[Intro]
Snow on the window, dust on the photograph,
Two homes in one chest and the road cut in half.
Ubangiji… hold the ones we couldn't hold.
The story behind the track
THE CONCEPT
Written by Funk_Doc_Meth in his 40s during a -30°C winter freeze in Ontario. The track acts as a sonic bridge between his reality as a first-generation immigrant driving survival shifts in Canada, and his grief over the insurgency and banditry impacting Southern Kaduna and Plateau State, Nigeria. It balances a deep mourning for the fallen with a resilient, unyielding call for peace and heavenly focus.
SONIC PROFILE
- Instrumentals
- Bouncy, heavy 90s East Coast hip-hop beat blended with traditional gangan talking drums and church triangles.
- Vocals
- Deep, mellow American accent over sampled, tape-warped Hausa church melodies.
Lyrics
THE FULL SHEET
[Verse 1 — The Freeze]
Minus thirty on the dash, engine coughing at four,
Second shift in a coat that a first winter wore.
Forty in a country that still calls me new,
Praying in a language that the frost never knew.
Mama on the line saying, 'son, don't come home,'
The road to the village is a gun and a phone.
So I fold the grief up and I stack it with the rent,
And I hum what the choir in the hillside meant.
[Chorus — Hausa]
Ubangiji ne babban gungunmu,
Ba za mu ji tsoro ba.
Tafiya zuwa ɗaukaka,
Muna tafiya zuwa sama.
The Lord is our great fortress, We will never be afraid. The journey is toward glory, We are marching to heaven.
[Verse 2 — Southern Kaduna]
They burned the harvest season down to the stalk,
Plateau kept the silence where the market used to talk.
Names I learned in Sunday clothes are names on a stone,
And the grandmothers still singing with their voices alone.
Vengeance is a landlord, it takes everything you own,
'Be still,' says the Book, 'the battle ain't your own.'
So I write it as a hymn and I keep the drum low,
Peace ain't soft — peace is the hardest road I know.
[Verse 3 — The Bridge Between]
Gangan in the left ear, snare in the right,
Church triangle ringing through the Ontario night.
Tape hiss carry voices from six thousand miles,
Zumunta Mata harmony survives the exile.
I'm a first-generation ghost in a warehouse coat,
Every dollar that I mail is a rope, not a boat.
But the Word says the fortress ain't made out of stone,
It's the name that we call when we're farthest from home.
[Verse 4 — Heavenly Focus]
Tell the young ones the story but don't teach them the hate,
A machete-shaped memory will hollow out a state.
Build the school, mend the fence, bury softly, forgive slow,
Keep the eyes above the smoke where the clean winds blow.
I'll be old with these winters, I'll be grey with this grace,
Still calling on the fortress with the frost on my face.
And when the last shift is over and the ledger is clear,
The choir gon' meet me and the road disappear.
[Outro]
Muna tafiya zuwa sama…
Snow on the window. Dust on the photograph.
Ubangiji.