#45: Take It or Leave It
#45: Take It or Leave It
A weekly drop of things I love
Take It or Leave It is a weekly highlight series for paid subscribers, but this installment is free for everyone. Pretty much every Friday, I share a quick hit of things I’m loving.
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If not, all good. Take it or leave it ✌️
ICYMI: For my latest newsletter essay, I wrote about the language that spills out of us in the heat of competition. I can’t say it enough but big thanks to Elizabeth,
& for helping me push these sentences.I also really love the synergy between my essay and this recent post from
. Another writer featured “Everyone is Saying the F word” in her newsletter with a very kind description:“Alex Lewis does a tremendous job of distilling how healthy competition is good for all of us and what passion in sports can teach us.”
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Something from YouTube
When my friend
asked me if I’d watched Big Sean’s Tiny Desk yet, I told her I was hesitant because Big Sean has an inclination toward corniness that is sometimes unbearable. The thing is I love Big Sean! From his blog era releases, especially Finally Famous Vol 3, to his debut album Finally Famous and best work to date Dark Sky Paradise, I’m more of a Big Sean fan than I let on. And as Sadie expected, I enjoyed his Tiny Desk, rapping nearly every word. I do appreciate how Big Sean has seemed to maintain his earnestness through a wirlwhind of a career. Honestly, watching him rap is just fun because he looks like he has fun doing it.A song I played
Have you heard of the Airbuds app? I was reading a recent newsletter post from
and she put me on. Airbuds simply lets you see what your friends are listening to on Spotify & Apple Music. You can even add a fun little widget to your lock screen or home screen that makes it easier for you to keep up with the homies. I downloaded Airbuds earlier this week, and it has made me want to listen to so much more music, so you’re getting another playlist this week—this time with 25 songs.I was especially excited to see Kamasi Washington and André 3000 collaborate on an instrumental track this week. Also, OG Vern, who I recently wrote about for Columbus Underground along with Dom Deshawn & Joey Aich, dropped his new EP, BETTERTHANU. All that and more in this week’s playlist.
A podcast I listened to
My friend
has a podcast where him and two other Black men discuss being and becoming in the world today. In this episode, they discuss evolution and aging thoughtfully, which connected to some of the thoughts I published in November 2023 on aging and lessons I’d been learning from André 3000 and Toni Morrison. It was refreshing to hear how these brothers love each other, and I’m excited to continue listening.Something I read
If you’ve been wanting to read an hour and a half of insider reporting on Caitlin Clark’s last four years at Iowa, I have the piece for you. ESPN’s Wright Thompson gained a level of access to Clark’s life that we don’t often get to see, and the stories he tells as a result are amazing—such as Clark chartering a yacht for her and her teammates in Croatia or UConn never recruiting her (Iowa-UConn tonight at 9:30pm ET, just saying).
Per a writing mentor’s recommendation, I read the entire piece and absolutely loved it. But if you don’t have an hour and a half to give,
kindly listed some of the best parts from the story here:
A TikTok video I watched
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RUBEN STUDDARD HIVE RISE UP 🗣️ I think about him and his hit song “Sorry 2004” a lot actually, so it was nice to be reminded he’s still got it!
Something I keep thinking about
I haven’t listened to Beyoncé’s album yet, and this isn’t even about Beyoncé’s album, but I did read Doreen St. Felix’s Cowboy Carter review for The New Yorker. In the piece, St. Felix describes how the album references the underwhelming reception Beyoncé received when she performed “Daddy Lessons” with the then Dixie Chicks at the CMAs.
St. Felix wrote about Beyoncé looking noticeably frustrated:
“The artist took justified offense to the idea that a Black woman could not lay claim to the most American genre. The slight inspired a years-long investigation of the blacked-out Black roots of country music.”
My friend recently challenged me to write an essay on Black artists who make being rejected by white spaces their entire identity and why it’s not the symbol of power they think it is. While I don’t know if Beyoncé completely falls into this, and I certainly don’t think I have the words for that essay yet, I do look at Cowboy Carter, based on St. Felix’s description, as an example of a Black artist taking that rejection and attempting to transform it into reclamation.
In 2017, Beyoncé’s sister Solange, who titled her 2016 album A Seat at the Table, tweeted, “We aren’t thanking anyone for ‘allowing us’ into these spaces… until we are truly given the access to tear the got damn walls down.” I bring this up not in an attempt to hold Solange to words she posted seven years ago. Hopefully, we’ve all evolved since then. And I don’t even mention this because I disagree with it. There’s a sense of unapologetically claiming space that I deeply admire in her statement, and I can’t help but wonder if these spaces are worth taking up room in any way.
Country, as a style of music, is not white in the way country music, as an industry, is white. “The Black fiddler gave the idea of syncopation to what would become the genre; the banjo’s origins lie in West Africa,” St. Felix wrote about country’s Black roots. It is powerful to honor the Black people who helped shape the style of country music; I find it less inspiring to reach for success in an exploitative industry that favors whiteness. Cowboy Carter can do both.
“Spiting white people is not a substantial political commitment,” tweeted Erika Dickerson-Despenza. “It, in fact, centers the white gaze.” And maybe even in me focusing my efforts on this topic, I’m centering the white gaze. But I am interested in what it looks like as a Black artist to create art from the fullness of my Blackness, in service to the people who came before me, toward the betterment of me and my people. A Black ass future where everyone has what they need. Not just a seat at some fictitious table or a throne in some crumbling castle. Not toward empire, but community.
Not sure if you've read this already but, if you're interested, @janinedenovais recently wrote a great piece unpacking your concerns about Cowboy Carter's gaze
https://kingdomofculture.substack.com/p/the-possibilities-and-perils-of-cowboy
I had to come back to this and re-read it and think about it. When you said "I can’t help but wonder if these spaces are worth taking up room in any way." What struck me was that many of these spaces were initially ours, and maybe, if we're in the house, at the table, in the room, it's a step towards reclaiming. There is also the approach of my ancestors as an alternative (koupe tet, boule kay) but I can't advocate for a physical manifestation of that level of radicalism.