April 28, 2022:
The Indestructible Beat.
Alone late nights in bed with headphones. Alight with possibilities: that magical music.
Where my circle were smitten by indies — the college radio milieu fathered by R.E.M. — I found that scene racist and shallow and pale. The real excitement was in Africa, and while white American college students were certainly welcome, few of them came.
Mbaqanga, High Life, Kwela: loose, vibrant, multicolored; where the American college students were stiff, entitled, and gray.
That moment: 1986, 1987, 1988. That was when my possibilities matured. Matured, fructified, and collapsed — a very short time for one life, destroyed by broken brain chemistry and mistaken compassion for the undeserving.