Demolition Key

[Verse 1]
On the Third Mainland Bridge, last Tuesday, past three
The lagoon water black, staring back at me
Got this new set of keys, they don't fit the old door
So I'm asking you, Lagos, what the hell are they for?
This scaffolding I'm climbing, it scrapes at the sky
But I feel a stress fracture every time a danfo drives by.

[Chorus]
Oya, Lagos, hear my prayer
If I tear this memory down
Does the old foundation stay there?
With this demolition key I found?

[Verse 2]
I still hear my father, clear as a bell
“'A man's name is the first block he lays, build it well.'"
My own name is a sound now, on the radio wave
A blueprint he crumpled, a ghost I can't save.
The air still tastes of suya smoke on the harmattan wind
But I'm changing the locks on the house I grew up in.

[Chorus]
Oya, Lagos, hear my prayer
If I tear this memory down
Does the old foundation stay there?
With this demolition key I found?

[Bridge]
Is it a sin to unwire a room just to see in the dark?
To knock down a wall just to make a new mark?

[Outro]
Demolition key...
Make I build again...
Oya...