http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2lS283bmKM
Above is a link to one of my favorite songs, "We Are One" by Frankie Beverly and Maze. While riding in the car yesterday afternoon, I was flipping through the radio stations and I stopped on the Michael Baisden show. I don't listen to that show often but they were discussing the current crisis in Haiti and in dedication to our brothers and sisters there he played this song, "We Are One." The song in itself is a beautifully composed song but when I listened to the words and listened to them in light of the crisis in Haiti, I began to get emotional. The words "we are one" that all of us-humanity, nature, and all of creation-are ONE.
This also caused me to think about the power of music and its ability to bringing healing and hope in times of crisis. Music has had an unique ability to speak to the various social ills and calamities of the time. From Marvin Gaye's classic album What's Going On to the reggae freedom songs of Bob Marley ("Redemption Song" & "Exodus") to the revolutionary music of Public Enemy and NWA, music has played an instrumental role in mobilizing the people to create change in this world.
What I am sad to say is that there is not a SUFFICIENT amount of substantive music available in the 21st century. Music has been reduced to a tight beat with a tight hook with malnourishing lyrics. When I think back on Marvin Gaye using a whole album to address the ills of his time or when I think about the spirituals and slave songs that got our people through the ills of slavery and Jim and Jane Crow, it reminds how music was not used solely for financial gain but for communal survival. When I listen to the radio, I hear the same playlist which spout nothing but obscenities and demeaning and destructive words. It's one thing to paint your life story but it's another NOT to use this creative freedom responsibly.
I guess my question is what kind of inspiration is music providing in the 21st century, in particular hip-hop music. Is our music inspiring our children to pursue greatness or just to simply "wake up in the morning 10 o'clock drinking" #imjustsaying. I AM guilty burying myself in tight beats and tight hooks and malnourishing lyrics. However, it is time for me and all of us to Detox (will Dr. Dre ever put out that album lol). I challenge my artists, my rappers, my singers, my producers to pursue greatness in your music and not money. Make timeless music that will have impact and carry influence over ages. Make music that will have meaning 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now.
Don't sell the integrity, soul, and life giving and sustaining power of the music for money. To paraphrase a passage from the biblical text, "What does it profit a man or woman to gain the world and lose his or her soul." Or let me rephrase it this way, what does it profit artists to make a dollar while killing and damaging the souls of their brothers and sisters.
Let our music inspire and uplift instead of damage and degrade.
God Bless,
Rev
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