The following comprises an overview about my new album, The Colored Waiting Room, which will be released next month. In the coming weeks, we’ll release a series of film vignettes about the project and some of the musicians and production crew involved in the project on various social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and Tumblr.       

During the Jim Crow Era, the practice of the colored waiting room was a custom that segregated black passengers from the general population as they waited to board various modes of public transportation. They represented in the public sphere a space of containment and even the presumption of contamination. Yet on the flip side, it was also a place where one was free to be one’s self, where one could express things beyond the scrutiny of a broader, suspicious, though voraciously consuming public.

The apparently unforgiving, real, and metaphorical boundary encircling “colored-ness” at this time, then, was not all that it was intended to be nor all that it seemed.  Cultural forms and fascinations flourished behind the veil for which the colored waiting room stood. And the sensibilities embedded in these expressions could never, in fact, be “pure,” or free from the cross-contamination so feared in a racially nervous society. 

Everyone and everything, you see, was present inside the colored waiting room, especially in its music. Music is, indeed, a space where people can join together in creative, communal exchange and transformation—where musicians create sounds that embody their own musical voices and aspirations and forge them with others.

This recording expresses the eclectic vibe that was the spirit of the colored waiting room. It is clearly ironic that black citizens who were “fixin’ to get up” or travel to their various destinations would be forced to launch from spaces of restriction.  But they made these rooms something else: they became places pregnant with possibilities.

Indeed, they were transformed into something akin to what the poet Elizabeth Alexander has called the “black interior” or “dream space.”  For her, this is “the great hopeful space of African American creativity. . . . [one] outside of the parameters of how we are seen in this culture . . . .‘The black interior’ is not an inscrutable zone, nor colonial fantasy. Rather, I see it as an inner space in which black artists have found selves that go far, far beyond the limited expectations and definitions of what black is, isn’t or should be.

The music here, like any identity in the colored waiting rooms, is not restricted and refuses to pin itself down to a specific genre. Each song’s message of life, love, desire, and joy are the result, in part, of providing talented individuals from different backgrounds and musical dispositions material through which they could dream, interpret, and execute. Ranging over various themes and inspired by sundry experiences, it tries to move beyond aesthetic containment and toward the freedom spirit that those former inhabitants of colored waiting rooms imagined for themselves, their descendants, and for us all.

Step into the experience of The Colored Waiting Room. Enjoy and imagine together with us.

The remix of this project serves as a measuring stick for the growing sophistication, theoretical rigor, international purview, and commitment of “the hip-hop generation” to the highest standards of scholarship.  The two-part event, Author Meets the Critics: That’s The Joint 2^nd Edition at the Hiphop Archive, featured the editors in pubic dialogue with a group of scholars or “critics,” was punctuated with a showing of a independent film titled The Wonder Year, a critically acclaimed work about the producer 9^th Wonder (Patrick Douthit).

The Wonder Year – Trailer from LRG on Vimeo.

The conversation was shaped by the multi-disciplinary stances of Trinity College’s Vijay Prashad, Harvard University’s Hiphop Archive Fellow Joycelyn Wilson, University of Kansas’s Nicole Hodges Persley, and myself.  Observations ranged from the authors addressing our various “wish lists” for inclusion to ruminations on what we appreciated about the volume.  For all the talk about its contribution to the field of hip hop studies, a more appropriate assessment in my view is that this compilation has been central to the formation of the field, second to perhaps only Tricia Roses’ opening salvo, Black Noise.  (Her work might be thought of as the theme upon which the symphony of voices in That’s the Joint! riff, ride, and respond).

One of the interesting things about this observation is that from a black cultural studies standpoint, hip hop studies are ubiquitous, or at least, seemingly so.  Is it because hip-hop artists attract so much attention in the media?  Or, maybe because so many of the young scholars use it as a cultural reference—a frame that can at once serve as a philosophical platform, anecdotal evidence, and sites for both literary close readings, ethnographic field work, and social activism.

One of the more compelling points that was raised on the panel and revisited at dinner was the transportability of hip hop’s sonic conventions and political sensibilities around the world.  As Vijay pointed out this “thickness” has become one of the more compelling aspects of U.S.-based hip hop, one that demands greater attention.  Other ideas that were circulated dealt with the use of hip hop as a model for teaching acting technique, the need for more sound studies, as well as the fruitful on-the-ground uses of the music and scholarship among at-risk populations, particularly poor black males.

The take away for all of this is the vital and energetic quality of thought surrounding hip hop.  It can no longer claim a purely marginal status—an endowed archive at “the H,” a vetted and canonized bibliography and discography, and its status as the darling of social media traffic among other black popular forms, a plethora of course offerings in the academy, and more affirm its mainstream profile.  And if that isn’t enough I recently learned that the rapper Lupe Fiasco and I attended the same high school. He was inducted into our alma mater’s Hall of Fame a year before me, the Ivy League professor.

