Sound Of My Soul

[bluezcluesworld]

[bluezcluesworld]

[bluezcluesworld]

I’ve known the power of collective release since I was six years old.

Albina Church of God, in NE Portland. I joined the choir early, not because anyone made me, but because I felt it. The music wasn’t just melody. It was movement. I’ve seen people catch the Holy Ghost, eyes rolled back, arms shaking, body flung into something bigger. It wasn’t scary. It was truth. A rupture. The moment when daily burdens cracked and the soul screamed its way out.

Years later, standing inside a mosh pit, I realized, I’ve felt this before.

In the pit, there’s sweat. Elbows. Breath you don’t know is yours. Someone falls, they’re lifted. A scream turns into rhythm. It’s violent, but it’s not cruel. It’s sacred chaos.

In a praise break, there’s shouting. Clapping. Skirts flying. Tambourines shaking. The drummer takes off and suddenly the room is unhinged, but together. I’ve seen people get so full of spirit they run laps. Collapse. Speak in tongues. I didn’t question it. I knew they were being freed.

In both scenes, the body is overwhelmed, overthrown, overtaken, and finally, fully present.

Jobs. Racism. Bills. Grief. All things that many of us try to escape. Expectations to smile and stay small. In both the pew and the pit, I’ve watched teachers, nurses, cashiers, mothers, fathers, all shed their roles and become something else. Not better. Just more real.

This is rupture, a moment that splits time. Victor Turner’s “communitas” describes this: where all hierarchy disappears and only presence remains. The mosh pit and the praise break are both sacred circles. We enter carrying the weight of the world and leave dripping in spirit or sweat, but lighter.

Growing up in a gospel church taught me that the body was holy when it moved. Praise wasn’t quiet, it was screamed. Worship wasn’t still, it was danced. That was my first experience of embodied resistance, refusing to be silent in the face of struggle.

The pit is the same. It's not about the music genre, it’s about the moment. The refusal to hold it all in. Saidiya Hartman’s “waywardness” lives in both. The refusal to be neat, quiet, respectable. In a world that wants Black and brown bodies tamed, these moments let us break open.

The praise break and the pit don’t oppose each other, they speak the same language in different dialects. The language of urgency. Of something too big for words. Of what it means to be alive despite everything.

Whether you’re in a church pew or pressed into a wall of thrashing bodies, the feeling is the same: I am not alone. I am being held by the crowd. I am out of control, but I am safe. That’s not violence. That’s ritual.

I don’t need a perfect world. I need a break in the noise. And I’ve found it, in the pulpit and the pit.

I know what it means to sing until I cry, to scream until I feel empty and full at the same time. That’s not disobedience. That’s release. That’s survival.

So let me dance. Let me scream. Let me fall and be caught. Let me rupture. And in the break, let me be free.

[bluezcluesworld]

Our Sound, Our Survival

New Orleans isn’t just a city I picked for this assignment, it’s in my blood. My family is from all over Louisiana. I’m Creole. That means my roots carry French, African, Spanish, and Indigenous rhythms, and those rhythms live in every second line, every bounce beat, every brass note that dances through the city. Funk and rap from New Orleans don’t just speak to me, they speak for me.

The Meters – “Cissy Strut” (1969)

This song moves like the streets of New Orleans: unpredictable, smooth, raw. There are no lyrics, just groove, and that’s enough. Funk like this isn’t about saying—it’s about showing that we’ve always made beauty out of struggle.

Juvenile – “Ha” (1998)

Juvenile tells the truth the way a cousin might at a family cookout—real, rough, and with no filter. “You got more cars than your garage got space, ha?” It’s a snapshot of life post-Katrina, post-hope, and still pushing forward. His voice is the voice of the city, weathered but sharp.

Big Freedia – “Explode” (2014)

Freedia doesn’t just perform, she reclaims space. She takes the bounce beat and makes it Black, queer, loud, and proud. It’s the kind of energy I’ve seen and felt at family gatherings growing up, where music is medicine, movement is prayer.

Being Louisiana Creole means carrying history in every step. Our people survived slavery, Jim Crow, hurricanes, and erasure. Music was never just for dancing, it was for remembering, resisting, and reminding the world that we are still here. My family’s stories, of Zydeco halls, church choirs, and backyard barbecues, are carried in every downbeat of funk, every clap-back lyric in Bounce.

In New Orleans, the rhythm is political. Funk grooves were born while Black neighborhoods were being underfunded and overpoliced. Bounce beats kept bouncing while Katrina washed away homes but couldn’t drown the culture. That’s the thing about being Creole in New Orleans, we know what it means to lose everything except our sound.

Funk’s syncopation mirrors our survival. Rap’s flow reflects our refusal to be silenced. This music isn’t just about getting down, it’s about getting through.

