
These ar the Lyrics from Kanye West new Video. I think Kanye is great, and the most gifted artist I know! Diamonds are forever is a play of of the recent developments of criminality and brutality in Sierra Leone.
The Republic of Sierra Leone is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea on the north and Liberia on the southeast, with the Atlantic Ocean on the southwest. The name Sierra Leone was adapted from the Spanish version: Sierra León, and in turn, from the Portuguese Serra-Leão, which stands for "lioness mountains." It was an important centre of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Much like neighbouring Liberia, it was founded by freed slaves, who in 1791 founded the capital's, Freetown. In 1806, Freetown become a British Protectorate (the remaining country in 1896), reaching independence in 1961. From 1991 to 2002, the country has suffered greatly from a devastating civil war.

Diamonds From Sierra Leone"
[Intro]
Diamonds are forever
They won't leave in the night
Have no fear that they might
Desert me
[Chorus]
Diamonds are forever (forever, forever)
Throw your diamonds in the sky if you feel the vibe
Diamonds are forever (forever, forever, forever)
The Roc is still alive every time I rhyme.
Forever ever? Forever ever? Ever, ever? Ever, ever? Ever, ever? Ever, ever?......
Close your eyes and imagine, feel the magic
Vegas on acid,
Seen through Yves St. Laurent glasses
And I've realized that I've arrived, cuz
It take more than a magazine to kill my Vibe does
he write his own rhymes, so sort of
I think 'em
That mean I forgot better shit than u ever thought up
Damn, is he really that caught up?
I ask if you talkin' bout classics, do my name get brought up?
I remember I couldn't afford a Ford Escort or even a four-track recorder
so its only right that I let the top drop on a drop-top Porsche
- its for yourself that's important
If a stripper named Porscha and u get tips from many men
Then your fat friend her nickname is Minivan
Excuse me,
That's just the Henny, man, I smoke, I drink, I'm supposed to stop I can't because
[Chorus]
Diamonds are forever (forever, forever)
Throw your diamonds in the sky if you feel the vibe
Diamonds are forever (forever, forever, forever)
The Roc is still alive every time I rhyme.
Forever ever? Forever ever? Ever, ever? Ever, ever? Ever, ever? Ever, ever?......
I was sick about awards
Couldn't nobody cure me
Only playa that got robbed but kept all his jewelry
Alicia Keys tried to talk some sense to them
30 minutes later seems there's no convincing them
What more can you ask for?
The international assholes nah
Who complains about what he is owed?
And throw a tantrum like he is 3 years old
You gotta love it though somebody still speaks from his soul
And wouldn't change by the change, or the game, or the fame,
When he came, in the game, he made his own lane
Now all I need is y'all to pronounce my name
Its Kanye - But some of my plaques - they still say Kane
Got family in the D, Kin-folk from Motown
Back in the Chi - them folks ain't from Motown
Life movin' too fast I need to slow down
Girl ain't give me no ass, ya need to go down

