Nos Heures De Gloire [English translation]

Come on, sit next to me

I come here to count you my hours1 in the firmament of the stars

Neither in the jails, nor in the courtrooms

Much less breaking the rival teams with a blunderbuss

It's an open book, of my dreams, of my anger, of my memories

Of my trouble, of my screams and of my woes

Life does have its surprises

Me, the sunlight I see it decomposed on prism

Hey d'you remember? Our sangria parties

Without bundles (of money), I couldn't put a foot in front of the other without drinking

The Ham2 at 6 a.m., people climbed the wire fencing

Enemy of the world all of them were the fucking Diaz brothers3

ANPE4, I was used to my line, in me, my faith, my life

Seeing our posters on the city's walls

Between civilian's shoutings, ambulance sirens

Here is a thick bible, of itinerant Hip Hop

And, if we were making fun of the schmucks wearing Santiags5

To shine during the Manjack parties

All is just about image

As the cops come and talk to us just as if they were addressing

Primates, then it goes to bad ping-pong

I'm not a marmoset anymore, like Veust6, I became the King of Kongs

And I'm stepping on their buildings

The pen and the sheet of paper are for them the ultimate fear

Nothing surprises anymore since they murdered Ibrahim7

They want to spill my blood when i say "Bismillah alrahman-i-rahim"8

They treat it as the worst affront

Then they put khaki in our mouths and our faces

camouflage

The pages and then the books, the steps and then the elite

From the grey concrete to the lawns of Iris and Lily9

The luck has turned just like the cylinder barrel.

And the neighbourhood held out the logs and the flames to me just like to Galileo.

Chorus (x2):

Our hours of anger, our hours of bad luck, desert of calm

Our hours of crap, our hours of class

Our hours of love, our hours of hatred, our hours of evil

Youthful mistake here are our hours of glory.

When I first started, I was carrying the sound, on my shoulder for my crew

We lived just for the music, unaware of what we were going to become

We lived day-to-day, and the nights were short

I was 16, and the advices of my mother were ignored

You know, I never knew any pocket money, mate

So, I went and got it into other people's pockets

We protected each other, the best we could, with brawls, with stress

Between beer, "ham" (?) and treasons

Today, I'm proud, of what we've become, less of the past

Tired of feeling the evil that never settled down

Now it's the kickback that comes

But I regret nothing, because I had brothers and not friends

(Chorus x2)

Our footsteps on the slabs, 5 o'clock in the morning, loud party as usual

I can see us again, hands in the pockets, how much we were struggling

Between alcohol and dance, technical Knock-Out, the coming back was fatal

While the people was going to work

We were putting our fingers on the turntable's arms

The quivering pen feeling new styles coming

At the time when the traffic jam was holding the city

We were caressing our sheets of paper until the sleep coming

Ink was flowing freely from midnight to midnight, just out of love

So we didn't eat every midday, pasta or rice it was the party nights

The rest of the time it was döner, mate, white sauce without onions, two cans

Without any dough, okay, but the head full of dreams

Intruders on the scene, wearing a cap was rare

The mouth way too big, to be muted

During the off-peak hours, we went out to bash up skinheads

I remember the day when we took noms de guerre10

That's weird, from that day we promoted the contrary11, yet disturbing

In our verses, our padded ski vests

Ou hearts and our spirits with a mentality of Fat Lace

(Chorus x2)

1. Play on words : in French "compter" (to count) and "conter" (to relate, to tell) are pronounced the same.2. I'm not sure but I suppose it could be the name of an urban district3. Nicholas and Nathan Diaz are two Mixed Martial Artists4. ANPE stands for "Agence Nationale Pour l'Emploi" (National Agency For Employment), a public employment office (now it stills exists but it's called Pôle Emploi)5. Cowboy-looking boots6. French rapper7. Ibrahim Ali, deliberately killed when he was 17 by extreme right-wing billposters, in february 1995, in Marseille8. A recurent sentence in the Qur'an.9. Two flowers that, in French heraldry were symbols of monarchy10. Literally, in French "nom de guerre" means "war name" but, just like in English, it currently means "pen name, alias"11. The contrary of war

• Artist:IAM
• Album:Saison 5