I had meetings all week. I spent time going from phone call to phone call without much of a breath. Pitching, talking, and discussing organizational plans for an upcoming media summit on Columbia College Chicago's campus, I didn't have time to eat much, didn't have time to drink much, didn't have time to think and reflect much either.The days blurred. What I did Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and even Thursday I couldn't remember but I knew I did something. I could feel it in my mind and body that I had done quite a lot. I was working my fool head off to break down barriers, to get rid of divides that were making it difficult to organize on my campus.
Thursday night was my opportunity to bring this screeching train to a halt. It was my chance to think about art in a way that I had not done for a long time.
At Stage Two on Columbia's campus, I lined up for a seat to see the great sociopolitical musician and lyrical poet Gil Scott-Heron. With a new CD out, reports indicated that Heron had become rejuvenated with energy and a renewed desire to perform.
The energy was palpable. I sat in a room that could seat about 200 people waiting for Gil to come out on stage. Scheduled to go on at 7 pm, it was getting late.
Who knows how many people thought Gil wasn't going to come out--that he wasn't going to show up. I never thought he wouldn't show up. And at 7:20, Gil Scott-Heron's presence filled the room.
His voice, its deepness, reverberated throughout the room. He spoke and essentially did stand-up comedy for a good half hour. Joking about how he was getting behind a new cause called Give Back February (GBF), he led people through good-natured jokes about how black people want to get another month other than February to be Black History Month (or if you go to Columbia College, African Heritage Month).
After time spent playing with language and making an audience of many generations laugh, he sat down at the keyboard. The microphone was pulled down. And, the keyboard began to give off a groove sound that laid the foundation for Gil's first song.
Gil's deep voice transformed into the voice I had heard on "Winter in America" or "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised." Throughout the performance, I noted his ability to go from spoken word to singing to spoken word and back as he played the keyboard without ever really leaving the song. He was able to communicate abstract and non-abstract ideas and weave history in between choruses and verses of his songs.
The rhythm and good spirits behind the beats made me think of the wholesome nature of the performance I was attending and long for more acts like Gil.
The connection Gil had to history became wholly evident; I imagined there was a lot of pain and struggle in Gil's mind but that he had the personality to make audiences stand up on their feet and take notice of joys in their life that they may not normally notice as a result of fear, anxiety, or exhaustion.
Gil and his band played many classics that I only wish I had been more familiar with. He played a tune after his band came on stage to play with him, which led into the latter part of a song that I found out later was called "Work for Peace." The opening was stripped away, unfortunately. So, the audience was not privy to the military & the monetary lyrics and the profound poetic words describing the way media handles war. But, Gil and his band turned "Work for Peace" into one of the most rousing numbers of the night.
With two keyboards musically going back and forth with each other in a bluesy rhythmic fashion, Gil called out a line and his female keyboardist responded. The audience was caught up in the energy of the song and eventually the song was like a gospel protest song that could have given life to any people's movement.
"If you believe in peace you gotta go to work/Ain't gonna be no peace unless you go to work/I don't wanna hurt nobody/Nobody can do everything but everybody can do something/If you believe in peace time to go to work."
I hadn't had the time to fully explore Gil Scott-Heron before sitting down to listen to him Thursday night. I had no idea he would play a song that so encapsulated many of thoughts I experience regualarly. Or, that he would play other songs that reflected the ideas and emotions in my mind that stemmed from the apathy, inaction, and beliefs in action and reaction that I experience daily.
How refreshing it was to know that younger generations found reason to laugh, love, and enjoy Gil Scott-Heron. One could say the future remains bright so long as people like Gil Scott-Heron can be invited to bring his band and his spirit to universities or colleges.
What was expressed in Gil's music (and what he has expressed over the past decades) hit me that night. Each of his songs detailed many woes and struggles of black people. The lyrics touched on many of the predicaments of working men and women. And, each song had a hint of joy and a few words to tug at your soul and make you feel like fighting on.
There right in front of me I saw clearly. So long as we have the fundamental right to creative expression, so long as we can fill venues or rooms with people who share our struggles and know the exhaustion we experience, so long as we have people we can say are dedicated to love and concerned for the future and who have reason to pause and enjoy themselves through the power of music, society essentially will remain free.
You can't teach the value of creative expression in school. You can't tell someone they have to use their art or media for the greater good. But, you can envelope someone in events with people like Gil Scott-Heron who believe in what they do and show them an alternative to the art and media we consume on a regular basis that seems to be far removed from the issues we experience and the lives we live every single day.
What Gil Scott-Heron shows is that people can find a voice in art (especially music). Movements need people like Gil Scott-Heron to open people's minds so that people who are not creative, not humorous, or not artistic can then present people with some truths that might compel them to act.
Yes, we've got to work for peace. There ain't gonna be no peace unless we go to work. But, peace isn't just taking down the military or breaking up the monetary and the military. It isn't just finding confidence in fighting for what some deem a lost cause, something unrealistic.
Peace is having soul. Peace is unleashing that soul in the company of others. And, peace is having the fortitude to push on and do what you believe needs to be done so that the next day you can have high spirits and maintain high hopes for a brighter day.
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