Using phenomenology, every beat from these songs becomes a lived memory, something I don’t just hear but feel in my bones. I think about existentialism too: Sartre’s idea that freedom comes from choosing your own meaning. My ancestors chose survival. My people chose rhythm. We chose soul.

And like Buddhism’s impermanence, New Orleans constantly changes, but it never loses its heartbeat. Buildings may fall. People may leave. But the second line always comes back. And I walk in it, too.

New Orleans funk and rap are part of my personal archive. They hold the grief of loss, the pride of survival, and the joy of simply being alive in a world that often tries to erase us. As a Louisiana Creole, I don’t just study this music, I am this music. It’s in my people. It’s in my pulse.

[bluezcluesworld]

[bluezcluesworld]

The Land of the Free, in G Major

What moves me most is how Marvin's version breaks every rule and somehow becomes more true. The groove he slides into isn’t what you’d expect from a song often used to demand conformity. Instead, he bends the anthem into something sensual, spiritual, and real. It’s not about the flag, it’s about us.

From a phenomenological standpoint, Marvin’s performance transforms the anthem into a lived experience. His body, smooth sways, closed eyes, that gentle smile, invites us into his perception of the world. The anthem becomes not a symbol of state power, but a stage for selfhood. In that moment, his physical presence says: I exist, I feel, and I will not be erased. Through soulfulness and embodiment, Marvin turns the anthem into testimony.

This connects deeply with the idea of the soulful voice from our readings: his vocal performance channels memory, emotion, Black history, and resilience. You feel his struggle, his tenderness, his hope. It’s an offering, not an obligation.

From an existentialist view, Marvin’s anthem is a radical act of authenticity. Jean-Paul Sartre would call this “existence before essence”, Marvin’s essence isn’t handed down by society. It’s chosen. In a world that often reduces Black men to symbols, Marvin insists on being a full human, present and soulful. His anthem says: Freedom isn’t given by the state, it’s declared from the soul.

His performance resists the absurdity of a nation that sings about “the land of the free” while policing and profiling Black bodies. Rather than ignore that contradiction, Marvin sings through it, he turns dissonance into harmony. That’s the power of soul: it holds both pain and beauty at once.

There’s something sacred in the way Marvin delivers those notes. It’s not religious in the traditional sense, it’s more like a gospel of presence. His version reminds me of William James’ idea of the soul’s transcendence: music as a spiritual act, a portal to something beyond the material. Through rhythm, breath, and voice, Marvin doesn’t escape America, he confronts it with grace.

And yet, his version isn’t somber, it’s joyful, sexy, even playful. That’s part of the brilliance. Liberation through sound doesn’t always come in the form of protest chants. Sometimes, it’s a slowed beat, a syncopated breath, a vocal run so soft it feels like prayer.

Marvin Gaye’s anthem makes me question who the song belongs to. Is it the state’s? Or is it ours to shape? His performance says the soul isn’t fixed, it moves, it resists, it remixes. And if the soul is boundless, as our soul studies suggest, then maybe this version of the anthem is the most soulful of all, not because it follows tradition, but because it reclaims it.

[bluezcluesworld]

Space Is the Place, but Freedom Is the Point

Sun Ra wasn’t trying to “escape” Earth, he was trying to free Black folks from a world that never meant for them to survive. His Space Is the Place isn’t some sci-fi getaway; it’s a radical refusal of a system built on Black social death, a system where Black people are visible only through violence, labor, and erasure. Elon Musk wants to sell Mars to billionaires. Sun Ra wanted to reimagine Black existence entirely.

Yes, dreaming of cosmic utopias risks ignoring struggles here, but Sun Ra flips that. He names the struggle so clearly that the only option is to imagine beyond it. His vision is not escapism. It’s a refusal to let Black liberation be bound by the same world that enslaved it.

We reconcile the cosmic with the earthly by recognizing that liberation starts in the mind, in the sound, in the vibration. Jazz is the cry of survival, even in the face of social death. And Sun Ra made it interstellar.

[bluezcluesworld]

My family’s Juke Joint in Louisiana 💕

[bluezcluesworld]

Blues and the Struggles of the Soul; A Journey Through Grief, Attachment, and Systemic Evil

Blues music is a mirror to the soul, reflecting the raw, aching truths of life's struggles. As I listened to the powerful songs on the "Something Blue Has Made You Black" playlist, I found myself deeply moved and connected to the lyrics, melodies, and rhythms in ways I didn’t expect. Through these blues and gospel classics, I was able to unpack layers of my own personal challenges, from the grief of losing my beloved Papa Basil to the unhealthy attachments shaped by abandonment issues and codependency. Each song carried a message that mirrored my own experiences, leading me to reflect on the larger struggles of systemic oppression and how they relate to the human condition.

