Song Exploder - Jamila Woods - BALDWIN

Episode Date: July 10, 2019

Jamila Woods is a singer, songwriter, and poet from Chicago. She’s released two albums, and she’s collaborated with artists like Chance the Rapper, Noname, and Macklemore. In May 2019, she put out her second album, LEGACY! LEGACY!, to critical acclaim. NME called it one of the albums of the year, Rolling Stone called it a “revelation,” and Pitchfork named it “Best New Music.” In this episode, Jamila and her producer Slot-A break down a song from that album, called “BALDWIN,” named after the late author and civil rights activist James Baldwin. songexploder.net/jamila-woods

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and, piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. My name is Tau Wyn. Jamila Woods is a singer, songwriter, and poet from Chicago. She's released two albums, and she's collaborated with artists like Chance the Rapper, No Name, and Macklemore. In May 2019, she put out her second album, Legacy, Legacy, to critical acclaim. NME called it one of the albums of the year, Rolling Stone called it. it a revelation, and pitchfork named it Best New Music. In this episode, Jamila and her producer, Slot A, break down a song from that album called Baldwin,

named after the late author and civil rights activist James Baldwin. My name is Jamila Woods, and I'm a singer and musician poet. This song, it was inspired by James Baldwin's letter to my nephew. I was working as a teaching artist at a nonprofit Young Chicago Authors, Teaching Poetting. and I often return to reading James Baldwin. The whole essay is written to his nephew, and he's kind of giving him perspective and advice about the world, like navigating the world as a black man.

There is no reason for you to try to become like white men, and there is no basis whatsoever for their impertinent assumption that they must accept you. The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them and I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love for these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, trapped in a history

which they do not understand and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it. They have had to believe for many years and for innumerable reasons that black men are inferior to white men. And part of it, he says, is like, it's going to cost us more

to meet injustice or oppression or prejudice with that same energy of hatred. And so kind of tasking us to meet it with love and compassion instead, which I thought was very beautiful, but also very difficult to kind of put into practice. So for this song, I started out by playing around in garage band. I'm not a producer, but I really want to hone those skills. And so I was trying to make more. beats for myself. I started with that sample. It was this SWV song that I really liked called I'm So Into You. SWV is a 90s R&B group. I just really loved the beat of that song

and wanted to flip it into something different. So I just ripped the audio from YouTube and looped that part and then started writing over that. anyway, said I should love you anyway, and that's okay, making it hard. In that first version of the song, it was more like being frustrated at the fact that so many white people around me would be like, oh, well, I have a black friend, so I'm good, or, you know, I listen to rap music, so that's all I have to do to kind of show that I'm good with black people. You could put my face in a magazine. You could saw my share you at a war grease. I mean, you You know, like that idea of being good, these ways in which it's like, oh, look, CBS has a whole aisle of hair products now.

Like, I mean, cool, but that doesn't mean that corporation is supporting black lives in a tangible way. So it was kind of like this macro and micro tongue-in-cheek critique of what does it really mean to be for black people. The first draft that I made, I saved it Baldwin, January 28th, 2014. So it was a while ago. There was definitely a lot of time spent sitting with this song and being like, it's not right, but I don't know how to work on it again. I was kind of in that place of, I don't know where this song should go. Like I know, but I don't know how to get it there.

The breakthrough moment of the song was when I was working with, slot A, who was producing most of Legacy Legacy. What's up? My name is slot A. He didn't really know about the letter to my nephew, so I told him about that, and we kind of like read the section. And then I was just telling him where I was trying to come from with the song and how I was trying to approach it, but also that I was feeling like all of my writing was just sounding a little too basic or too simplistic. The point that she kind of let me know that she was attempting to make was they don't necessarily

they understand this all the way. I want to forgive him, but I'm having a hard time. And so we were trying to figure out a perspective that wasn't so attacky. And then he was saying, well, this idea of writing towards an enemy, not in like the mortal sense of that word, but just kind of like an opponent, like someone who's not on the same side as you, he kind of compared that to battle rap. And he was saying, like, in battle rap, you have to know your opponent so well. It's almost like you have to love them.

Like, you have to know, like, what their mom looks like, like, what shoes they have on, like, where do they live, like, all of these intimate details about them. It's an assault, but it's an assault with, I have knowledge of you. I know you inside and now. Instead of saying that you're a bum and, like, disrespecting you, if I come at it with the thought of, you know what, you probably had positive intent, but let me educate you and show you the other way, then it means a little bit more. It's something less to laugh at, has a little bit more weight to it. So attacking it with love versus just attacking you with malice. And that takes a different level of maturity. And so that kind of shifted in my mind and helped me come at the song from more of a place of empathy

as opposed to seeing how many cute things I could put in a bar, but more so saying like, there's a reason why there's a wall here. Like there's a reason why you don't understand what black people have experienced. and there's a reason why sometimes you don't want to or you feel like you can't. So the very first version of the song was a lot about my interactions with white people who I've been encountering,

but I thought that it was more interesting to talk about these larger things that happen on a broader scale in black people's lives. And so I was doing a lot of research. There are all these articles about the perception that black people don't feel pain, as much as white people. And so that shows up with the doctors,

not believing pregnant black women when they're saying something's wrong or police officers, you know, using excessive force. There was like a study done saying like how fear is always the weapon that is used to justify violence. It's like, oh, the officer feared for his life,

therefore he took a black person's life. And the things that evoke that fear are just black people living, you know, existing often. And so I was like ingesting all of that and then writing the new lyrics. Somebody's daddy always laid out on the street and for what?

