An Editorial Review On Pronunciation

I felt my name slip off his tongue Before he even thought to consider Whether to pronounce it Ashanti Asante or Asanti Oh Queen Nanny, let them be Pitch black warriors made night their playground and pounced on trespassers How long boat rides led to new languages of blackness Afrocentric heroes making mockery out of zeroes with puffed up chests I guess I must tell him its spelt Asante Choice pronunciation of Ashanti, my father had his way There are warriors with spears etched out in my name So remember this phoneme correctly Not for the sake of me I do no regret this happening If it means I must teach myself again About tall trees in mountains And hidden languages in Acompong Maroons I remember how my father referred to his skin in escape of midnight, unseen and out of sight Burn down these buildings and leave traces of nothingness That’s what we do People of the blue mountains and mango season Die bare back as we came in Never looking back at those small things A S A N T E Protect and preserve this thing here Great Golden stool, I have you Asantewaa can’t fight for me She’s been conquered But I am here in the essence of new beginnings And they can’t steal this empire Osei Tutu now crowns me with these words This is my kingdom set in proverbs Great in spirit I guess that’s why I've always been hot tempered You can't rename me now No Saul to Paul or Jacob to Israel It's meant this way I have to live up to those brutal conquest and lead brigades to free the souls of a beaten down distinction Asante or Ashanti If you know your history I used to trip up on the slip up Of mispronunciation They saw something in the water Intricately braided hair and rage beating down freedom out of clouds Spirit of fighters never forsook my tongue Now I fight with things like cold stares and pens Markers, paper, cell phone, notepads Times new roman font in unsaved documents recovered I feel a bit of shame as I remember middle school Seventh grade I decided to give up and let them name me I didn’t want to explain the accent on the e How I put it there for flare Kromanti languages losing power on my position couldn’t find me overseas Now I pipe up to them 'speak correctly' to buy back years of Africa's lost history It’s me now behind fogs Standing invisible amidst nothingness I go back and am back to the position and election of my name A S A N T E Asante or Ashanti Don’t forget the accent on the e