(Steven Othello)
It took me six months to curate this playlist. I felt a new emotion with every month. At first it was overwhelming, but it’s because I focused on the expectation versus the intention. Why place pressure on myself and others to measure up to a fantasy, when instead I can focus on the freedom of fulfilling my purpose? You can offer leading roles to those you love, but you can’t control how the storyline of your life will play out. This playlist captures my transition from loving within moments to finding comfort in consistency. By surrounding myself around people that stay true to their character, I can be open to feeling however I feel. Hope you enjoy!
We Are Alive! (Playlist 14) Tracklisting: 1. Nikki Giovanni & James Baldwin Intro 2. Solange - Dreams 3. Pink Sweats - Honesty 4. Blood Orange - Hope feat. Diddy & Tei Shi 5. Ryan Trey - Mutual Butterflies 6. Lucky Daye - Misunderstood 7. Brent Faiyaz - Around Me 8. Syd - Bad Dreams 9. James Blake - Mile High feat. Travis Scott & Metro Boomin 10. Col3trane - Penelope 11. Mereba - Black Truck 12. ICYTWAT - Cooling 13. Student 1 - Yin/Yang feat. Tierra Whack 14. SlowThai - Peace Of Mind 15. A$AP Rocky - Sundress 16. Homeshake - Like Mariah 17. mndsgn. - Stillsoundin 18. Contour - Stop Trying To Be God 19. Frank Ocean - Higgs 20. Deem Spencer - But 21. Yves Tumor - The Feeling When You Walk Away
Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni, Jr.(born June 7, 1943) is an American poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator. Giovanni gained initial fame in the late 1960s as one of the foremost authors of the Black Arts Movement. Influenced by the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power Movement of the period, her early work provides a strong, militant African-American perspective, leading one writer to dub her the "Poet of the Black Revolution."
James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American novelist and social critic. His essays, as collected in Notes of a Native Son (1955), explore intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in mid-20th-century America. Some of Baldwin's essays are book-length, including The Fire Next Time (1963), No Name in the Street (1972), and The Devil Finds Work (1976). An unfinished manuscript, Remember This House, was expanded and adapted for cinema as the Academy Award–nominated documentary film I Am Not Your Negro. Baldwin's novels and plays fictionalize fundamental personal questions and dilemmas amid complex social and psychological pressures thwarting the equitable integration of not only African Americans, but also gay and bisexual men, while depicting some internalized obstacles to such individuals' quests for acceptance. Such dynamics are prominent in Baldwin's second novel, Giovanni's Room, written in 1956, well before the gay liberation movement.
