The Citizen of the World

You fit say I dey onyinbo; make I go
Chop onyinbo things wey I don like?
Oga, which kind nonsense be this?
Na you dey do shakara. Okay,
Make I say I dey be onyinbo.

My friends,
Do I not love the lushest greens
Of the Irish fields?
The land of which I have been born and raise:
Roghnaíodh mé i gContae Chiarraí
Agus d’fhás mé suas sa cheantar sin.
But you say:
‘You foreign boy, what is that
Pounded yam, and that bobolo you eat.

Bamileke woman, can you not speak
Banganté?
Village woman, do you not
Speak Batié?
Instead of Makossa there is Burna.
Instead of Bikutsi there is Davido.
Instead of Ben Skin there is Rema.

Speak too, my brothers
The tunes where
For how many decades they've chanted to.
But I do not hear you singing.
Ah-ah!, Où est ton orchestre avec
Les Baka Gbiné Yelli?
Parce que maintenant , tout ce que j'entends,
C’est la mort de la culture.

The day that I wash myself clean, I will be Irish;
The day that I am born from among my ancestors,
I will be Cameroonian.
To a thousand languages,
And to a thousand different cultures I have been rejected.
Let me remain, as I have always been;
This you can’t take away:
I am a citizen of the world.