Ask a crowd of people what music means to them and you will get diverse responses. The most common answer you might receive is that music is a way of expression, or a way of life. However, if you were to ask me, I would tell you that music is a door.
I grew up surrounded by black music, specifically around the sensualities of R&B, soul, and jazz. Every morning before coming to wake my brother and I from our slumber, my mother would crack open a window, spark a cigarette, and turn on her sound system. The melodic vocals of artist comparable to Maxwell and Sade would glide out the speakers, through the smoke-filled air, and into my tiny ears. Some days, the music was all I needed to find dormancy.
"Mama's up." The words fell sleepily past my lips. They were directed to my brother, who shared a room with me at the time.
"I know," he proclaimed, still huddled under warm sheets. "The music is on."
My father grooved out a bit differently. A professed old-head, he never built a playlist without a piece by Al Green, The Spinners, Marvin Gaye, or David Ruffin. And when he wasn't working, he'd take a few hours out of the day to enjoy a cold pint of Blue Moon and the earthly grooves of soul jazz.
Although he never expressed it, I do believe that my father always cherished the idea of me adopting his musical taste. It was evident during one evening, upon driving back home from late grocery shopping, as Bill Wither’s "Ain't No Sunshine" played off the car stereo. I closed my eyes to the smooth strumming of the guitar and began singing the lyrics. I heard my father chuckle beside me. "Baby, you like this song?" he asked. I nodded gingerly before returning back to the music. The very next day, my father surprised me with my very own CD player and his copy of "Just As I Am."
As all things usually do as you become older, the tunes of my household started to feel like a routine. It never felt like something I could claim discovery, but rather, always described as "my parent's music." Of course there were other black musicians that I came to love by myself—Res, Common, Aaliyah, Lauryn Hill, Nas…But that all changed in summer of 2005, when I first heard Thursday's lead single, "Understanding in a Car Crash", from an online music service. Enter a girl who has never heard the crashing of chords and intense drumming, all together weaved with hoarse vocals. Staring at the setting sun, no reason to come back again. A somber lead riff takes over and is backed by a steady beat. It was hypnotizing, it was complex, it was different. Thursday had opened a door to a world that I never knew existed, and I wasn't looking back.
Unfortunately, my Black friends couldn't relate. As I fell deeper into rock culture, I eventually lost them all in the process. They would accuse me of "trying to be white," or simply labeled me as weird. Even my parents attempted to lecture me on how an individual can be influenced by the company that they keep. My mother disliked my newfound interest in studded belts, tattoos, piercings, and pink leopard print hair extensions; my father just disliked the music.
The truth is, not once did I ever see my interest in rock music as a way to escape my racial identity. I wasn't assimilating, I was simply appreciating. All I wanted to do was enjoy the music that moved me, without receiving any petty judgement from others. Funny how things never seemed to work out that way. The Black kids I knew didn’t concern themselves with the likes of Fear Before The March of Flames, The Fall of Troy, or The Blood Brothers—hell, the majority of them didn’t even know who those bands were. Why? Because rock is a monolithical white genre, and it was always my white counterparts who respected the music I liked, and did the things I wanted to do. We made trips to local shows, concerts, and rock festivals. We bought albums from record shops and jammed out in basements. We skated in empty parking lots and blasted music from our cars. We updated our MySpace songs and encouraged others to take a listen. I’m not saying that Black kids don’t do these things; I’m just saying that the ones I knew didn’t.
Keep in mind, however, that the grass was not greener on the other side. Even within the culture that I loved, there were times I still felt like an outcast. The shock I got was laughable at best; skepticism was frustrating. I started to despise being treated as a type of abnormality even more than I despised being teased for it. Eventually, questions like "Wow, you actually listen to (insert band name here)?," or ignorant statements related to "I thought Black people just listened to rap/hip-hop." died off, and I became known as the "token" Black friend—safe, relatable, and "she listens to rock, too!"
Over the course of time, I evolved past the desire to go to rock festivals. Invites to local band shows eventually stopped showing up. Basements were becoming either spaces to live in or storages for old memories, and we all know what happened to MySpace. My friends and I grew older, found new interests, and took on new responsibilities. It wasn't until I found a job at a retail store when I fell through another musical door: indie rock.
Deep down, I think I'll always have a deep appreciation for Thursday, for rock, and all that the two has shown me. I can't say that I still listen to the same musicians that I use to years ago, but they all have shown me important aspects of myself and others that I wouldn't have learned otherwise. Our diversity is what makes us beautiful, and that includes our musical tastes, too.
