What is Music? From the moment the question was poised to our group; I began to ponder the inquiry as to what Black Consciousness might elicit on the illumination of Black Music. My perspectives, as a Black self-conscious woman on the cusp of the transformation of Social Black Consciousness through music is as such, a beat, a struggle, a pulse, a chord of discourse, a melody, a fine tuning of the sound; a harmony of contentment. Music makes all of those sounds.
Music is the hallmark of our Black roots; it is the music that has been the cornerstone of the driving force of our existence and culture. Music is our liberator; music is our freedom of exultation; music is our expression of our struggles, our sorrows, our lost loves, our deliverance of faith and our intellectual commitment to our traditions and culture. It is the Black consciousness through music that keeps our struggles deeply entrenched in our Blackness to be that significant force that defines us as a people. It is the music that you hear vibrating through a rickety wall that beckons your soul to come here and taste the sounds of the rhythms as it pulsates through every fiber of your being; it keeps your toes tapping, your fingers popping; your head bobbing, your hips swaying and your heart soaring with every beat, that uplifts the soul to a higher level of consciousness; it is the music that has the polarizing charge that echoed an outcry of social and political awareness. It was the music that revolutionized the movements, the arts, the visuals and the social consciousness. It was the music that dispelled all myths about the ineptness of African-Americans vernacular genres; it was out of Black consciousness that the Black Arts enclaves composed complex melodies, improvisation, harmonies and polyrhythmic tempos and beats, which made it our own. An extension of our soul -- it is music that transcends across continents and time. This is Music.
-- Charlie Eruchalu
