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Oakland rapper, MADlines, teams up with Emmy-nominated producer, Contessa Gayles, to bring you the song/music video: “God Talk feat. Xiomara.”
“God Talk” centers Octavia Butler’s dystopian novel, Parable of the Sower. Like the novel, MADlines spits scripture. “Call the Reverend/I’m taking you to church/Got a soft side when it comes to loving, so just tell me where it hurts,” she raps over a riddim by Blvck Samuri.
Parable of the Sower was published in the 90s, but the story is set in the 2020s. It contains startling premonitions about our current socio-political climate: homelessness, fires, and walls that protect a small elite from the impoverished masses. “Black women are simultaneously highly visible in popular culture, yet muted when it comes to vocalizing the interlocking systems of oppression we experience daily,” says MADlines. “This song is really personal to me. It is about being your own prophet. It is about refusing to settle for less, embracing divinity. It is also a reminder that we must led Black women lead.”
Director, Contessa Gayles, is perhaps best known for The Feminist on Cellblock Y. Her work highlights real people on a mission to change society. And what better backdrop for that than the Oakland landscape.
Gayles had this to say about the process:
“MADlines' repeated lyric, 'I ain't who you came with,' really resonated with me and was the inspiration for the overall themes of metamorphosis and the multiple manifestations of her and of Black womanhood in the video. Collaborating with other Black female creatives to make art that centers and celebrates the full spectrum of our humanity, power, resilience, innocence, vulnerability and divinity is a healing work and an act of resistance in a society in which we were never meant to survive.”
lyrics
MADlines - God Talk feat. Xiomara
Look
Got some things to get off my chest
Thought I should let you know…
Verse 1 – MADlines
Call the Reverend
I’m taking you to church
Got a soft side when it comes to loving
So just tell me where it hurts
Night nurse got you acting out of character
Ego fragile like eggshells
Pray tell, how you gonna bag a woman of my caliber?
You ain’t got the Excalibur, you ain’t got the juice
All you do is lose
Probably break my heart like, “oops”
Black women walk on water
Still, everybody wants some proof
I used to be aloof, now I make moves
Put these voices in my head to good use
Daddy got sliced up it was in the news
Guess I got baggage on my way to Timbuktu
And you seem like a nice guy
But I’d rather watch stars dance in the night sky
Yeah you got potential, but so do I
I’m a fly mamacita
Want my money, ahorita
And you’ll never see me settle
If the truth is I don’t need ya
Chorus
I ain’t who you came with
We don’t speak the same language
I ain’t who you came with
We don’t speak the same language
I’m a deity
the birds envy me
lips is sweet
divinity
I’m a deity
the birds envy me
lips is sweet
divinity
I ain’t who you came with
We don’t speak the same language
I ain’t who you came with
We don’t speak the same language
I’m a deity
the birds envy me
lips is sweet
divinity
I’m a deity
the birds envy me
lips is sweet
divinity
Bridge - XIOMARA
What will you say when you talk with the one who brought you through to commune with the living?
What will you say when you talk with the one who brought you through to commune with the living?
Do you understand her power?
Will you ask to be forgiven?
Do you understand her power?
Will you ask to be forgiven?
Verse 2 – MADlines
Helium to a balloon
Mind like a house of mirrors
Let me take you to the next room
Used to cringe at my reflection
Used to let the evil eye defy
Now I make em go blind to this shine
Got a way with words. I get it from my pops
From the island where we slay vampires and buck shots at bloodclots
They say I’m too hot, got em congregating like gentrifiers at coffee shops
Unruly, don’t get close
Watch me like a movie, but I ain’t playing roles
Pretty used to getting mean mugged
I don’t care if people like me ‘cause the bank does
Fell for clowns, I don’t know where my head was
In the clouds, they wan take me down, wan take me out
Rose on the third day, took a different route
Tongue-tied naysayers
What they talking ‘bout?
That’s blasphemy
Don’t be the last to see
Black woman is God call her Eloheem
Eloheem
Eloheem
Black woman is God call her Eloheem
ya
ya
ya
Chorus
I ain’t who you came with
We don’t speak the same language
I ain’t who you came with
We don’t speak the same language
I’m a deity
the birds envy me
lips is sweet
divinity
I’m a deity
the birds envy me
lips is sweet
divinity
credits
released November 12, 2019
Written by MADlines, Xiomara (@mad.lines, @graceboogie)
Produced by Charles Burchell aka Blvck SAMuRaI (@Blvkbeats)
Engineering and Additional Production by Jeffrey Kolhede
Mastering by Gabriel Shepard (@25thstreetrecording)
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