I freaking love A minor. In three decades of songwriting probably 75-80 original songs for my albums and plays, the key is a familiar collaborator. It’s a habit. It’s unresolved but resolved to be unresolved. It’s paradoxical, like contented sadness. I have written so many songs in A minor that my friends used to joke that if I died, they’d put, “She sure loved A minor” on my gravestone.
But during Kendrick Lamar’s performance at the Superbowl Half-Time show, (the only part of the Superbowl I ever watch) I’m not gonna lie- I didn’t know what the A minor reference was. Clearly a lot of people DID know. I was pretty sure that the reference wasn’t about the chord though.
I wanted to peel the layers apart. I knew vaguely about the public Lamar -Drake feud, but I knew that the Pulitzer Prize winning artist was not simply going to use his platform solely to address HIS moment but THIS moment. I was right. Enthralled by the choreographed all Black American flag, the spectacle and juxtaposition of Samuel L. Jackson’s Uncle Sam against rarely muted current occupant of the White House in the audience. Metaphors, symbolism, anecdotes and stories illuminate a broader idea or message sometimes inspiring us to look stuff up. Sometimes to look at ourselves. That’s awesome. So yeah, I had to look the “a minor” reference up, but that’s what art is supposed to do: to intrigue you, thrill, and inspire you to want to know more. To learn stuff.
Art is supposed to be provocative.
My previous experience with the body of Lamar’s music is limited to the song, Be Humble on my curated “Just Run Dammit” playlist. I’m taking a deeper listen now.
Like much of the music I’ve listened to in my life, the performance inspired curiosity and left me wanting to find out more. I don’t have to be a die-hard fan, privy to every detail of the body of work of an artist to respect it. It’s the opposite. Sometimes the activism of an artist inspires me to learn more and I inadvertently end up a fan.
Billie Holiday’s, “Strange Fruit” in 1939 vividly uncovers horrific lynchings of Black Americans. It illuminates those stories in a way that a history book cannot. Because of that song I read more, studied more, learned more.
Josephine Baker worked as a spy for the French Resistance during World War II fighting against fascism and racism, smuggling messages in invisible ink in German occupied France. She refused to perform for troops until the audience was desegregated. Coincidentally, the activism doesn’t always happen at the height of the artist’s popularity or catapult the artist to superstardom. Often it comes with a cost.
It also doesn’t imply that the artist activist has all their shit together. The message can be powerful, courageous, and honest while the artist herself can have many personal struggles. When Janis Joplin learned that her shero, Bessie Smith, known as “The Empress of the Blues” was buried in an unmarked grave she worked with a former employee and NAACP chair for several years to raise the money to create a proper headstone for her. Just two months after this achievement, Janis died at 27 of a heroin overdose.
Bonnie Raitt championed underappreciated blues women too. I discovered Sippie Wallace thanks to her duet on the Wallace tune “Women Be Wise.” I paid attention to her environmental work as a founding member of MUSE (Musicians United for Safe Energy) due to being a die-hard fan. Elvis Presley too insisted on recording the song In the Ghetto, some radio stations refused to play it dubbing it “too political” or “too depressing.” Eventually it shed light on generational poverty, systematic racism and inequality The more than five-decade old song is tragically as relevant today.
Stevie Nicks, one of my favorite songwriter/performers and prolific A minor appreciator, works with the Wounded Warrior project, inspiring fans to take a closer look at the important work of the project.
Aside from the album, Easter that I got in 7th grade, I didn’t follow Patti Smith’s music. It was her memoir Just Kids that got me interested in her and her decades long history of activism in environmental issues. Moscow’s feminist punk group Pussy Riot has no use for hyperbole. They are accurately named and effective musician/performance artists who have endured long incarcerations, attacks, death threats. It’s impossible not to be curious to learn more about subject of their work and their lived experience.
I cover most of the artists mentioned above. They have inspired my songwriting and performances leveraging them to illuminate stories and human rights issues I care about including racism, refugees, and immigration.
Hopefully, I too can provoke curiosity and reflection through my artistic work as well as a healthy appreciation for my all-time favorite chord, A minor.
