Si C'Était Le Dernier

I rap, I rap, I rap...

As I approach thirty, I dread fifty,
But only God knows if I’ll make it past twenty.
My future and my dreams are on hold.
Right now, I’ve put my scars in quarantine.
I write this track like it’s the end of my career
I came, I saw, I conquered, then I hit reverse.
If it were my last song, I’d want you to remember
That behind my scars, there was a queen hidden.
Here’s my Mea Culpa, my Mel doesn’t flow, no,
and if the mascara runs, know my heart doesn’t doubt.
I’m whole and passionate, dreaming of passionate love.
And you, my heart SOS, SO do you love me?
I’ve seen the world in all its forms, craving stitches.
Over time, they got to me, yeah, my fucking wounds.
I live on the fringes of this world, since I tasted hell,
It’s dark all around when you’re lost without a lantern.

I knelt down at the end of 2007.
They told me Mel, either you get locked up or buried.
Who would’ve thought, me the warrior took a bullet to the head,
a bullet to my morale,
They say I lost it,
they say I took ten steps toward God since I sank.
They even say I’m doing better since they let me down.
Because that’s how life is:
When everything’s good, you’ve got plenty of friends,
But when you’re down, you hear a voice say: you’re alone, Melanie.
Get up for your mom, at least do it for her.
Get up for your brothers and sisters who love your poems and go:
Woooooyooo, at night in the halls,
woooooyoyoyooo when you sing "little suburban girl."
You hear a voice telling you: fight at least for him.
Maybe he’s the man of your life, maybe the father of your daughter.
Then the voice fades and you collapse.
There are no more MTV awards in the hospital to help you when you drown.

Because I admit it, yeah it’s true, I took a trip to the loony bin,
Where happiness is found in pills or syringes,
Where you’re just a sicko, just a fucking prescription...
At St. Anne, you might cross my ambulance.
I’ve seen shrinks think they’re God,
Claiming to read my heart.
There, where eyes roll back after 9 PM,
Alone in your room, when it’s time to fight, you lose it.
Those fucking meds came to cut my legs out from under me.
Over time, they came to fry my neurons.
Those quack shrinks saw my euros shining.
All liars, all traffickers of hope.
It’s just that I had too big a heart
For a future too illusory.
Take this track as a brick in the face or in the hand.
You won’t stop my crushes with...
Antipsychotics, antidepressants, anti-anti,
No wonder you’re crazy, you’re too nice, nice.

Honestly, I’m like everyone else, half wisdom, half anger.
They told me you’re sick for life,
you’re bipolar.
I believed it like a fool, so I swallowed it,
Saw what calmed my heart, at the bottom of a cup.
My face marked by my demons,
Yeah, I lost it.
It’s crazy how many people love you
When you hit rock bottom.
They’re happy when you collapse
Because suddenly they feel strong.
But when I was making crowds jump,
they were dead.
Yeah, they were dead from jealousy,
So happy that Diam’s is gone.
And even if it were true,
Melanie gets back up.
Today Melanie is flying,
I call it my rebirth.
When my belly is full,
I have a heart full of gratitude.
In the end, it’s always the same, always the real ones who support me,
Those same ones who love me, whether I cry from laughter or pain.
I write this track as if it were the last of my life.
Need to spit what I have to say,
Need to tell you about my crisis.

At this moment, down here, if I swear everything’s fine,
It’s because all the time behind me
You might run into Sébastien.
Let me pay tribute to those who encourage me,
The only ones who can claim to be part of my circle.
One day I changed my phone without telling anyone,
And there I saw those who sought news about me.
Often I tell myself, in your place, what would you have done if you were Diam’s?
Would you have popped the champagne
Or tried to buy yourself some blades?
Would you have enjoyed your fame to snub your audience
Or understood that with your... you could help Africa?
Tell me, what would you have done if you were me?
Would you have blown it all on silk
Or wandered in the dark?
Tell me what you would have done, huh, what would you have done
When for a simple hook,
everyone sues you?
What would you have done? Buy a bigger plasma?
Impossible since I already have a cinema at home.
They’re cute to hear them say you should look like everyone else.
Let me explain, I’m not normal.
You know it, I’m too round.
What would you have done if you were me?
Would you have stopped rapping?
Gotta admit in this business there are few lasting relationships.
What would you have done if it were your last show?
Demand millions of euros?
Or demand, demand, demand:
Wohoooooooooo, that’s what I demand.
Woooyooyoooyooo not just for the audience to cheer me on
But for them to sing with me, our shared pains.
We’re the same, you and I, we turn up the volume.
I can’t hear anything, I’m deaf
When the assholes jabber, when the media drag me
To find out what I’m hiding.
I gave them my pen,
they wanted my hand.
I offered them one, then they got to know my fist.
I’m a rapper, not a singer.
Hey, let’s be clear.
I’m fierce, not lucky,
So I owe you nothing.

