<h1>Whose Fault Is It</h1>

I wanted to make a film
I did it, I didn't wait for Canal +
I didn't wait for an arts grant
I was tired of seeing the same peopleGrab our stories
So I wrote my own screenplay
That depicts our lives
I didn’t want my hands idle
I counted on my talent
I'm not "a son of"
It's only my determination that has long arms
I had to work twice as hard
As those with half the talent I have
In France it's normal for an African
Do you ask me whose fault is it?
As far as I'm concerned, I wasn't born
To build someone else's dreams
I carry my own victories and failures
I am not a slave
The French state is not my master

However the French state keeps abusing you
And you maybe get by
It's just crumbs
To make you believe that if you failed it's because you're stupid
Because the stone that the builder rejects
Will end up in the window
Only one film by Kery James
Two hundred by shitty yupies
Wow, you did it all alone
You see what I mean all alone
Poverty, how many are below that line
Since the state had the good idea
To get rich off immigrants
To fence them the neighbourhoods
Where the middle class committed suicide

But compare those neighborhoods
To what our parents fled from
The Bois-l'Abbé projects are luxurious
For someone fleeing Haiti
When I see those with more
I remember those with less
As far back as I can remember
I've never seen mom complaining
Do you know where we come from?
Me I did it all alone
Did you understand all alone, huh?
Below the poverty line
The suburbs aren't alone
The countryside is abandoned
The misery is also rural
I know sympathetic whites
For whom life is brutal

The whites suffer too, thanks
I didn't see the news
The slums have worn the yellow vest for twenty years
Nobody gives a damn
France is in denial
A mix of ignorance and contempt
Don't talk about ethnicities
I have uncles who think Africa is a country
I know the neighborhoods seen by those

Who would never set foot there
Who talk about them at every meal
Never dream of going to see the facts
I was raised like: "Don't hang out with those people, you'll get mugged"
Myths and legends on TV
Must integrate without mixing
Trouble without counter-example
The future will be your present
No colonies without consequences
Anti-white racism
So much complacency
Believe me, I know that France.
I'm not saying everybody's bad.
I say that fear and neglect
Make a nasty population

There's racism in France, who are you telling that to?
I wrote "Letter to the Republic"
You, where were you?
We don't change things
By just stating findings
Submit or act
I'll tell you like it is
Life is a question of choice!
Neither left nor right
But if our brothers don't find work
What can they do
Besides starting their own business?
You observe the world cross-eyed, you're naive
You still believe in SOS Racisme
And protests

I'm not naive, I'm betrayed
I no longer believe what I was taught
Equality, homeland
Oh yeah?
Are you the one who choses, start your business
Who's enriched on your credit?
Get in the system or perish
Forget your dreams in City Hall
As long as they talk about elites
They say you can get by if you deserve it
But you deserve to get by
It's just a technique
The state wants to put you to sleep
And play the slum lords
The only model model of success
Theirs based on dough
If they help the youth to become the old like them
You can hit the jackpot.
You won't beat the casino.
At its own game
Pyramid scheme the money rises
The shit stays at the bottom
I'm not saying everybody is on the plot
I'm saying they don't rock the boat

I have brothers who're gone
I don't romanticize les projects
Because I was raised in the weeds
I've seen guys full of vices
Smoking a guy
Which their mother considered to be
Like their own son
A bullet in the head, violent death
Is it the state that pulls the trigger?
As in the northern projects
We end up getting used to it
We never needed the state
To fill our cemeteries

Blundering police
No security nets
Identity control
At the age when you don't know who you are
End up glorifying inglorious things
Growing up in the fire
There are more obstacles
And they are more dangerous
Play with your life
Drug trafficking to "sons of"
Locked up so they can escape to a party
You're just a pawn in their little game
The politicians, only glory motivates them
How can we believe otherwise when the presidents ----
Showbiz chicks

In showbiz
How many slum kid millionaires
Who struck the word "solidarity" from their dictionary?
We've made some cash
Huh, how much?
How many entrepreneurs?
How many stars have the slums produced?
But success makes them amnesiacs
The fear of losing what they think they own, paraplegics
How many?
How many dares to protest?
How many dare to face them when they tar us in their newspapers?
Whose fault is it?
I don't try to deny the problems
But I don't count on the State, me.
I count on us
Whose fault is it?
That question belongs to the past
I have only one question
What are we doing?!

  

Kery James, Orelsan

Translated by Pabellón de Palabras*

*We respected the most as possible the english subtitles of the video

Link to the song with English and French subtitles:

Whose Fault Is It?