Creators of a Nation’s Soundtrack
02-01-2022
When Langston Hughes penned the words, “I, too, sing America,” he might not have realized just how much music created by America’s black citizens would be enjoyed around the world. The moans and groans of those who survived a traumatizing journey from their homelands to hostile shores have been transformed into musical genres that are known and mimicked worldwide. Rev. Julian DeShazier, McCormick’s director of the Office of Experiential Education, senior pastor of Chicago’s University Church, and the hip-hop artist known as J.Kwest, took questions from Leading Change about black music, his creative work, and the nation’s history.
What does America sound like?
The blues…there’s a blues sensibility to black music. Our music names what’s broken in our society and offers a creative hope that keeps us going. Gospel comes out of the blues…jazz, rock and roll, and hip hop, too. They were all birthed from the blues. Hope comes out of the blues as well. It’s not just in our music; it’s also in our discourse. We know how the world is, and we have a vision of what the world could be.
What inspires your work as a songwriter and rap artist? My mother used to DJ, so I grew up hearing all types of musical genres. She’d play a gospel song right next to a jazz piece, up next would be a house track, then a soul ballad and she said it’s all music. Country, folk, whatever. I heard it all and noticed the similarities. When I was thinking about what I wanted to do with my life, how I might want to offer myself to the world and what would bring me the greatest happiness, music was always part of that imagining. I also felt that God was giving me the musical language called hip hop. I wouldn’t be bringing my full self to the world without bringing music. To write songs and perform them allows me to continue a tradition that shares our story with people who couldn’t hear our story in any other way.
How does the black musical tradition help to bring about change in our society?
Music has a way of piercing the soul…cutting through the filters and blockages that get in the way of us hearing each other. A good song catches us off guard…its melody connects with the harmony that's already within us. We like a melody even though we don’t know the words yet. And then the words come, and the message is unexpected. Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” or Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” are great examples. They were able to bring the reality of the black experience to those who could only hear the message within music.
What about your work? What’s a message within your music?
In one of my music videos, “Still Alright,” there’s a hook that goes: I've got 100 dollars left and I owe $112...Still don't it feel alright? I've got a quarter tank of gas and I got to make it last...Still don't it feel alright? I got a gig that's feeling it's killing my soul...Still don't it feel alright?
In those few lines, I identify poverty, debt, low wages, and unfulfilling work – common crises of life – but not in the way a policy maker would. This is the way many people experience life. Yet, there’s hope…the will to keep moving forward. It’s the truth of experience – the perspective that’s too often overlooked.
How does your role as a co-director of McCormick’s Experiential Education and Field Studies program connect with your passion.
Education, like music, is an embodied experience. There's a world around us and experiences within us that when we reflect on them, can teach us as well as give us something to share. I see my role as helping people connect what they have already experienced to what they are learning from peers and faculty and then take those insights in meaningful ways to the spaces where they are called to live, work, and serve.
What do you see as the most significant undertaking in America today?
The Black Lives Matter movement is almost nine years old now and has been able to awaken the nation to realities that have been happening for 400 years. It’s clearly brought to the nation’s attention that racism is essentially, at its core, about the dehumanization of black bodies. BLM has gotten in the face of those who oppose our humanity and called black citizens to live our lives more fully…not merely adjusting our lives to systemic oppression and dysfunction. What’s occurring now is that BLM is transitioning from being just an American phenomenon. Like black music, it’s strengthened people who live on the margins globally to realize that they are to have a voice in their society.
Where does black music go from here?
Black artists have done an incredible job infiltrating the music industry and have become wildly successful in a system that was not designed for them to succeed but be exploited. Black artists have told our stories and empowered people worldwide. There’s a saying, “broken crayons can still color,” and black artists – despite the odds – have shown us a way to engage in the struggle while protecting our peace of mind. The next step I see is to bring change to the infrastructure so that more people can succeed. We must continue to use our creativity to affirm ourselves when the system will not and call out injustice so that we are not overwhelmed by it.
Watch Rev. DeShazier’s latest visual album, LoVKwest, performed with the group, Verbal Kwest, here.
“Our music names what’s broken in our society and offers a creative hope that keeps us going.”
Rev. Julian DeShazier