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