This is a take on contrapuntal & echo verse poetic forms, performed in the style of spoken word poetry with choral techniques remnant of Indigenous ceremonial practices, West African griot, & older hip hop.

Percussion loops with hand claps & shakers are authentic to chant & ceremonial music but with a modern ambient twist. Repetitive & formatted as many Native songs are.

Red and Black

You must first learn that you are stardust
How your springform hair is an iteration of the Big Bang
Surely you have noticed, we are energy so magnificent
Mankind has always been hesitant to handle us.
As if when touching our arms, they know that we might be too hot.
They know they're minor characters in a melanin plot.

You see, our hair breaks free not because of gravity but
In defiance. Our hair wrestles pins & hair bands.
It dies to tell us the true story of humanity,
A lesson cruelly hidden from our view.
It waves its curly arms at us in the mirror
Hoping one day we'll lean in, & listen to the love
That's bursting daily from our roots.
That one day we'll lean in & listen (repeats)
With eyes like rivers, arms like grapevines,
Beholding our Black face to say,
"I'm so happy that I'm you."
Listen, Beloved, listen.
One day you'll lean in just to listen.


Years ago, when I made the transition to natural hair, I surrounded myself with imagery of Black & Brown womxn on social media. I learned a whole new repertoire of hair care & styling. At first, I wasn't sure how to do my hair, or what it even really looked like. My hair had been relaxed since around age 8.

Every day I said to myself in the mirror, "I'm so happy that I'm you". That's the key part, it's not "I'm OK with being you", not "I'd rather be you than someone else", not "There are worse things to be than you." It's about being thrilled, ecstatic, overjoyed with your reflection. It's about seeing everyone in ourselves & not treating ourselves worse than we'd treat a friend.

I began writing these 2 poems- "Big Bang" & "Free" in Black comrades' birthday cards, or reciting them to friends at open mics, & eventually set it to music. These poems have been said over so many songs, including "Poetry" on Soundcloud. My ministry is validating BIPOC knowledges & building up BIPOC self-love through my artivism (art+activism).

So, this is a love poem for Black hair, specifically for Black comrades I've met at Black Brunch here in Kansas who commune on Sundays to hold space for one another. And for my siblings & passerby who, for the longest time, saw me stifle the same hair that grows out of their heads.

All Your Love (I Miss Loving) by Otis Rush

Eric Gentry Music

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Don Deering

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