Diamonds are forever (forever, forever)
My father Ben said I need Jesus
So he took me to church and let the water wash over my ceaser
Diamonds are forever (forever, forever)
The preacher said we need leaders
Right then my body got still like a paraplegic
You know who you can call you gotta best believe it
The Roc stand tall and you would never believe it
Take your diamonds and throw 'em up like you bulimic
Yea the beat cold but the flow is anemic
After debris settles and the dust get swept off
Big K pick up where young Hov left off
Right when magazines wrote Kanye West off
I dropped my new shit sound like the best of
A&R's lookin' like "pssh we messed up"
Grammy night, damn right, we got dressed up
Bottle after bottle till we got messed up
In the studio, where really though, yea he next up
People askin' me if I'm gon' give my chain back
That'll be the same day I give the game back
You know the next question dog "Yo, where Dame at?"
This track the Indian dance to bring our reign back
"What's up with you and Jay, man, are y'all ok man?"
They pray for the death of our dynasty like Amen
R-r-r-right here stands a-man
With the power to make a diamond with his bare hands...
Diamonds are forever (forever, forever)
Throw your diamonds in the sky if you feel the vibe
Diamonds are forever (forever, forever, forever)
The Roc is still alive every time I rhyme.
Forever ever? Forever ever? Ever, ever? Ever, ever? Ever, ever? Ever, ever?......
Diamonds are forever (forever, forever)
Diamonds are forever (forever, forever, forever)
The Sierra Leone Diamonds
The first Sierra Leonean diamond was found in 1930, and significant production commenced in 1935. Sierra Leonean production is characterized by a high proportion of top-quality gem diamonds. The Star of Sierra Leone, a magnificent 969-carat diamond, was discovered in the Koidu area. By 1937 Sierra Leone was mining one million carats annually, reaching a peak of 2 million carats in 1960. From 1930 to 1998, approximately 55 million carats were mined (officially) in Sierra Leone. At an average price in 1996 dollars of US $270 per carat, the total value is close to US $15 billion.
In 1935, the colonial authorities concluded an agreement with De Beers’ Sierra Leone Selection Trust (SLST), giving the company exclusive mining and prospecting rights over the entire country for 99 years. By 1956, however, there were an estimated 75,000 illicit miners in Kono District - the heart of the diamond area - leading to smuggling on a vast scale, and causing a general breakdown of law and order. The buyers and smugglers at that time were mainly Madingo and Lebanese traders. With the tightening of security between Kono and Freetown in the early 1950s, Lebanese smugglers began moving their goods to Liberia. Antwerp, and then Israeli-based diamond merchants soon noticed the booming diamond trade in Monrovia, and many established offices there. De Beers itself set up a buying office in Monrovia in 1954, in order to keep as much of the trade under its control as possible.
In 1955, the colonial authorities scrapped SLST’s nation-wide monopoly, confining its operations to Yengema and Tongo Field, an area of about 450 square miles. In 1956, they introduced the Alluvial Mining Scheme, under which both mining and buying licenses were granted to indigenous miners. Many of these licenses came to be held by Lebanese traders who had begun to settle in Sierra Leone at the turn of the century.

Siaka Stevens became Prime Minister seven years after independence in 1968. A populist, he quickly turned diamonds and the presence of SLST into a political issue, tacitly encouraging illicit mining, and becoming involved himself in criminal or near-criminal activities. In 1971, Stevens created the National Diamond Mining Company (NDMC) which effectively nationalized SLST. All important decisions were now made by the prime minister and his right hand man, a Lebanese businessman named Jamil Mohammed. From a high of over two million carats in 1970, legitimate diamond exports dropped to 595,000 carats in 1980 and then to only 48,000 in 1988. In 1984, SLST sold its remaining shares to the Precious Metals Mining Company (PMMC), a company controlled by Jamil. Stevens retired in 1985, handing over power to Joseph Momoh, who placed even greater responsibility in the hands of Jamil..
From the late 1970s to the early 1990s, aspects of Lebanon’s civil war were played out in miniature in Sierra Leone. Various Lebanese militia sought financial assistance from their compatriots in Sierra Leone, and the country’s diamonds became an important informal tax base for one faction or the other. This was of great interest to Israel, in part because the leader of the important Amal faction, Nabih Berri, had been born in Sierra Leone and was a boyhood friend of Jamil. Following a failed (and probably phoney) 1987 coup attempt in Sierra Leone, Jamil went into exile, opening the way for a number of Israeli ‘investors’ with close connections to Russian and American crime families, and with ties to the Antwerp diamond trade.[2]

The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel war began in 1991 and soon after, Momoh was replaced by a military government - the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC). Despite the change in government, however, RUF attacks continued. From the outset of the war, Liberia acted as banker, trainer and mentor to the RUF, although the Liberian connection was hardly new. With a negligible diamond potential of its own, Liberia’s dealings in stolen Sierra Leone diamonds have been a major concern to successive Sierra Leone governments since the great diamond rush of the 1950s.
What was different and more sinister after 1991 was the active involvement of official Liberian interests in Sierra Leone’s brutal war - for the purpose of pillage rather than politics. By the end of the 1990s, Liberia had become a major centre for massive diamond-related criminal activity, with connections to guns, drugs and money laundering throughout Africa and considerably further afield. In return for weapons, it provided the RUF with an outlet for diamonds, and has done the same for other diamond producing countries, fueling war and providing a safe haven for organized crime of all sorts.