I Know Why the Canary (In the Coal Mine) Sings
Rapsody
Eve
What is the opposite of plunder? The word, denoting pillage or theft — invoked by Ta-Nehisi Coates in his “The Case for Reparations,” and particularly timely in this 400th anniversary of the arrival of enslaved Africans to these United States has no obvious antonyms. But one could perhaps, in an optimal upside-down land where Black women, for instance aren’t seen as the mules of the world conceive of a happy antithesis in “conserve” or “protect” or “fill up,” even. When Rapsody, on “Nina” off her fantastic new album, Eve says, as if in response to the tone-deaf slights Jermaine Dupri directed a couple months ago at women in rap (who are clearly dominating, from Cardi to Kash Doll), “Talk a lot of game but we get paid to, like Jemele,” her shout-out to that high-principled sports journalist, whether wittingly or not conveys nuggets of uneasy wisdom.
In light of Rapsody’s boss JAY-Z’s shady deal with that beloved despoiler of Black bodies, the NFL (which, coincidentally, he reportedly swindled Jermaine Dupri out of) and a wage gap that disproportionately affects Black women, however, these revelations are more savory and substantive than the Popeyes chicken sandwich.
If, then, we note Toni Morrison’s absence (just as we continue to mourn that revered literary giant who died last month at 88) on this sustaining celebration of Black women whose brilliant homages are brimming with exquisite portraiture that sticks to your ribs (one of which the patriarchy, through biblical allegory alleges the first man gifted to womankind), this follow-up to Rapsody’s stellar 2017 debut, Laila’s Wisdom, which was named after her maternal grandmother nonetheless suffices.
“Michelle,” which follows “Reyna’s Interlude,” a tasteful tribute by the poet Reyna Biddy that brings to mind Jamila Woods’s vibrant video for “GIOVANNI” off her similarly timely album, LEGACY! LEGACY! (whose predominant theme is also concerned with giving Black women their flowers) captures something of the former first lady’s cool relatable swagger. It also suggests that the women mainstream society considers exemplars of beauty, let alone strength are, when compared with the prototype (think a meme where a Gettys Image of Taylor Swift’s elongated back equates to Chick-fil-A when contrasted with one of Meg Thee Stallion’s donk equating to Popeyes), as blah as that potato salad (made, unadvisedly, with apples) that somebody brought to the cookout.
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Indeed, the warmth of Nottz’s buoyant Saturday event-calendar boogie — animated by Terrace Martin’s richly textured keyboards and Rapsody’s playful salutes to “Felicia and Ayesha and Keisha,” as well as other around-the-way girls with the “big ol’ butts” sounds just ripe for that seasonal staple for sustenance. (The near ubiquity last year of Michelle Obama’s bestselling memoir, Becoming — as seen in the possession of everyone from those around-the-way women to white millennials only underscores our sheer dependency on that melanated, matriarchal source that nurtures us all.)
How that divine femininity is counterbalanced by transcendent masculinity is apparent on the brilliant “Ibtihaj” — named after the fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad, the first Muslim woman to wear a hijab while representing the US in the Olympics — which features a coveted chorus from D’Angelo and ageless verse from GZA (revisiting his 1995 classic “Liquid Swords”) and bristles with courtly god-body energy. Here, over 9th Wonder’s bass-heavy repurposing of Willie Mitchell’s 1967 single, “Groovin’,” Rapsody adds on with an artful homonym that references the A Raisin in the Sun playwright, Lorraine Hansberry: “Balancing life, wrote both the yin and yang/Hands bury the man and they raised the son,/Lorraine.”
The song’s video, which displays an arresting wash of reds, greens, and turquoise — adorning the women affecting a mean bop in their hijabs against the dreamy backdrop of Harlem brownstones — is itself an ode to inclusivity, which feels all the more vital at a time when right-wing politicians encourage us to fear so-called Muslim extremists, even as white nationalist terrorists, who are continually misidentified as lone-wolf gunmen dominate the headlines (from El Passo to Daytona to the rampage that occurred just last weekend in West Texas). If anything “Ibtihaj” is a loving recalibration for a culture all too often controlled by toxic masculinity (aided and abetted by white supremacy), and an urgent reminder to always look out for our most marginalized and least protected.
Speaking to this very vulnerability is “Maya,” the centerpiece of this nearly flawless album (our only regret here is that there was no Cardi B feature as originally intended on the mouthy anthem “Whoopi”). If Black folks (the most resilient people on the planet) are, as the chorus with its ardent demands to “stay movin’ forward” and not “waste your soul” suggests, the proverbial canaries in the coal mine in this country (as has of course been observed by not only Maya Angelou but also by her ideological antipode Albert Murray, author of The Omni-Americans), then it follows that Black women, again, the most marginalized and least protected are that much more prone to hard-wrought resourcefulness.
In other words, if ours is the story of undeterred survivors, then whose songs of victory, of triumph over adversity are more joyfully resonant than those of the Black woman’s? Let Rapsody, who ends by proclaiming that “I walk the moon before I walk the graves all day” tell it the possibilities for her and her sisters are virtually boundless. These are women. Phenomenally.
