African American Music Month

This is from the book “Revolutionaries Daily Thoughts” By: Mwalimu K. Baruti

“We must remember that music has always served a positive culturally enhancing function for Afrikans. Throughout ourstory, it called us to preform ritual, festival and ceremony, to celebrate our rites and gather at our holy places to confirm and rejuvenate any neglected connection with our Ancestors, guardian deities and the Creator. It summoned us to village meetings to decide disagreements between individuals. When necessary, it even called us as a community into war with others. We must remember that drums have always been at the center of our music. As the heart, they beat out the time that regulates the pulse of our constant movement toward equilibrium and perfection in spite of the disorder created around us by incomplete beings. The vibrations that their music gives off nurtures the communion of our community. They marked cadence during the marches those who broke from their enslavement made from town to town after victorious revolts. They rolled down from our Maroon, Quilombo and outlier strongholds announcing coming war and retaliation they speak of universal rhythm, of balance, of justice, of order. We have never given them up because we know their power.”



I read this and it really moved me, we as a people have to understand where we were TAKEN from. Everything has history, and meaning, purpose. Drums were more than just beats to shake our ass to, and when I think about the music we listen to now, the current mainstream is has strayed so far from where it originated from.

What message is our music sending to our people?

What is the purpose?

What have we done with the power of the drum?

Where is the nurturing of our community?

Nurture means to care for encourage the growth and development of…

Communion is the sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings, esp. when the exchange is on a mental or spiritual level.

Where is this, in the music that we as a people embrace? What are we developing and growing? Where are our spiritual mental thoughts and connections?

In this new journey I am on, I am beginning to see things in a different light, perhaps these things are nothing new, but they are being developed and growing. We have to get back to the basics. I have more facts and things to share later on, but this is something I felt compelled to put out here in the world, or at least this part of it. I encourage you to think about this, your own personal reflection.

Affirm: I listen to the words of the drum (Also from the book)
#PEACE
MVP