La Promesse [English translation]

Oh Momma, I’m going to keep my promises better than Obama

Keep my promises better than Joborama

I’ll live up to your sacrifices

In the ring, I’m up to this, squaring up to Iblis [Satan]

I’ll do my best, because here you’re judged on appearances

And in my case, there’s never any ‘case dismissed’

I grew up in the Marseilles estates, where mothers

Talk to their children like Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze

Haram is sure as hell in fashion

Human values going begging, Shaitan taking out protection

Families face the strain with a rope

Yes, we’re heading for a fall with legs like Usain Bolt’s

Believe me, nothing shocks

Since [reality TV star] Loana in the pool, modesty bares its flesh

Our little sisters are learning to twerk with Hannah Montana

Pass me a skin so I can strip off quicker than Rihanna

Or Kim Kardashian, it’s no fun being Gandhi

Being [reality TV star] Nabilla, that’s smart, help me

The sex scandals of our leaders

Chime louder than [right-wing writer] Zemmour’s out of bounds comments

Like [rapper] Youss: talk to me about love before you talk to me about money

About Banksy before Monet

I only paint with the colours I know

Black, White, Arab, red sometimes, when blood has been shed

Green sometimes, purple sometimes

Because, like Kader said, let’s stick with the pay-off from this subject

Money has transformed us into Gollum

Here [TV host] Pascal is not a big brother but a guru

Another lyric which scatters its shots, hoping it hits home

Yeah, waiting to hit home with someone, Momma

Oh Momma

Oh Momma, don’t cry

I’ll get through this

You’ll see, I give you my word on that

Oh Momma

Momma, I’m fighting

I’m going to get through this

That’s my promise

I take up the mike as I see fit for my fits of rage

I don’t claim to be my esteemed colleagues’ guide

But the media talks about the crimes the brothers commit

And I had to get out of crisis to make myself known

Give me a beat, so I can void myself with a seemly theme

Since our careers go quick like a flaring comet

We’re trying to build an empire while our dreams move on

Oh Mama, I won’t lie to you with fine promises

With tears on my cheekbones, I hold Zaire dear

I’ve got some poet friends like Sérigne and Saïd

I’ve got some gimmicks, no more bad-boy tricks

My eloquence is renowned now that France is singing ‘Dreamin’’

I’m ruminating about rapping on loops

Bear in mind angry ewes become more dangerous than wolves

I open with heavy-heavy, see my life in numbers

Purify myself with Zamzam water [from Mecca] not Givenchy perfume

Mom, I’m setting myself free from all these tarantulas

I know my frankness will cause offence

I kill joy like a heathen black

Banned from the scene, I just party in my own dreams

I haven’t got a career plan, I tough life out

Mustn’t look back because the past doesn’t predict the future

I go off like a rocket, I’m still with my homies

It’s not that we were wrong, in fact we were right too soon

These shitty photos won’t make us visionaries

This shitty lottery won’t make us millionnaires

We know the twenty-one grams, the disease

Momma, the euros I earn can’t buy you paradise

This life chats you up, it has no shame

If you fight, you may lose, if you don’t fight, you’ve lost

So I tough it out, too much humour and too many tears

Does life survive into the hereafter?

Oh Momma

Oh Momma, don’t cry

I’ll get through this

You’ll see, I give you my word on that

Oh Momma

Momma, I’m fighting

I’m going to get through this

That’s my promise

I’ve covered the ghettos, from the Northern Zones [of Marseille] to Brooklyn

From Grande Borne to Saint-Denis [either side of Paris], from Guediawaye to Pikine [in Dakar, Senegal]

Poverty as the norm, violence freewheeling

Where helpless laughter is the veil over what makes us suffer

Lack of money, lack of sex, lack of a father

Lack of landmarks, like cruel partners, go hand in hand

Where reading is a waste of time, no one spares your blushes, and

Hope of life and of change have been quashed

Politics sidelines you, shoots you a line, casts the film shoot

If you’re the big man in class or crib, you get bought

Ask [aviation firm] Dassault… thirteen billion euros

We’re not there yet but for a few pirates #BlackSparrow

A few squalls [translated name of the Dassault Rafale fighter plane] of notes shot at the fate of a housing estate

And the laws are as useless as these lyrics

God preserve us… from the Devil and his cohorts

Our faith is just a starter till our funeral rite

Sandwich, kebab, indoor football, nightclub

In search of a recipe to chase this boredom away

Happiness in homeopathic doses

As master in the art of shady dealings, of getting put away, you get into practice

To make up for not having happiness within our reach, we’ll find

Happiness within a roach

Within a bitch, within a bottle

I want to swim in happiness, bring me that bottle

We calm our problems with other problems

To change our plans, we make plans

And, when you scratch the surface, we’d like to change

But there’s that voice saying “You’ve got to eat”

“I’ll take up prayer again when I reach the top”

It’s like waiting till you’re clean to take a shower

Or until you’re a teacher to learn

Or until you’re alone, to love

Does soap wash itself? You need advice?

The truth’s inside you, no one lights the sun

Oh Momma

Oh Momma, don’t cry

I’ll get through this

You’ll see, I give you my word on that

Oh Momma

Momma, I’m fighting

I’m going to get through this

That’s my promise

Oh Momma

Oh Momma, don’t cry

I’ll get through this

You’ll see, I give you my word on that

Oh Momma