Roughly translated to English, “Pa’lante” means “onwards, forwards.” Here, singer Alynda Segarra, who is of Puerto Rican descent, uses it as a rallying cry in the face of cultural assimilation. “Colonized, and hypnotized, be something / Sterilized, dehumanized, be something / Well take your pay / And stay out the way, be something / Ah do your best / But fuck the rest, be something,” she sings on the track. By the second half of the six-minute track, which uses a sample of Pedro Pietri’s 1969 poem “Puerto Rican Obituary,” it transitions into a celebration of culture. This is a voice and a sentiment that needs to be heard in this country now more than ever, and “Pa’lante” is the ideal political anthem of our times.
https://youtu.be/AOL2OkV-TkU
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