BEHIND THE SCENES
When we write a song, our process is the key.
When New York’s freshest family hip hop artist Fyütch invited us to write an anthem for JUNETEENTH, we said yes before we could even finish the email. The opportunity to co-write and co-create is an invitation to understanding self, community and connection across genre, age, experience and lifetimes. Yes, lifetimes. In the case of this song, we had to go deep. We had to listen, learn and understand what the holiday was about. Who founded it and why? What does it mean to us right now? What does the concept of freedom mean in our history?
We rapped deep as artists and social justice warriors. Then we meditated on our own, before listening and interviewing scholar Dr. Sherri Mehta to understand the depth of our African American history. In this clip, hear Dr. Mehta ask, when we think about the civil war, WHO is responsible for freeing the enslaved? And the answer is the formerly enslaved. That is collective liberation right there in 1865. The strategy, the love of one another, the vision and the solidarity: we had to bake it into this song, along with the joy and style brought up in this holiday.
So get in on this joy ride. Because our collective vision is unstoppable. And we are in this with you. |
