Riz Ahmed - Where You From Lyrics

They ever ask you "Where you from?"
Like, "Where you really from?"
The question seems simple but the answer's kinda long
I could tell 'em Wembley but I don't think that's what they want
But I don't wanna tell 'em more 'cause anything I say is wrong

Britain's where I'm born and I love a cup of tea and that
But tea ain't from Britain, it's from where my DNA is at
And where my genes are from
That's where they make my jeans and that
Then send them over to NYC, that's where they stack the P's and that

Skinheads meant I never really liked the British flag
And I only got the shits when I went back to Pak
And my ancestors' Indian but India was not for us
My people built the West, we even gave the skinheads swastikas

Now everybody everywhere want their country back
If you want me back to where I'm from then bruv I need a map
Or if everyone just gets their shit back then that's bless for us
You only built a piece of this place bruv, the rest was us

Maybe I'm from everywhere and nowhere
No man's land, between the trenches
Nothing grows there
But it's fertilised by the brown bodies
Fought for you in the war
So when I spit a poppy grows there

Yeah I make my own space in this business of Britishness
Your question's just limiting, it's based on appearances

Stop trying to make a box for us
I'll make my own and bruck your poxy concept of us
Very few fit these labels so I'm repping for the rest of us
Who know that there's no place like home and that stretches us
Who code switch so don't piss me off for a cricket test for us
Or question us about our loyalty, our blood and sweat's enough

Born under a sun you made too hot for us
Kidnapped by empire and diaspora fostered us
Raised by bhangra, garage and halal southern fried chicken shops
A junglist and jungly
I'm Mowgli from the Jungle Book, I'm John Barnes in the box
I blaze hard after mosque
I bend words like brown and west until they just spell what

My tribe is a quest to a land that was lost to us
And its name is dignity
So where I'm from is not your problem bruv