For the last six months a day hasn’t gone by where I did not to re-evaluate every single aspect of life. From who I am, what I do, how I live, what I consume, who I engage with – every single breathing choice. Even in my dreams I have been evaluating and analysing – thoroughly surreal – but I know I’m doing it. Reassessments have been lengthy and lead to more reassessments. As an artist deeply into the practice and methodology of creativity, this way of being is not something new to me. The creative brain is connected to possibility and the ability to reimagine a future and mine had been working in overdrive for most of my life – well before this pandemic. But this has been more. More intense, more defined, starker, simultaneously more connected and disconnected, as if a giant mirror has reflected the realities of the disparities, no longer hidden in cracks and crevices, only to be experienced by those who have to live it, reassessments are now en masse.
This time has been in a state of great flux.
Intersections have come to the forefront in ways that I never thought imaginable – the necessary voices and actions of millions of people calling for the dismantling of colonial systems which have and continue to oppress. If there was ever a time to fight the power it is right now – the foundations are shaking, the colonial hero normative patriarchy is breaking. Can you feel it? They scared AF because this paradigm is shifting. I am so here for this. For the conversations, the strategies, the planning, keep speaking up, the clear and full disruption, the change – it is time. It is coming. It has also been crystal clear where the power is holding on, really trying to keep the status quo, hanging on by still using old messed up carceral means to hold it. We’ve been told that things have to be in a certain way. How quickly change can happen when it is required. If you don’t know, now you know. We are living it.
Then there is the immense physical, emotional and psychological exhaustion. Some days are just really hard. Overwhelming is an understatement. And I have to let myself know – this is the long game. It’s always been a long game. Every moment of everyday has become a revolution in every sense of the word.
Music has always been a connection point for me. I make music, it is part of who I am. This is the soundtrack to my revolution. This playlist spans eras, crosses continents, genres and soundlines. This music is for the days I can fight and for the days that I can’t. For the times I need to tune out and for the times I must tune in. This is for the long game.
Black Lives Matter.
