A little background information on the songs from "invincible spirit" and other releases...

*Brave New Beautiful World

High and Lo-tech, machine-like sounds fuse with a smooth groove to raise issue of our grasp on our future while making the point that a world in which we are conscious, strong and connected is entirely possible and, in fact, just around the corner. We often project the best outcomes into the netherworld of "someday" (that's the date and time we've been told that we will overcome...remember?) and present conditions behoove us to imagine more timely results.



*What If They Gave A War and All The Children Came?

I've updated the 60's question, "What if they gave a war and nobody came?", and ask us to ponder the effects of war on the innocents while refusing to look upon children as innocent "victims". This piece, weighted with rock-influenced deliberation, speaks to the strength, honor and dignity that children bring to our world, not their vulnerability. "What If" points a musical finger in the face of those who wage war and ask some important questions about motive and their 'stated' desire to protect and serve.



*What You Came Here For



*Mi Familia

Originally entitled, "Thanks For the Ride, Julio", this song was inspired by the spirit of a colleague in special academia who regularly greeted his friends and co-workers collectively as "family". He always warmed our hearts with this salutation and it gave rise to thoughts of the myriad expressions of the African diaspora and how the historical African family has been rent from its home and strewn about the world with such reckless, but deliberate abandon. Family, brotherhood, sisterhood, unity and spirit have survived and often-times thrived despite the horrors of the slavery trade and though micro-nationalism seems to rule the day, there are visible, conceptual and unspoken connections, bonds that tie African people, their kin and all humanity together beyond any earthly attempts to break us apart. An image , if you will:

West Side Story meets Romeo and Juliet meets Sankofa...



*We Know

Based on the melody of a traditional Roman Catholic hymn, "They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love", this song dares to remember the actions of those who would and did call themselves Christians, but would not know Jesus if he showed up on their auction block. Written long before the recent outbreak of information about child molestation and sexual, physical and emotional abuse by Roman Catholic priests and their administrative superiors, "We Know" stands up for spiritual integrity while holding the charlatan up to the purifying light of a new day when wearing a white collar or carrying a "Holy Bible" does not bring about knee-jerk reactions of blind acceptance. Love must be proven. Love is real. The Spirit is real. But there are some, all too many, who have betrayed their own claims of spiritual ascendancy and now history shows them to have been none other than agents for the 'other side'.



*Someday (Roderick's Song)

A young man named Roderick showed up at my front door on a warm summer day way back in the 80's. He was maybe in his mid-teens, tall, a little unkempt and wore sneakers with no laces in them. He showed me a written, plastic-covered sheet about some money-raising scheme(?) as a much more appropriately dressed adult observed him from down the steps at the street. There was not one thing that did it, but I felt that Roderick was not where and with whom he was supposed to be. Meeting him reminded me of all the faces, all the children, all the missing people who were then beginning to show up in alarming numbers on billboards and milk cartons, young people stolen away from their families, their security, from their very childhoods. So many missing children, so many stories. I do not remember making any calls to the police about Roderick and there is a dark place in my heart filled with the loss of opportunity to help. If one person is motivated by this song to help bring one of these children back to their loving home, my inaction will not yet be exhonerated, for that may not rescue Roderick from the spectre of danger that I felt about him that seemingly normal day so long ago. This song is for Roderick for whom I so deeply hope has found his way home.



*invincible spirit

That thing, that place, that force within us that connects us to all of the most beautiful things that we can be - free, loved, loving, safe, strong, confident, with clear mind and open heart....anchored by the pulse of gospel music, rooted in the consonance of the most perfect moment, now...we are invincible. We are spirit.



________________________

*Mami Wata (soundtrack)



*On Wings of Fire (soundtrack)

Inspired by young people with disabilities, in support of people with disabilities of any kind, in support of anyone who has ever been assumed to be less than they are, whose potential and presence has been down-played or down-trodden, anyone who has felt the sting of 'you don't belong', whether from a voice without...or a voice within....."Wings" is a statement of "I live and breathe and love and hurt and laugh much like you do, therefore - I am....and don't you EVER forget it". This song is a labor of love and deep respect, born out of more synchronicity and serendipitous occurrence than this simple website can contain. Open eyes lead to open hearts and in the open heart lies the foundation for true humanity, harmony and liberation of the soul.



*got race. (soundtrack)

(come back soon to visit my "got race" score discussion page...and click on the movie producer's link on this page to visit the official "got race." webpage at Entertaining Diversity, Inc.)

hear music from "got race."