No. 33 - Recycle this beat

On my playlist titled "Lovely," a list I must have put together back in 2010 or 2011, when I was crooning away to songs like "Probably for Lovers" by Just a Band, or "I Am One" by Chrisette Michele, or even "Crown" by Emile Sandé, there is also on this playlist a song by the underground rap artist known as, Immortal Technique. The song, titled "One," is a remix where artist Akir opens with this line: "One enterprises comprises the artist and the sound, the pen and paper plays my savior as I get down."

If I recall correctly, it was one of my brothers who shared the song with me. We come from a very musical household, and not just a musical household but a rather loud music household. I cannot forget every time we played my mother's playlist with her oldies, or when she got into the artist, Lupe Fiasco, that she turnt her music UP. We played music to the point where we could hear the bass in our bodies, which is not the way everyone plays or listens or receives music, but that's just the way we did.

So, I tend to come back to this song every now and then, both the playlist and the song. The playlist sends a wave of nostalgia, but the song tends to come back when I think of people putting names and words in their mouth that don't have no place being there, and of course, I think of a moment in the song where Immortal Technique sings of political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.

You see, in this song, Immortal Technique comes out and says very clearly as he closes: "When I'm gone, don't let nobody I never got along with try to make songs kissing my ass recycling my beats & my vocals. This shit is real out here."

Comparatively, Kendrick Lamar, in his record "Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst," does not necessarily break this boundary set by Technique, as he is singing about people that he knows, people with whom he is friends. But there's a notion of not singing about me if I don't know you, keep my name out of your mouth that does appear across other artists.

Lamar does or did choose to tell someone's story that was later upset with him for doing so in the form of a song. The character in question was a woman called Keisha, who first appears on the record "Keisha's Song" on Lamar's album "Section.80." The song is a piece about her, a sex worker, a beautiful woman, “her anatomy…God's temple,” who succumbs to assault and later death.

Though not closely related, both of these songs speak to this notion of when and where to sing about someone, or write about someone after their death. Immortal Technique's record "One" is definitely explicitly political, speaking to ‘living the revolution’… "before we catch one in the brain," but there is a notion in “One, as well, of coming back to life, to "wipe the chessboard clean of my enemy’s pawns." Writing for the “illest MCs that will never be known, for the soldiers that will never come home," Immortal Technique offers a tome, repping for “all the niggaz ain’t here right now.”

Lamar does a similar thing, writing for someone, a friend who dies but has a story to tell, a friend who wants this story told, and hopes that Lamar does tell it. In that same song, "Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst," the sex worker's sister takes issue with Lamar including her sister’s story, letting the world know her business. So Lamar juxtaposes this idea of whether to sing about someone's story and whether to not, even though he winds up doing both; he sings both stories.

Revealing in an MTV interview from 2012 that both stories referenced in his song were true, Lamar seems to tell the stories as cautionary tales, as a way, as he says in "Keisha's Song," to amplify to young people, to all of us against activities that do not ultimately serve our better being. Sitting his eleven-year old sister down on the day he wrote the song, ” I looked her right in the face…and press play."

For me, these songs remind me of a message I shared, in part, yesterday: that we ensure that the work we're doing, the art we're making, and the lives we're living are truly landing for ourselves, for our audiences, and for our communities.

Particularly in the making of something, be it a chair, a table, a song, or a poem, how do we think of it as a mode of transporation, a mode of communicating, of utility or of service in our worlds? Lamar doesn't put out "Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst," necessarily just for himself; he is extending the life of a friend, two friends, that have now been stamped in history.

In telling their stories, he has made them immortal. And, even Technique speaks to this idea of doing the music for those who may not get a chance to do so, returning as a “spirit of return in heavenly form”, doing the work of revolution.

If we are doing the work, not just for ourselves, but for those on the other side, mustn’t we take heed, in the best of our work, that we ensure arrival, a safe arrival of the essence, the good, the tool of / and within the crafted piece.

I've been thinking, and I might have said this in another post, about how to be better about contextualizing my work within the piece that is being shared. By this, I mean how do I bring the audience into the work, or how do I make sure that the work is getting to where it needs to be, where it needs to go?

This is a message that came up in a panel led by Dr. Latorial Faison at Furious Flower this year. Poet Hermine Pinson, and I’ll close with this, shares a note by Sonia Sanchez, paraphrased here, ‘When you get it out to an audience, that is, get your poem out to an audience, it has got to be there,’ magic ready.

Referenced Songs:

Kendrick Lamar: Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst

Immortal Technique: One Ft. Akir (Remix)