“Pele” by IKOQWE
Listen to the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdFK7A4c8CU
“Skin”
This marvelously polysemous song is from the album “The Beginning, The Medium, The End And The Infinite” by the Angolan band IKOQWE. The refrain plays with the word “pele” (“skin”), combining it with the word “é” (“is”) to make one new word (which I’ve rendered in English as “skin’s” ) and playing athat off the sound similarity with “apela” (“appeals”/”begs”/”urges”) so that the lead words in the refrain could be “Skin is for…” or “We beg you to…” but is really some combination of the two. Listen to Ikonoklasta (a play on “iconoclast”) playing with sounds and words and the fantastic beat by Batida (whose name is literally “Beat”).
Listen IKOQWE
The skin
Skin, skin, skin, skin, skin
[Refrain]
Skin’s so you can feel
Skin’s so you can touch
IKOQWE begs you
Skin’s so you can learn to love
Skin’s for feeling you
Skin’s for touching you
IKOQWE begs you
Begs you to learn to love
[Verse]
Skin is for feeling, not for seeing
More than hearing, it’s for absorbing
Every crackle, every note produced
Skin is alkaline, it’s magic
Because it cleans you of evil
Cancerous cells
I’m not talking about melanin
Because it’s extracted from animals
And hardened, dried, stretched until it’s thin and tuned
Skin crackles, feet dance and all of a sudden fly
The soul is freed, chest burning, mind out of control
Accept that the trance is enough
Through sound I show the gift
Of people with talent and desire
To change this shit
Even if unconsciously
It’s never inconsequential
Do it whenever you sit down
A raising of the mind
Pow, and you can’t refute it
And despite the continuing insanity
We have the damned censor here
What you do with love cures it
There’s always a bunch of cure
And you can’t refute it
On the tips of your fingers, in the palm of your hand
The fears dissipate when they get closer
It happens naturally without intervention
And those who were different are now brothers
Yeah, those who were different are now our siblings
Yeah, listen
[Refrain]
Skin’s so you can feel
Skin’s so you can touch
IKOQWE begs you
Skin’s so you can learn to love
Skin’s for feeling you
Skin’s for touching you
IKOQWE begs you
Begs you to learn to love
From https://www.folkradio.co.uk/2021/01/ikoqwe-pele-angolan-music/: IKOQWE is a new project by Batida (the Angola-born, Lisbon-raised artist who ranks among the leading exponents of the new wave of African electronic music), and Luaty Beirão, aka Ikonoklasta, the Angolan rapper turned iconic activist. Taking inspiration from old school hip hop and traditional Angolan music, their debut “The Beginning, the Medium, the End and the Infinite” is drum machines, vocals in Angolan slang, Umbundu, Portuguese & English, delving into neocolonialism, iniquities & falsified history, radio sounds and utopian solutions.