Why I Wrote "Golden"

Listen to “Golden” here:
https://RedHouseRecords.lnk.to/GoldenWE

It seems like only yesterday but it was 2011 when Nikky Finney was accepting her National Book Award for her book “Head Off & Slit”. In her speech she said something that got to my core. She said, “One of the things I always thought about when I was very, very young and dreaming of being a poet was, 'Is it possible to write something absolutely beautiful about something absolutely heartbreaking or absolutely difficult or painful?'"

In that regard, This song feels to me one of my many attempts to say the difficult things beautifully. I began writing the tune a few weeks back before George Floyd’s life was taken. So the wind was about, so to speak. Amid this Uprising with smoke looming in the air over this whole city miles away my sweet and talented nephew was on his way home in Harlem and was beat up by the police.

My breaking point, my boiling over.

This collective trauma that black, indigenous, immigrant, and queer/trans folk feel is real. It’s every god damn day. Yet, we still thrive and flourish in our natural beauty, we still have swag and songs for days. We still have wild and wondrous imaginations like we are all the children of Octavia [Butler].

I went into my garage studio on June 2nd at noon and came out at 8pm having written and recorded the entire song on my iPad. It felt electric. It felt like a griot was singing the whole tune in my ear. And I was just trying to keep up. This is for me, my people, and the UPRISING to defund police here in Minneapolis and thereby set a new standard for how communities want to be protected.

#BlackLivesMatter