Desensationalize the Music (The Spirit of New Orleans)

"If you can talk you can sing; if you can walk you can dance..." An African proverb I learned from Talib Kweili. It's a belief that we all have music inside us, and I'm tempted to believe it's true. As sure as babies cry from the bottoms of their tiny lungs; as sure as they kick from inside their mother's wombs; as sure as the Lord beckons us in His Word to sing and dance in praise of the things He has done. I believe, though it might not manifest itself the same way in all of us, that we each have song and dance within us.

Well, if it's there, then what happened to it? Why do some of us seem to struggle in these areas? Well... I'll give you this theory of my own experimentation. You see most men I've grown up around, they weren't singers or dancers. They'd probably frown upon any man that took up singing or that could dance as unmanly. Most women I know are scared to sing, even though I've heard them hum quite beautifully to themselves. You know what I think? I think that we all can sing and dance, but we're too afraid of what people to think to let it out. So I tried this...

When I was home alone, or when I was in my car, I'd break out in song. It didn't matter what, I just wanted to know if I could sing. You know what I found out? When I tried to control my volume and muffle myself, I struggled to sing. When I just understood that no one was around me and let my voice ring freely, I could REALLY SING! And the same went for dancing; I've always been afraid of people laughing at me, as I believe most people fear. But when I just let it go and began to move, I was pleasantly surprised at what I could do. And no, I wasn't Marvin Gaye or Gregory Hines; I was me, and it was the best me I could've imagined.

So now I'm a believer; we all can sing and we all can dance. It's just a matter of finding out how YOU do it and then gaining the courage to do it to the best of your ability. Hey, generations of Africans living by that proverb can't be wrong, right? Consider this: maybe the kids on the street freestyling, the poor man with the saxophone and the hat looking for change, the b-boys on the cardboard in the square, the housewife singing her babies to sleep... maybe they are the living representations of that proverb.

Arright. So what's the significance of all of us being able to sing and dance? Simply this: if we all can sing and dance, then let's take these manufactured musicians off of their pedestals. They're not doing anything one of us "ordinary people" can't do (and no, that's not a shot at John Legend; I dig John Legend). Don't get me wrong, I'm not against professional singers. But why deify them? Especially when the abilities of many of them are mostly fabricated and over-hyped.

While I don't think music should represent a mere trade in our society, imagine this: Laborers in factories work hard all day in sometimes drab conditions. How nice would it be if when they got off work, or at break time, there was a band who's sole purpose was to relieve the workers by playing uplifting music? See, I think music feasibly could and should permeate every aspect of our lives. Buying CDs from stores is one thing, but street corners with live musicians escorting commuters to work in the morning with tunes of vigor... man. Kinda reminds ya of New Orleans, huh?

I'm also in favor of this great "Desensationalization of Music" in an effort to save music. It's easy to tell that most music nowadays is composed for its marketability; it's dressed and trimmed for the express purpose of selling, and the expressiveness of the music has become secondary to market value, or even tertiary to record sales. In other words, the soul of music is in a dire strait. But if music is desensationalized, then the incentives for creating this empty (or as I like to put it "MT" for "Music Television") music will be greatly reduced, and music can get back to it's true essence as a welcome accessory to a great society such as ours. Music is being prostituted for industry gain, and it's time to take the glitz and glam off of her so people can remember how beautiful she is.

DESENSATIONALIZE THE MUSIC!