Feeling Music

Music has always been an incredibly important part of my life; it has helped me to understand events and emotions that are both personal to me and that effect the world. That was the reason I had decided to begin this blog as a way of sharing my thoughts and feelings about pieces of music, however, with the recent murder of George Floyd I decided that my first post should instead reflect on the emotions and thoughts I have had since the news broke. In order to do this in a way that keeps in fashion with what I want this blog to be I will be relating it to the songs that I have gone to in order to understand my own feelings towards the tragedy and injustice Black people face all over the world till this day.

When I first saw the video of George Floyd being murdered, I felt a pain that I’d never felt before. It was numb and overbearing, I felt like I’d been watching that video my whole life. There was no shock, no surprise, this was the world I had come to know in my 21 years as a black male. A world where the murder of someone based on the colour of their skin is a normal occurrence to black people, a world where the people who are meant to protect us do the very opposite. Just writing this I can feel that pain again, rising in my chest as if the air I breath is not enough. At the time I couldn’t compare this to anything it was a feeling so abstract yet so familiar, and this sentiment remained days until I heard the muted trumpet sing through the muffled backing on Billie Holiday’s ‘Strange Fruit’. The songs melancholy sound replicated the dull aching pain that had troubled me for days after seeing the video. It also spoke to the way in which a video of a black man being savagely murdered was spread around as if someone had discovered some new strange fruit. A strange fruit to the world but one that black people are way too familiar with.

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Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck

For the rain to gather For the wind to suck For the sun to rot For the tree to drop Here is a strange and bitter crop

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Days passed and my mood remained the same, the only thing that had changed was a rising anger at the hopelessness of the situation. All my life I’ve known and lived with this discrimination and nothing has changed. The attention the murder of George Floyd gained from non-black people had also started to anger me. It was if suddenly now my life meant something to them, as if this video now meant that I had the right to walk down the street and not be targeted by the police for the colour of my skin. I struggled to deal with the performativity that some of the support seemed so embedded in. Kano’s ‘Free Years Later’ demonstrates perfectly this mix between anger at the constant discrimination black people have to face and sadness at the results of it. The song so poetically and accurately describes life as a black person in London even though it’s based on Kano’s own personal stories. The melancholic strings that provide the backing and Kano’s delivery which ranges from slow and legato to fast and full of anger demonstrated the war of emotions that I was feeling.

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Babylon boy, look how they raided Stormzy

This is Cristal, not a case of 40's

The don't wanna see us off estates with all these

Young, rich Morley's, still eatin' Morley's

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It was not until Sunday when I attended the protest in Vauxhall that I had finally achieved clarity with my emotions. My anger had focus, I was able to appreciate genuine support from non-black people, there is no other enemy than ignorance and injustice. I have become comfortable with my life being committed to fighting this ignorance and injustice even if it has been forced on to me because of the colour of my skin. My vigour for revolution had been restored after being winded by pain. I found support in the words of Bob Marley on his song ‘War’ which inspired me to see the real enemy and dedicated my energy to the necessary fight which will result in a better world.

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That until there no longer First class and second class citizens of any nation Until the colour of a man's skin Is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes Me say war

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The current treatment of black people by the police and the discrimination faced through institutional racism, is unacceptable and needs to be stopped. There needs to be an acceptance of the wrongdoing of black people at the hands of governments and people a like and a desire to educate oneself on the mistreatment of black people throughout history. I also want to add that this is not just an American problem, the UK is not innocent, Europe is not innocent, Asia is not innocent, Africa is not innocent. This is a global problem and the fight does not end until black people across the world are no longer facing discrimination.