Washington, like most mothers, replayed the moment in her mind repeatedly. And now Washington was in the hospital bed insisting - almost pleading - to be believed, because she had tried to understand what she might’ve done wrong. Though she shielded her oldest daughter with her body, tragically her youngest daughter remained too vulnerable to the hatred and violence, and lost her life. The dampness turned out to be a combination of tears and sweat: the woman’s name was LaPorsha Washington and she had lost her 7 year-old daughter to a white terrorist, all because she took her kids when she went to get a cup of coffee the day before New Year’s Eve. I could not tell why and I pressed play on the video. The other day, I saw a woman lying down on her hospital bed she looked damp.
#Prince musicology live video i would die 4 u professional
As I felt my body and spirit pulled into a nihilism and depression I’d never known, professional help and Prince were essential to sustaining my will to live and to love, and to making room for the biggest, most complicated situation a human faces: acceptance of death.
And only Prince’s music, namely “I Would Die 4 U,” relieved me from the cold emotional overwhelm that the tragedies had brought. Just as quickly and randomly as I thread these sentences together, is how quickly and randomly these events took place. My grandmother’s memory began to deteriorate from dementia and her behavior was becoming more volatile and unpredictable. Six days after my friend’s attempted suicide, I lost a family member to a drug overdose. When thinking about it, it’s not so much that I desire to complete my life but to grow it so big that I can fit the demons and haunts of everyone I’ve ever been interested in practicing love with. It is not so much a bravery around death, but a deep empathy of knowing what it takes to be a queer, Black, creative thing in domination, and me wishing I could store that kind of pain and trauma like my body stores pain and memory in my bad knee (the one I inherited from my mama’s side). It is a sacrificial instinct that I’ve only located with Black people. It’s such a quick articulation of the sacrificial, transcendent energy that encompasses me when I love another Black person for no other reason, but because, in my life, I’ve decided to take interests in love. The love that Prince is referring to must be compared to spiritual and religious ideology because as he sings in his lyrics, it’s not romantic, not familiar or platonic, but rather divine. I’m your messiah and you’re the reason why.” I am something that you’ll never comprehend. The mantra he repeated: “I would die 4 u, I would die 4 u, I would die 4 u.” Lyrically he compares himself to a Christ-like character, singing lyrics like, “I’m not your lover. Prince’s jovial, crucifical dance track “I Would Die 4 U” once consumed my imagination. Melancholy is soundtracked, and we reach for the familiar during tragedy - and, often, the cliche. It’s logical to feel deep pain and recall music that might help you feel less alone during the experience. Just as it’s easy to connect negro spirituals to chattel slavery, it’s quite simple to see trauma and connect it to a song, because this has been our transaction: to be harmed and then to create. Most Black music is created out of deep trauma and that divine need to express oneself, which all artists possess. It feels thin - intellectually undeveloped - to compare a pop song to trauma, but when Black and finding escape in music, it’s simply a reversal of how we create the joyful noise. I’d just ask, “How are you? Do you need anything?” He’d respond, “I am fine and no.” He told me lies that I knew weren’t true, which I appreciated, if only for the effort and I thought truths and cliches in my mind that I would never let roll off of my tongue. It was hardly 24 hours after his attempted suicide, and one comforting thing about such an event is that, it is so horrendous, nobody feels pressured to fill the air with aimless chatter. Once, when I visited a friend who was laid-up in a hospital bed, we shared a knowing silence, while the mundane talk between nurses about office gossip interrupted our clinical quiet on the other side of the door.
These are proverbs we probably uttered because, for some reason, they complete the emotions that we feel but find hard to articulate. We call on such ideas often because life makes them necessary. Some cliches, however, are cliche because of how useful they are. They feel good and they work - but once an idea is tired, it feels like empty platitude.
Many cliches are cliches because they are accessible.
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