Hip hop, to quote a cliché, must be here to stay.  And as hip hop’s avant-garde careens toward middle age, tenured professorships, Rogaine treatments, the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame, and “where have they been?” episodes, a question looms. Will the time come when one has to trade in one’s hip-hop generation I.D. for an AARP card? Just asking.

Chicago

Every city has a pulse. The heart of Chicago culture has a rhythmic pulse beat that hits with every sound imaginable—from the heavy bass of hip-hop to the blaring horns of funk. The cultural trajectory of Chicago is one based in a timeless diversity of black music.

It is this history that has created the work of Professor Guthrie Ramsey. I sat down with him to discuss his most recent endeavor, “The Chicago Project.” This aptly titled look into the sounds of a city has its roots in a course taught by Ramsey entitled, “From Blues to Obama: History, Culture and Power in Black Chicago.” Not only does this include works from his students, but also special events and performances; all capturing the soul of Chicago. Prof. Ramsey himself puts it best, “This project comes out my research of the great Chicago artists like Curtis Mayfield and Ramsey Lewis. What I’m trying to do with this endeavor is contextualize their contributions to the Chicago aesthetic as a whole—musically, politically and otherwise.”

This project will inevitably explore cultural aesthetics overlooked by many and perhaps known to few in such detail. Beyond the scholarly work, the University of Pennsylvania hosted legendary jazz pianist, band leader, and native Chicagoan Dr. Ramsey Lewis as Spring 2010 Artist-in-Residence in association with Center for Africana Studies for a three day event on March 17-19th.

Ramsey Lewis

One of the most exciting aspects of the Chicago Project lies in the genius of  Dr. Ramsey Lewis. To say that Dr. Lewis is an exemplar of longevity and prolificacy may be an understatement; a testament to his stellar artistic journey. Continuing a career ranging over sixty years, Lewis has built a resume boasting dynamic genre-bending jazz sounds with even more dynamic performances. Beyond that he has worked in both popular radio and television series, broadcasting his musical tastes to audiences around the world. The roots of Dr. Lewis come out of a Chicago tradition, known quite well by Prof. Ramsey.

As a Chicago native himself, Prof. Ramsey referred to the musical landscape of the city as “diverse and wide-ranging.”

“Today, I hear radio stations focusing in on one genre. Growing up in Chicago, I could turn on the radio and hear everything on one station—Jazz, Blues, Gospel, R&B. That’s Chicago.”

There is no better example of this principle than Dr. Lewis. While heralded and typified as a jazz artist, Lewis transcended the single genre boundaries. Beginning a career in the acoustic feel of standard jazz and mixtures of classical sounds, his music of the 1970s saw major appearances by vocalists Maurice and Verdine White of the legendary Chicago Funk band Earth, Wind & Fire. From there, Lewis went on to explore the smooth jazz and R&B styling, while never forget his early jazz roots.

Ramsey Lewis Trio – Hang On Sloopy (1973)

It was within this microcosm that Professor Guthrie Ramsey was nurtured. When I asked him who he listened to as a youth, he paused as wide grin spread across his face. For a second, even I myself forgot the expansive list of great musical acts coming out of the Windy City. After his elongated pause he said, “Honestly, I listened to everyone. Of course, the well-known artists like Ramsey Lewis, Curtis Mayfield, Jerry Butler, Chaka Khan and Earth, Wind & Fire. But there was so much more. I grew up in a time when you could really hear your local artists—Von Freeman, Binky Green. Lonnie Plaxico. I could go on for days…”

Of course, Professor Ramsey is no stranger to the stage himself having performed with the timeless Chicago group, The Chi-Lites. As an artist, the diverse musical landscape has shaped the way in which he models his career. “I look for that mixture when I’m recording an album. I don’t want to confine myself to this specific genre or that specific genre. I just want to do music—in all its forms.”

The Chi-Lites with Eugene Record – Have You Seen Her

One cannot help but get excited when discussing the project with Professor Ramsey. This project is much more than simple academic research for the professor. For him, it is a look into a cities’ history, his city, his history. However, the music of Chicago has become a part of a widespread tradition of amazing music. The taste of Chicago has become a slice of Americana tradition, one which can be enjoyed by all.

PAUL PENNINGTON

WHAT: 9th Annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Lecture in Social Justice

WHERE: Zellerbach Theatre, Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, 3680 Walnut St.

WHEN: 5:30 p.m., Friday, Jan. 22

Inaugurated in 2002, the Martin Luther King Jr. Lecture in Social Justice is an annual event that honors individuals and scholars of African descent who have committed themselves to social justice. This year’s program features Benjamin Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP, in conversation with Camille Charles, director of Penn’s Center for Africana Studies and professor of sociology.

A program highlight will be the performance of the new NAACP anthem, “Someone Is Listening.” The song, composed by Penn music professor Guthrie Ramsey Jr. was commissioned in honor of the NAACP’s 100th anniversary.

The Center for Africana Studies and the Annenberg School for Communication at Penn will present the lecture as part of the University’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Symposium on Social Change. The event is free and open to the public.

Downbeat Magazine October 09 - Higher Education Article