Happy Birthday brother Mandela! So happy to hear this tribute track from UK hip-hop legend Sway on a day when so many people seem to be focusing on the compromises Mandela made with white South Africa and with the international financial institutions.

Revolution is a multi-generational process. Nelson Mandela moved it forward; our job is to pick up where he left off. Do you really think that his compromises (made to keep the country together) were more significant than his positive contribution?! Sometimes I think the only way for a revolutionary from the Third World to be ‘pure’ enough for Western liberals is to die a glorious death. Yes, Mandela made compromises; in the light of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the aggressive push of the IMF in the 1990s, it’s hardly suprising. But the destruction of legal and political apartheid is a huge step forward, the significance of which should not be downplayed, especially by people who have never experienced being second class citizens in their own countries.

Anyway, once again, big up Sway. Great track.