Food of the Soul

As a member of my particular family, music has always been a big deal in my life. We grew up playing instuments, listening to all the music we could get our hands on, and even ocassionally trying to create music all our own. Music is central in every aspect of my life and although I am not as active in playing instuments as all my siblings, I try to never let music become a lessened or forgotten part of my life. In this lovely spring quarter as my sophpmore year comes to an end, I enrolled in a class that holds an immense intrigue for me in more ways than one. The class is called Music, Race and Politics and true to its title we are studying music and how it affects or takes part in ideas of race and politics as well as the reverse of how race affects politics and music. Now, I have taken rae classes in the past, I have taken politics classes and music classes as well, but never have I so clearly been able to see the tangled ways that these three subjects relate until now. It is simply fascinating. Our focus is mostly on music that has connections or major influences that come out of African or African American culture. Everything from jazz and blues to bebop to hip-hop and rap is included. Most days I walk into my classroom to hear great music from Dinah Washington, Duke Ellington, Lupe Fiasco, Peter Tosh, Tupac and other great artists and then we get to spend two hours discussing how the music developed and how different elements of race issues, life experiences, changing laws, etc. affected the growth of the music. Classes like THIS are why I love learning! There are some great books we are reading to go along with all of this so if any of you are interested, let me know and I will tell you some titles!