I’m nice, I rarely get mad,
but respect yourself and you’ll be respected: my mom told me.
I watch them struggle to get out of the dark.
They don’t know the size of the problems that fame brings you.
A sword of Damocles hanging over your head.
You never get a theme out of success or...
Worse still when you have no brother, no father, and you’re alone
Calming your anger to avoid pulling a gun.
The more I know men, the more I risk going to jail.
So the less I hang out with people, the fewer bruises I count.
I aspire to be an exemplary woman, I admit.
Not that if you hit me, I’d turn the other cheek.
No, I’ve got hot blood, no Caribbean substances.
I just have an ego and a Mediterranean rage.
I’m just the offspring of a hell of a warrior.
I’m the daughter of armor, the grandmother of French rap.
Today I’m at peace so I can help.
Plead guilty if I’ve led anyone into sin.
When I talked about suicide or my troubles,
it’s like I didn’t grasp
why we’re so hell-bent on living.
Yeah, I know what it’s like to be empty.
Just wrinkles, no tears, no laughter,
No rage in the gut, nothing
that can boost you, just... to unblock you.
But your malaise isn’t healed, you’re just high.

Solidarity with the depressed,
Solidarity because no human being on earth
can help you.
Seek peace within yourself.
I know you’d like to be freed,
To be understood when you bleed
And when life has no taste.
You should know that in the hospital, I kind of lost my memory.
So from the past, I only keep what gave me hope.
I understand the world now.
I understand the fools.
In the end, we’ll all have to answer for ourselves.

So I hurry to be a loving girl
Toward the one who carried me for more than 8 months in her belly.
She who suffered martyrdom on the day of delivery
Deserves that I cover her with kisses and diamonds.
Yeah, I hurry to be an adult to help my little sisters.
Even if in the tour bus? I look more like Peter.
I love the speed and the wait, the straightness and the slope
Because I’m the gun and the temple.
I rap because I don’t talk much anymore.
Here’s a big egotrip.
Yeah, here’s my best track.
I took the locomotive in full motion.
Emotive, I took human stupidity in full mouth.
I’m too fragile for this world,
So sometimes I bail.
And if I fall, well I get back up and fight.
There’s no room for the weak, life is a struggle.
You want to become famous,
Know that the life of a star is a bitch.
It’ll suck your money, suck your values,
Distance you from the moon in tasteless VIP parties.
Consider me a traitor,
I infiltrated the system.
Today I’m ready to defend myself only on stage.
And it doesn’t matter if I sell way fewer records.
Yeah, I’m taking the risk of stepping away from this biz.
Yeah, yeah I want to become someone normal
Who walks around without 10,000 flashes in the face.

I’m too simple for them, I don’t like the bling.
You want to know who I kiss? Then get lost!
Let me live easy, let me stay simple.
No need to become famous to stay humble.
Lacking love, I chased recognition.
Then me, the little jewel, I rubbed shoulders with indecency.
I write this track as if I were still at the bottom.
Need to spit my guts, yeah,
Need to tell my battles.
I’m healed, thanks to God I’ve regained my sight.
I perished but I prayed, so I found my pen again.
I who spent 2008 without writing a text,
I found my team and the love of kilometers.
I sank, you’ll understand, so everything explains
The why of my retreat, of my travels in Africa.
Yes, I understood that I had a heart but not just to die,
That over there I had brothers and sisters,
Children to feed.
That all this glory is useful if it can serve
To pull out of the dark all the little ones dreaming of growing up.
My greatest pride isn’t being a resident Frenchwoman
But being the foundation of a project of which I’m president.
It’s now that it starts, now that it turns.
I play a role from Senegal to Cameroon.
In 2009, I toured Algeria, Mali, Morocco, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Tunisia.
I hope that with time we’ll help men
To take care of children from Madagascar to Comoros.
It’s on for life, if God allows.
That girl was dull, she was sad and closed off.
You’ll know more if you check the news online.
Before the Bigup foundation, it was the BigUp Project.

If it were my last album, I’d want people to know
That my audience is volunteering when they buy it off the shelves.
With the people’s money, I want to become a savior.
So if I need to set an example, I’m the first donor.
If it were my last concert, I’d want the stage
To allow me to convey a personal message.
Yes, I’d want my audience to know that I love them,
Lost in my problems, how I feared losing you.
And if it were my last track, I’d want to be remembered
As a girl who dreamed of being a queen beside the king.
If it were my last rant, I’d blame France,
She who will pay for her repression when she loses her children.
If it were my last rhyme, I’d rap like no one else
Because today I prefer to live and give courage to men.
If it were my last night, I’d see my friends,
Would I throw a messed-up party? So they can roast me all night.
If it were my last I love you, I’d say SOS.
Would you find the bottle I threw in the Seine?
If it were my last hug, I’d give it to my mom,
I’d tell her I was okay, that it was just as good without a dad.
If it were my last look, it would aim for the moon,
She who lit my pen, lit my readings.
And if death came to tell me: you have only 20 minutes left,
Well, I’d wish for peace...
And I’d rap for 10 minutes.

I rap, I rap, I rap, I rap...