Brother's Keeper

Album: Songversation (2013)
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Songfacts®:

  • This track from Songversation finds an empowered India.Arie singing of nourishing the men in her life with her love. "It's been my joy to sing songs with empowerment themes all my career, SongVersation is the same, maybe even more so," India told Billboard magazine. "This song, 'Brothers Keeper,' is about us as women, supporting the men in our lives; sons, brothers, husbands, lovers, nephews, friends - in that way, that only a woman can."
  • India sings on the hook:

    "Am I my brother's keeper?
    Yes I am
    Am I the one teach him?
    Yes I am
    Am I the one to reach him?
    Yes I can
    Am I my brother's keeper?
    Yes I am."

    The phrase "Am I my brother's keeper?" comes from the book of Genesis 4 v9 in the Bible. It is Cain's rhetorical question to God, following his murder of his brother Abel, after God asked him where his brother was. However, rather than resenting any responsibility for her siblings and other menfolk, India is happy to be a support for them.

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