mi Mandela

mi Mandela - Idris Elba Lyrics

Playing Mr. Mandela, yeah, yeah

So I flew down into Johan'burg, in my favourite jeans

Thinking 'bout his life, while I was learning all my scenes,

And then I sailed onto the island, stepped into his cell,

Night time came, can I really spend the night in jail,

To be Mandela-ah -ah



To be Mandela,

Said to be Mandela-ah -ah,

To be Mandela.



So I drove up to the village,

I had to touch the soil,

All the while, this news to me would make my bold boil,

All the families showed me love, the people wished me well,

The whole town wondering how Mandel could be played by a strung up bell,

To be Mandela- ah -ah,



To be Mandela,

To be Mandela- yeah-yeah

To be Mandela



All I'm try to do is,

Try to move, try to talk like him

Mr. Mandela, Mr. Mandela yeah



I remember was Mandela's birthday

Yeah and erm,

We was on set and we all had to send a video to Mr. Mandela

Then it was my turn

Looked into the camera and said something like

Mr. Mandela, you don't understand

It such an honour and a privilege to be here on the set playing you

On your birthday,

Happy Birthday.

CUT.

Very good, you know the crew was almost in tears

Anyway they took the iPad down to Mandela

He's very ill

And he watched all the videos, from all the different crew members

And when I came up,

He listened to it,

He watched it

And he goes

"Who's that?"

[Laughter]

And they were like ughhhh thats Idris

He' playing Mandela