B.

Olivia Webb Anthems of Belonging – The Chembo family 2019. Five-channel 4K/HD digital video (still). Courtesy of the artist.

Olivia Webb Anthems of Belonging – The Chembo family 2019. Five-channel 4K/HD digital video (still). Courtesy of the artist.

Hand on My Chest

Anthems of Belonging

The Chembo Family
Zambian/New Zealanders

Hand on My Chest
Composed July 2018 – September 2019
For spoken voice/s, 4 mins

In this anthem, the Chembo family calls us to consider the histories that our many cultural understandings are built upon, and issues of race, class and gender – what are the costs of belonging? What is it that we feel we belong to? And in acknowledging individual and collective pasts, how might we build a better world? This performance eschews melody and song, letting the lyric/text and voice ring out powerfully on its own.

Take some time to try and speak the Chembos’ anthem aloud.

Hand on My Chest

Hand on my chest
May my passion never rest
Life has given me many tests
I pray that this test
Shall not be my last

I pledge my allegiance
My heart beats of allegiance
While I consider my existence
Consider my neighbour’s existence
As I give my pledge

Consider the history
That my sisters have endured
While my brothers have made history

History is what we have become
Let us not make history become our future
Let me learn from my history

I have shamed my sisters
I have shamed my brothers
Due to the colour that has divided my history

I am born of royalty and so am I royalty
My sisters have made history
Let my history not disinform
I have been misinformed
History is what we have become
So my soul informs
I’ve fought for the flag
To the hopes that I’ve been flagged
What’s the idea of my flag?
What’s this flag of peace we preach?
Where’s my peace that been preached?
Flagged for the better things in life
I’ve been here to fight all the strife
For better
Or worse
In sickness
And in health
I have been flagged

My heart has endured all this with might
I have overcome in the heat of the night
I am caged by the morals of the flag
I am freed by the ideals of it
The flag is mirrored in me

Hand on my chest
May my passion never rest

Let me learn

Hand on my chest
May my passion never rest
In this moment of test
I pray with my breath
That I say it with my chest
I am a guardian of peace
I’m not a chess piece
I am just a woman and man of peace
My power transcends the playing piece
Beauty is all I see
In every person there’s a sea
Dive and you shall be free
Hesitate and you never see peace
My journey is to teach
My conclusion is to learn
Power in the tips of my hands
Passion in the blood that runs
Strike at the crux
Is where they combine
No wonder I place my hand
On the source of freedom
Emancipation is my occupation
Muli yesu emo nchetekela