Grief and Loss: "Bring It On Home to Me" by Sam Cooke

The first time I heard "Bring It On Home to Me," tears just flooded. I couldn’t help it. My mind went straight to my Papa Basil, who passed away in 2020. He’s the first person I ever lost who I was so close to. And hearing Sam Cooke, I thought about how much my Papa must have related to that song. Papa Basil loved Sam Cooke, my grandpa would play his songs all the time, and I always felt like there was something about Cooke's lyrics that spoke to him, deep down. He had his own share of heartbreak, of battles fought, both overseas in Vietnam and in the cruel realities of life as a Black man born during the 1930’s in rural Louisiana . He never really talked about his pain, but I think when he listened to songs like this, he found a way to process it. After fighting in the Vietnam War, when he returned, he met my grandmother. Their relationship, like many others in my family, was fraught with complexity, eventually ending in separation. He died single, and my grandmother will likely do the same.

As I listen to “Bring It On Home to Me”, I wonder how my Papa Basil may have related to Cooke’s lyrics. The song speaks to love, yearning, and heartache, and I can’t help but imagine how these themes mirrored his own relationship with my grandmother. There are so many details of their relationship that I’ll never know, but through this song, I can connect to his pain and longing. Perhaps, in his own way, my Papa Basil found solace in Cooke’s music, channeling his own experiences of love, loss, and unspoken sorrow. The blues, after all, are about acknowledging the struggle.

Attachment and Codependency: "I’d Rather Go Blind" by Etta James

The next song that grabbed me was Etta James’ “I’d Rather Go Blind”. When she sings, “Something deep down in my soul said, ‘Cry girl’”, something in her tone, in her spirit , is like an emotional blockage release. A tone in her voice that resonates with a universal truth about emotional pain. As Etta pours her heart out, I can’t help but think about the emotional blockages that many of us carry in our relationships. Her attachment to the person she sings about, despite knowing he’s unfaithful, can be rooted in something deeper, something psychological. For me, this song immediately tapped into my own struggles with abandonment and attachment issues.

Psychologically, her lyrics reflect the destructive cycle of codependency. Etta would rather go blind than see her lover walk away, even though he is betraying her. Why would someone stay in a relationship that clearly hurts them? It stems from a fear of abandonment, from the belief that losing this person would feel worse than any betrayal. This is something I’ve struggled with personally. I often find myself staying in relationships longer than I should, clinging to unhealthy attachments because of deep-rooted fear of being left behind. Growing up without healthy relationship models, I repeated these patterns without even realizing it. Etta’s voice and lyrics express the pain of that attachment: the emotional dependency, the constant hope that things will change, even when they never do. Her song is a heartbreaking portrayal of the cycle of love, loss, and the struggle to let go.

Systemic Oppression and Racism: "Evil" by Howlin' Wolf

Finally, Howlin' Wolf’s “Evil” brings me to a place of reflection on the broader struggles of society. The systemic oppression and racism that continue to ravage communities. When Wolf sings “Evil”, his voice carries a sense of hopelessness that transcends personal heartbreak. For me, this song speaks to the pervasive evil that exists in the world, the kind of evil that’s institutionalized and rooted in systems of oppression. The evil in the world isn’t just about personal betrayal or emotional pain; it’s about the systems that maintain inequality, the structures that hoard wealth while the majority suffers.

Listening to “Evil”, I think of the wars, the poverty, the racial injustice that continues to impact so many lives. I think of how this "evil" is deeply connected to racism and systemic oppression. Wars rage on, people die, and yet a tiny elite continue to control the wealth and power. Howlin' Wolf’s song reminds me that this evil isn’t just abstract, it’s tangible, affecting real people every day. It’s the kind of evil that perpetuates the suffering of marginalized groups, the kind that makes it harder for some to breathe while others hoard resources. His growling voice conveys the anger and despair of generations fighting against these unjust systems, and it serves as a stark reminder that, in many ways, this evil is still very much alive.

Through these three blues and gospel songs, I’ve come to understand that music, especially blues, has a unique ability to connect the personal with the universal. Each song, from Sam Cooke’s tender yearning, to Etta James’ painful attachment, to Howlin' Wolf’s searing indictment of systemic evil, captures the essence of human struggle. It’s not just about heartbreak or love; it’s about the ways in which these struggles reflect the broader pains of society. Whether it’s grief, attachment, or the fight against injustice, the blues have always served as a mirror, reflecting the deepest sorrows and the fiercest fights. As I reflect on these songs, I realize how much they’ve shaped my understanding of the world, and of myself. Through these lyrics and melodies, I’m reminded that we are all connected by our struggles, and that the blues, in all its rawness, is a song of survival, resilience, and the search for peace.