In the library book display, I also highlighted several others for breaking records and leaving everlasting memories: The Wailers, Peter Tosh, Chuck Berry, Thelonious Monk, Augustus Pablo, The Neville Brothers, Jimi Hendrix, Art Blakey, The Treacherous Three, Whitney Houston,TLC, Tupac, DJ Kool Herc, Chaka Khan, Notorious B.I.G., Miles Davis, Esperanza Spalding, Kool & the Gang, Marvin Gaye, Run-D.M.C., Aretha Franklin, Max Roach, Quincy Jones, Cootie Williams, the wonderful Terence Blanchard, and the list goes on and on and on… One Love!
Black Music Month is undertow, and this year I’d like to salute, brother Bob Marley for his ability to transcend the every day ills directed at people of African descent. I could have just as easily saluted Sun Ra, Yabby You, Augustus Pablo, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, or Nina Simone. They all elevated, with grace, and love, and the desire to be FREEEEEEE! Let’s get liberated in the music. I call it FREEDOM MUSIC. So, I give praise to all the artists who tell their stories, the griots, who loosen and tighten our heart strings with beautiful melodies.
Why we must celebrate:
Most jazz critics have been white American’s, but most important jazz musicians have not been. This might seem a simple enough reality to most people, or at least a reality which can be readily explained in terms of the social and cultural history of American society. And it is obvious why there are only two or three fingers’ worth of Negro critics or writers on jazz … usually the critic’s commitment was first to his appreciation of the music rather than to his understanding of the attitude which produced it. The difference meant that the potential critic of jazz had only to appreciate the music, or what he thought was the music…
Leroi Jones, 1961…
nonetheless,
Although Jones aka Baraka wrote this decades ago, the same can be said about Black music today, we aren’t our own critics! The world we live in has been crafted in such a way that we can’t even own our music, moreover, be the primary critics of our own sounds. We hope for the day when we can have full control over what we produce, and this is why I believe that BLACK Music Month is necessary!!!!!! Our ancestors shouted and hollered in the fields because it was one of the few areas of human expression available to them. In 2015, Black music still evolves. We continue to produce the wonderful sounds of glory, and we get more and more creative as the years go by. Artists like Michael Jackson, Prince, and even Beyonce have battled for the rights to their own music. The fight goes on and the music will live forever!
Orbit 