Jackson Free Press

The drum is a super projection of the human voice. Human force is combined with other natural forces—skin of animal, hollowed solid tree-trunk, etc.—as a medium for arousing the attention and reaction of mankind. The drum and the drummer, in mutual cooperation, create patterns of consciousness that give a moment of inspiration to those they touch.

From the first drum of the ancient continent of Africa that united nations divided by space and time, to the sounds of freedom-seeking slaves wailing encrypted dirges, to the anarchy of jazz joints rocking rebellious riffs confined by neither meter nor measure, to the freedom songs that transformed the surrounding ether into a shield protecting protestors from the power of the unseen hand, the drum of African-American music has sounded with purpose.

Like Lauryn Hill said, "Music is supposed to inspire."

I arise to pound my chest flesh. Where is my inspiration now?

I sometimes can't make up my mind when trying to define the music of our time. The game grinds noble souls into a powdered hell that produces product-pushers to ensure record sales. Producers peddle beats to induce comatose customers into enraged trend frenzies. Pie-eyed pipers pipe tunes to consume thought vibrations into lust-filled lullabies instructing p-popping for dollars and pimps popping collars.

Far from the source have we strayed. The drum was created to comfort and remind us of the heartbeat that keeps us alive and connects us to every living thing on the planet, giving us a visual of the state of our humankind. So if today's drum paints a picture of the present state of our people, then black folks were better off as slaves. At least then we sang songs of better days, plotting the great escape from a life built on service for those who would silence our internal drum without hesitation.

But now dogs on tracks, ice, hoes and Cadillacs lace non-melodies that are programmed by stations to hypnotize the listener into an unconscious acceptance of an inferior product. Listening to top 40 in my car with my 6-year-old son on the backseat is like exposing his ears to radioactive decibels designed to derail his thought process into that of a jingle-repeating zombie with no control over the bobbing of his head, his tongue repeating the phrase "Drop it like it's hot, Drop it like it's hot."

All this can be attributed to the crass commercialism and continued bastardization of African-American music. The cost of integration that resulted from the Civil Rights Movement was the loss of our moral and cultural identity. No longer can we claim that we are not like our captors. We have become drunk with the perception of achievement and acceptance. We no longer desire to think of ourselves separately. We are finally Americans.

Once upon a time our music was created naturally. Natural instruments were played by skilled artisans that studied their craft until they understood not only theory, but purpose and responsibility. For years in many African traditions, the drums have been used to evoke spirits. The different drums were made to produce a wide variety of sounds and serve a vast array of purposes. They were not different just for the sake of being so. If you did not have a complete grasp of your instrument and the power it possessed, then you could evoke unwanted spirits. Whatever spirit you gave life to became your responsibility.

With the emergence of the digital age, we as a society have begun to tap into energy frequencies we didn't even know existed 50 years ago. Now any cat with a computer and software can produce "music," with no formal training. And ain't nothing wrong with that.

The problem is that as we produce musical compositions with that bangin' kick drum as the heartbeat, we give life to words that conjure spirits that travel our realm unchecked. Unchecked because producers want to make platinum hits without accepting the responsibility of the spirits they evoke and the actions that are set in motion by the energies released through their music.

I often get caught up singing a song that I detest, because for the past week the song has been on every radio station, on the soundtrack for the latest movie, on BET, VH1, MTV, CBS This Morning, The Carson Daly Show and on and on and on. WE ARE BEING PROGRAMMED. Corporate fat cats sit back and get fat off ghetto superRATS chasing cheese, while the disease of ignorance grows strong like kudzu on Mississippi plains.

The same cats that own the record companies own the radio stations. And guess what, they own the video channels and the movie companies. They also own book publishing companies and clothing lines. And they know that if the commercial jingle is engrained in your mind, then the foundation for their consumer base has already been laid.

Remember Pavlov's dog? Well, those experiments weren't all for naught. They set the precedence on how to train animals to respond to certain stimulants.

Whassup dawg?

Carlton Turner is Co-Founder of the group M.U.G.A.B.E.E. (Men Under Guidance Acting Before Early Extinction). He is currently the Programs and Regional Development Director at Alternate ROOTS, a non-profit organization based in Atlanta, Ga. He is from Jackson.