Your precious lethal fear. I was coming at it from an angle of not accepting that as an excuse, but saying your precious lethal fear that you cling to is doing this violence. Your silence when things happen, that's also violence. Like a white person crossing the street when they see a black person. You clutch on your purse now you cross in the street.

Brother caught your eye now you're calling police. I was trying to sing in like a deeper register than I had previously where it's like you took a long sigh before you say it, as opposed to coming at it so aggressive and angry and at a certain point there's this level of exhaustion where it's like I've already seen this story so many times I can't believe this is happening again but it's like that truth is motivating me to speak through my exhaustion

It's a casual violence in your speech and your silence It's a natural science you too comfortable lying We always worked out of Sla E's house He has like a setup in his apartment I had him re-download the SWV song. So he started with that sample, but then we buried it and then deleted it. We just decided to go a totally different direction and restart.

I wanted some more sparseness, so there would be times when you would just be listening to the words. And I had re-recorded the vocals, so we just worked from the vocals that he built around them to me. make the final version. I found the key, and then we kind of started messing with the Rhodes from there. I wanted something that sounded a little bit more electronic but analog at the same time, and Rhodes kind of falls right in that little sweet spot.

That's kind of what we started with. The initial drums were all done in my MPC. So kick, snare, I tap that out. I recorded it in live and then try to make sure I fix the timing. So it wasn't like all over the place, but like still felt natural. The Moog is one of my favorite bases. And so that was the first bass sound that we used for Stevie Wonder. That was really the first person that I heard as a child using Moog synths.

He was like a lot of the inspiration for it. Once we had the skeleton of the beat, then it was kind of going back and forth and adding more of the vocals. The verses and the chorus is kind of directed at different. audiences because we're tied, but there's kind of like two conversations happening at the same time. The verses are writing towards white people. But then in the choruses, it's like we talking about black people. And then there's choir vocals that come in. I just wanted it to feel like there is more than one voice participating to make it feel like it's my perspective, but it's not only my perspective. And that was something that reading Baldwin and all of the black writers that I read is like,

oh, I'm not alone in this feeling that I've been feeling. It's actually way bigger than me. And so I wanted to have that bigness come through in the hook and to be very prideful. It was my two sisters and two of my friends who are singing in the hook with me. We were all in the Chicago Children's Choir, which was founded by this man who wanted to bring together all different races of children in Chicago, because Chicago is super segregated and have them sing together. And so part of the ethos of the choir is to feel what you're singing. They would always be like, eyebrows up, like, be present and feel the music and let us

see on your face what it is that you're singing. And so it was really beautiful, like, to watch them singing it. And it was cool to think of all the different experiences that we've had together that helped that moment come together. Once I had the full hook with the choir vocals, the horns were added. So it was Nico Segal, who's playing. And I love the texture of Nico's horns. I feel like I could just recognize them anywhere. There's like that one part where you can kind of hear like the note roll off. And that just totally elevated the sound of the beat. It punctuates the hook and makes it have that kind of explosive power.

I came up through like spoken word poetry and slam poetry and there's a community there. And also there's community around battle rap. And it's really interesting to think about being in community with people like that and how to have the vulnerability and honesty to say your fear or your discomfort that's a mask and digging underneath that to expose it. That's a lot of what Baldwin would talk about

and that's kind of what he's saying in the letter. These men are your brothers, your lost younger brothers and if the word integration means anything, this is what it means. That we with love shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality

and begin to change it. For this is your home. my friend. Do not be driven from it. We're in this country, like we're in this America together. We don't really have a choice to separate ourselves. So we might as well come at each other with love. And now, here's Baldwin by Jamila Woods in its entirety. You don't have figured it out just yet.

Reading their books you ain't read. Somebody's down the street. You're preciously. fear your precious lethal fear you could change your hood just by showing your face condo climbing high now the black is erased you don't get it get you clutch on your purse now you cross in the street brother caught your eye now you're calling police it's a casual violence in your speech and your silence it's a natural sign Visit SongExploder.net for more information about Jamila Woods.

You'll also find a link to buy or stream this song. Song Exploder is made by creator Rishi Keishche Hereway, producer Christian Coons, and me, the guest host for this year. Carlos Laram is our illustrator. He makes portraits for every episode, which you can see on the Song Exploder website. Special thanks to Al Ledson, who read the excerpts from Baldwin's essay, Letter to My Nephew. If you want to hear more of his great voice, he hosts the award-winning investigative reporting podcast Reveal. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of fiercely independent podcasts. You can learn about all of our shows at Radiotopia.fm.

You can also find Song Explorer on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at Song Exploder. And you can find me at Tao Get Stay Down. My name is Tao Wyn. Thanks for listening. Thank you.