by (DEE)DEE REDD
blue note no. 14
these notes to be played in the key of
freedom. let this not be understood
as empty gesture, no proclamation—
this is a re-sounding,
a declaration of being,
a contest against abjection, for totality,
a sensual dance, extended
mix of the original song,
modernity’s moaning spectres:
Black liberation struggles 12″ LP.
let these notes carry us to dawn,
turn them over, play them back
would you, please? let these notes touch
with tenderness of a lover, caressin’
you on the floor prayin’—
please, don’t let this song stop no time
blue note no. 20
I dream an end to silences that kill. I dream a slave song, a freedom anthem, voices ancient yet alive, lifting my life, yours, to new visions of liberation.
Essex Hemphill
i have lived many silent lives—
they remind me always
of their im/possibility. in search for
a name that matches this way of being: quiet deaths.
where is the Black freedom
song that does not drown me
out. hear, here’s a tune for us: of foremothers
in suit and tie, of forefathers in mink stoles &
silk, sequined dresses, of forebears in whatever freed the day:
the blues the world forgot
blue note no. 13
there is a world on the other side of
this rupture, on the other side of
this riff. this rupture
comes accompanied by a sound,
a music mapped across waters,
sewn into soil, nourished by
spirituals, field hollers, slave seculars
hidden praise—a music, drenched
in blood, suspended in air, bound
mouth muzzled, jaw locked a-
a music emergent, rising up from
these sonic predecessors, antecedents
the tune of improper suturing, sung
by those still living in the open wound,
as rupture through the riff—a music
for sealing the wound from the inside
on the other side that other world.
here again a return, not in time
not in place, in tune.
blue note no. 11
devil’s music, hymn of hell-raisers,
ode to deviants, the damned,
neither man, nor of man, be-
fore man—paradise not lost,
paradise born of me. sing
the underworld Blues as conception
song, sanctify me at a Blues altar,
call upon the sirens to welcome me
to the otherside. welcome me home;
allow me to sound this freedom
blue note no. 1
and still, i dream of flight—
a place beyond here: where
Black met Blue, let out a sound
that beckons, that draws on
conceived of a register otherwise
from a place where freedom rings
unknown outside these notes.
at the origins of this song
a road map to the world
on the other side of this
one where Black ain’t negation.
this is the other end of the riff
where the Blues find its end
a new beginning