Back in November I went to see Mara Hruby and Chris Turner perform at Yoshi’s. School was kicking my ass and I should have been locked in somebody’s library studying or editing the footage I’d shot that day. Instead, I went to Jack London Square to chill with friends, sip whiskey, and receive a musical healing.
I hadn’t seen Chris or Mara perform in years. And in that space, I fell in love their music all over again. At the end of the set, Chris took us all to church. As he repeated “Lord heal me,” I felt something in me move. I checked his Soundcloud the next day, trying to figure out how I’d missed that track. It wasn’t there.
On December 6, 2014, I saw that Chris Turner had released a song called “Americano.” Waiting for the 18 bus, I pressed play. The tears flowed uncontrollably. I paced and cried at the bus stop. Fellow commuters stared, but I continued to cry. I hadn’t expected the song to start off with audio of Oscar Grant being murdered. I’d been holding so much in.
I was exhausted by the daily conversations about the non-indictments for the officers who murdered Michael Brown and Eric Garner. I was exhausted by the discussions my friends and I were having about whether it was safe for us to bring Black boys into this world. There was such a weight from having to convince people that #BlackLivesMatter. I was also exhausted by the fact that these conversations weren’t new. I remembered having the same convos when Trayvon Martin was murdered. And, I remembered very clearly the murder of Oscar Grant.
The exhaustion was the sort of thing that happens when you feel beyond helpless, but have to keep moving. It’s the sort of thing you feel when you’re in classes and constantly have to explain what is happening to your classmates. Or when you’re the only person in your class who knows what’s going on. Or when you have to interact daily with people who wear their ally badge proudly, but speak in such a disconnected way about the value of Black lives that you realize they are just hyped up on theory. I’d cried so many tears of exhaustion and fear and hopelessness that I’d vowed I would stop crying. But that vow went out the window once I hit play on “Americano.”
After a few plays, I knew I needed something else. “Have you posted the healing track,” I tweeted Chris. “I swear I needed it after ‘Americano.‘”
I’ve been thinking about this interaction a lot lately. Waiting for some version of “Praying to God” (the actual name of “the healing track”) that I could keep tucked away. I’m reminded of the Lauryn Hill Unplugged album. She plays “I Find It Hard To Say (Rebel),” a track she wrote after the NYPD murdered Amadou Diallo, and follows that track with “Water.” That combo is “Americano” and “Praying to God” for me.
We need protest music.
We also need healing, nourishing, praying music.
All this protesting can wear on the soul.
Below is Chris performing “Praying to God” in Harlem. Does anyone have footage of Chris and Mara performing this together in Oakland?
