Black Music Month

image courtesy of Google.

“When you say ‘black music,’ understand that you are talking about rock, jazz, R&B, reggae, funk, doo-wop, hip-hop and Motown. Black people created it all. Being Puerto Rican, even salsa music stems back to the Motherland [Africa]. So, in my world, black music means everything. It’s what gives America its swag." Bruno Mars

Though it’s still spring, it feels like summer. I hear the voice of Randall’s father on This is Us telling Randall to roll the windows down, and turn the music up. I’m riding in my car with the windows down listening to the soulful sounds of my satellite radio. I flip back and forth between the Groove and Soul Town singing along to the sound track of my life. Music—especially good music puts you in a wonderful space. There’s a story behind every song; there’s history. So, I nod and sing along as the songs take me back to a simpler place in time.

 

June is Black Music Month and I am going back down memory lane as Gladys, Aretha and Patti, Michael, Marvin, and Stevie—no last names needed speak to me like ghosts from the past. Music is intricately woven into the fabric of my life. And it feels wonderful to wrap myself into something so comforting and familiar. There is no place in my life where music is not.

 Mashed Potatoes is a song before my time, but it is a song deeply embedded in my memory. I heard it growing up. It was one of my mother’s favorites.With a little begging and pleading we could get her to dance the mashed potatoes for us. Before there was steppin’ there was boppin’, and I used to love watching my sister, Linda and my brother, Ray bop in the front room (Living room wasn’t in my lexicon yet). I step, but I never learned to bop. 

Our house was/is a dancing house. If my sister and brother weren’t cuttin’ a rug, we were going down the infamous Soul Train line. Ain’t Gone Bump No Mo with No Big Fat Woman was another house favorite as my nephew Steve bumped with his TT Julie. At any family gathering you can find us dancing to the oldies, wobbling, shuffling, cabbage patching it or perculating. Maybe the family that dances together stays together.

The theme song from Shaft comes on and a smile creeps across my face. When I was young, my sister, Debra choreographed a dance for me and my niece Rhonda and our friends Aviva and Vontella (who we called Bonnie). So many memories flood my mind as I ride along. James Brown, Say it Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud and my first afro. Basement parties at Mendel Catholic Prep when I was in high school. Heart pounding, body sweating as the music goes from fast to slow and the boy I like from around my cousin’s house asks to me to dance to the Commodore’s Zoom.

So, this month I’m enjoying listening to music that is my life.  I’m reminiscing on the contributions that so many artists have made not only to my life, but to the world. President Jimmy Carter initiated June as Black Music Month on June 7, 1979. In 2009, former President Obama renamed it African-American Music Month. In his 2016 proclamation, Obama said that Black music and musicians have been instrumental in helping America “to dance, to express our faith through song, to march against injustice, and to defend our country’s enduring promise of freedom and opportunity for all.” Whatever name you call it Black music is simply American music. It is our story.

Join me in celebrating the contributions of Black music. Music really is is a healing force in the world.

What’s playing on the soundtrack of your life? I’d love to hear about the songs and artists that you love. Leave me a comment and let me know.

Happy Birthday Barbie!

Some of my Barbies

Wow! The icon Barbie doll made her debut 54 years ago today! And like a fine wine, Barbie has definitely gotten better with time! I loved dolls and I grew up with Barbie and her counterparts. I had Barbie, her boyfriend Ken, PJ, her black friend Christie and Christie’s boyfriend Brad. Barbie and Company was an essential part of my childhood.

 I had all types of dolls. I had baby dolls to play Mommy and Barbies to play Grown Up. I had Julia, the African-American nurse from the TV Show Julia's character. Even though the character was a widow, I borrowed my neighbor's GI Joe when Julia needed a date. I entertained myself with  Barbie and friends well into my teen years. And alas, when I had to give her up along came the doll house of doll houses—the Barbie Dream House. Lucky for me I had nieces who had their own share of Barbies.  So, when they got a Barbie Dream House I could play along under the guise of playing with them—wink, wink--much like those of you who are dragging kids to the movies so you can see the remake of the Wizard of Oz. 

I’ve followed the backlash against Barbie--women who refused to let their daughters play with Barbie because of her unrealistic body measurements, and women of color who didn’t allow their daughters playing with white Barbies—all of which is supposedly tied to self-esteem and body image. Then there was the recent Face book campaign to push Mattel to make a bald Barbie to appeal to those young girls have lost their hair to cancer or alopecia. I understand the criticism against Barbie as an adult, but as a child, Barbie was simply Barbie. I played with Barbie and I don't think I suffered any damage to my self-esteem because of my doll play. 

This Barbie-under fire concept is akin to the feminist rejection of girls' infatuation with Princesses, and while I get the ideology behind the not wanting our girls to be damsels in distress waiting for a man to rescue them, I have mixed feelings about it. But I'll save my thoughts on that for another time. Today is about Barbie.

Barbie is no stranger to controversy as it is something that has followed her from the beginning. When she debuted, she was a departure from the baby doll and represented a different kind of woman who didn’t have to settle for being a homemaker and mom. Barbie was single, childless and very much independent. Barbie was and is me. 

Like Barbie, I neither married nor had children. And the substantial sized rack held up by the small back, and the small waistline is definitely me. Over the years, I always wondered why Barbie had everything but a good bra. Sure, she has some cutesy lingerie, but a bra that lifts and separates is not to be found among everything Barbie. But I understand. As a woman who looks like Barbie from the waist up, I know how hard is to find a bra that fits and perhaps that is why Barbie doesn’t have one, but more realistically because unlike me—she doesn’t need one. She is the first of her kind with a boob job, so hey! there you go.

Even now, I still have an affinity for Barbie as evidenced by the collection of Black Barbies fighting for space in my house. And I’m not the only one. There are Barbie dolls for adult collectors with numerous of sights for collectors to buy and sale Barbies. I recently watched a clip of  Barbie Man , a man in Florida who owns more than 2000 Barbies! Barbie has been around for a while, and with so much that comes and goes, it's nice to be able to hold onto a piece of something that marked the innocence of my childhood.

There are  feminists, reading this and shaking their heads. Yes, I am a feminist and I will not turn in my feminist card because there is no one-size fits all brand of feminism. Barbie and feminism represent the complexity of life, and I embrace that. So, Barbie is alright with me. Happy Birthday Barbie!