Musings — Mother Mercy

Exploring New Landscapes: New Orleans Is Heaven

I was reading Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman and he was talking about how the life of an oppressed child can limit their own self-definition. Their youthful hopes and experiences of exploring new landscapes are limited by their surroundings and the lessons they must learn in order to survive. I took this opportunity within Mother Mercy to explore new landscapes within me. I find the culture of thought and reflection within the group as being a useful method for exploring inner landscapes with a youthful exuberance. Having a creative outlet helps me deal with the traumatic experiences associated with active participation in ongoing genocide against yourself and your own people. The creative outlet helps me think about abandonment, grief, lost time, and wasted potential. I have written here some of my journal entries that guided my vision of the characters and settings in my story.

C2C Process NotesSteven Waddy September 18, 2019#calltocreate2019, #reflectionsinthewaterComment

Repatriation

Mother Mercy has forced me out.

I engage in this call to create not to impose, but to remind the community

I need them to flourish.

We need each other to survive.

We are interconnected and do not exist in a vacuum.

This project is my response to, “What’s not working?”

C2C Process NotesMichelleAugust 21, 2019#weneedhealthyoptions, #calltocreate2019Comment

Reflections from the Fire

Why am I making art? It is my contribution to the revolution. It is how I participate in movement towards informing my community and helping my folk to heal from past and present incursion. The sounds I am working on will address all of this. It will be fire hence the name dracarys. I am ignited. There will be flame. I am working on this frequency and am excited for the completion of this project.

C2C Process NotesDevynityAugust 6, 2019#calltocreate2019, #dracarys, #mothermercy

(NO) TIME BETWEEN A LINE (BETWEEN) A TRAP & A JOYFUL SPACE

I am calling on every woman in me, in this project. I am calling out the project & allowing it to define itself through only what its contributors see it as. I need to call on others to grow, to maintain my space and size in this world, which is why #SuiteTrapBlues is an interactive, multi genre, intergenerational, conversation that is being held together by its distinct connections and threads. This mixtape experience depends on every voice that has ever lifted me up via song. The earthly, & the heavenly coexist in my versions of liberation gospel.

I have my lens, & it is a spiraled prism. I am trying to capture without trapping.

I remember when “trap music” was not a phrase.