went out to bash up skinheads
I remember the day when we took noms de guerre10
That's weird, from that day we promoted the contrary11, yet disturbing
In our verses, our padded ski vests
Ou hearts and our spirits with a mentality of Fat Lace
(Chorus x2)
1. Play on words : in French "compter" (to count) and "conter" (to relate, to tell) are pronounced the same.2. I'm not sure but I suppose it could be the name of an urban district3. Nicholas and Nathan Diaz are two Mixed Martial Artists4. ANPE stands for "Agence Nationale Pour l'Emploi" (National Agency For Employment), a public employment office (now it stills exists but it's called Pôle Emploi)5. Cowboy-looking boots6. French rapper7. Ibrahim Ali, deliberately killed when he was 17 by extreme right-wing billposters, in february 1995, in Marseille8. A recurent sentence in the Qur'an.9. Two flowers that, in French heraldry were symbols of monarchy10. Literally, in French "nom de guerre" means "war name" but, just like in English, it currently means "pen name, alias"11. The contrary of war