A Jazz Baby Speaks

Will you listen, or let history repeat itself??

When I was born I had a few men considered my Godfathers although neither parent had religion. Two are Archie Shepp and Cecil Taylor. I was bred and born into a movement, one that considers musical expression to be part of Revolution.

I was shown since (before) birth you can’t remove the musician from the music and that your personal beliefs color everything you do as an artist, activist, human being and revolutionary. Free Jazz was about non-adherence to others’ rules, yes, but more than that it was about neither knowing nor caring what rules existed outside of the mind’s eye.

Knowing that the notes played are an amalgamation of nature and science, of what’s Godly and what’s Worldly… This is what we need more in Hip Hop today and *anyone* can spark a revolutionary thought, a nascent artist can light a fire with their music.

It is a revolutionary act to create by any means necessary in a “society” that needs for us all to sit down, shut up and be a cog in a war machine in order for it to continue to exist. Creator you MUST write, sing, rap, play your instruments be they digital or analog.

To give up on your creations is to lay down your arms at a time when we must consider every act self-defense. Please keep licking shots. We never run out of ammo. Stay low, keep firing — not at one another but the common enemy. To quote SADE, Love is a Gun.

NB: I wrote this with a beat tape by August Fanon in my headphones.