A Candid Life
On my upcoming EP, my release show, and beauty as resistance
Hi everyone,
On Nov 16 my record Candid EP comes out! You can pre-save it on Spotify here and buy tickets to hear this song and more original music of mine at my debut live show here. Candid is a project that narrates my coming-of-age story as a solo artist. I have called it Candid because the project consists of four versions of one song by that name. But I also call it Candid because that’s what my life is centering on these days.
I want to be candid about all that I see. Lord knows we need candor about the reach and cost of US empire; we need candor about our mental and emotional health; we need candor about the state of the church; we need candor about the state of the music industry; we need candor about the state of postsecondary education; we need candor about the extent to which Black lives have ever mattered; and we need candor about the future of our species. These are the areas that matter to me, but all of us need to speak candidly about whatever we see unfolding in our lives. I pray my musical offering can be a channel for just this sort of reflection.
This desire to live candidly swelled up in me on Wednesday during The JuJu Exchange show here in town. My brother Nova Zaii and I had just finished a high-octane duo moment, and I was catching my breath as I came to the mic in between songs. It turned out to be a public come-to-Jesus moment. I said to the audience (which included me) that this musical performance is about what’s really going on in the world, both in international affairs and in the lives of everybody present in that room. If we aren’t playing into and from what’s really going on, then what are we doing? The music demands we be candid.
As the world burns and I prepare for my show and a long run of Chicago shows with Isaiah Collier (see below), I’ve been thinking about past eras of music-making amongst civil unrest. The 60s come to mind, which houses some of my favorite music of all time: The Miles Davis second quintet and Coltrane’s quartet. It is no coincidence that my favorite sounds come from a time of severe unrest in greater US society and the world. For instance, in 1963 MLK delivered “I have a dream” while his comrades were being eaten by dogs and hosed down. And that’s also the year John Coltrane released “A Love Supreme.”
I often think about these timelines as separate: civil rights happened over here; music happened over there. But this was the world both of these cats were navigating synchronously. Trane, Miles and them were watching Black folk getting eaten, beaten and killed on the news, and they also were watching MLK, Shuttlesworth, Hamer, Parks, and Bayard do their thang. And then they were playing their hearts out on tour in Europe and around the US. That was their response to the times. The music demanded they be candid.
As the US continues funding Israel’s slaughtering of Palestinians, as the Congo reels from continued internal displacement, and as Black Chicago continues suffering awful levels of gun violence, I will take my cue from Trane and Miles. I will play candidly against the violence, and invite you to speak candidly into the situation from your vantage point. Might we play music, write words, and hug our families with a candid understanding that death looms large but that joy and beauty are yet ours too?
It is at times like these that I am thankful again to live a faith that avers that Jesus was really born into the world, really ate and was merry with us, really was betrayed by his religious kin and the government over him, really wept when his friend died, really was whipped, really was slaughtered, and really rose from the dead. When slaughter is this close, this palpable, I search for the Holy Spirit to give me new insight into how to find beauty amidst death, for that is what my faith in Jesus is about, and that is what my life in Black is about.
The call to make beauty and to bid people rest is not an exercise in domestication. It is rather the working out of salvation. It is to summon myself and others to embrace a joy that resists the tyranny of the times threatening to ensnare us all. When we listen, we can hear more clearly who we are in God and what we are called to be and do as a result of that relationship.
I hope my candid story gives you insight into yours: What music do you listen to in times of deep violence in your life? How does the death marking this moment make you reflect on the work you do daily? Discerning these questions consistently gives us insight into what needs to be relinquished, recalled, and retained. It is from this place that we can dare make a joyful noise to the Lord amidst the din of the gnashing of teeth.
abundantly,
Julian
Nov 4 Julian Davis Reid’s Circle of Trust at Merit School of Music (Chicago)
Nov 8 Notes of Rest at Garrett School of Theology (Chicago)
Nov 9 Notes of Rest at Duke University Chapel (Durham)
Nov 10-12 Isaiah Collier & The Chosen Few at the Jazz Showcase (Chicago)
Nov 13 Isaiah Collier & The Chosen Few at Bronzeville Winery (Chicago)
Nov 16 Julian Davis Reid’s Circle of Trust at The Jazz Showcase (Chicago)
Nov 29 Ministering at First United Methodist Church of Oak Park, IL
Oh, this just names the tension so well, especially for the artists. Thank you.
Amen.