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Segun Lee French


Country: United Kingdom


www.segunleefrench.com

Biography:

Nigerian-Mancunian Segun is a singer, poet, producer/composer, playwright, film-maker & club promoter, founder member of Manchester’s Speakeasy People poetry collective. As singer for cult triphop band, Earthling, Segun has performed on MTV, BBC1, VH1 & Canal 5. As a poet and playwright, Segun’s work has been commissioned for broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and RadioManchester. Segun's debut solo show, Bro 9 at Contact Theatre, won Best Fringe Performer & Best Design in the prestigious Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards. In autumn 2005, Segun was nominated for the Arts Foundation Performance Poetry award. He is currently writing “Palm Wine & Stout” for the Theatre Writing Partnership & a musical, “Venus & the Killer Bees” commissioned by Contact Theatre, Manchester & Eclipse Theatre. Segun’s first poetry collection, Praise Songs for Aliens was published by Suitcase Press in October 2009

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Fela

Spliff like a log, yr head in a halo,
ancestors hang around yr shoulders
like smoke, a bushman agbada.
Fela! The barbwire heart of Afrika
in skintight gold lame.
No animal wears that skin.
Akuba (Oranyan)
O egungun in straw expanding infinite heads,
unmasking liars & cheats & snakes & crocodiles,
putting the funk into zombies & slave dictators
animals in human skin, animals in human skin 
Run from Fela, run!
He who carries death in his pocket/
who hides smoke in his shit/
who lifts millions in his underpants/
Akuba (Oranyan)
Ride the organ under yr fingers
preaches truth.
Yr sax blurts & farts & screeches truth.
The buzz saw zzzzzzzzzz in yr throat tears lies from the air
& teaches truth.
Phat & fresh green smoking truth.
No animals in yr skin. 
You taught us how to be a man
when all around are beasts of burden,
slaves to the riddim of the petrol
cancan:
dash me something
dash me naira
dash me sterling
dash me contracts I go never complete
you taught us how to say no to a million dollars,
because the spirits told you so.
Akuba (Oranyan)
Sweat balls yr forehead & you stamp
down demons in armoured limousines,
never tire of baiting with yr words.
Yab dem Fela yab dem!
Never sell out! Never a saint!
What use to people a man without sin?
Better yr flawed arrogance,
the flayed beauty of truth,
a goldleaf icon torn & used as roach,
a purple plastic cup with yr face stenciled black
president. 
Akuba (Oranyan)

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