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In honor of Black Music Month (designated by President Jimmy Carter in 1979), I take this time to remind ALL peoples, not just Black, of something most serious musicians already know......which is that music is among the truest spiritual paths. Depending on the individual or the form of music, it can lead to pure higher transformation within, aiding significantly in one's higher development. I can get into the scientific reason why this is so in another conversation.
It is interesting that among indigenous Africans on the continent & in the Diaspora, for the most part, music & dance has become relegated to anything BUT inner spiritual development. It's also interesting that most Africans are not aware that for indigenous Africans taken from Africa during the slave trade, these 2 most viable forms of spiritual transformation (music & dance) are SOLELY responsible for what little ancestral continuity which has held Africans intact as a race throughout that dreaded 'hell-o-caust' (which some say is still ongoing). This continuity has made us what we are today, even though we still have much to achieve.
This is why each June is important to me~!!!!
In the early 1980, when President Carter was asked why he chose June as Black Music Month, I was expecting him to say that he was prompted by Black leaders to do so & acted accordingly, but to my surprise he stated that this was the music that moved him when he was young & growing up in the south, helping to shape the man he had become.
Interesting..........I VERY rarely hear prominent Africans make a statement to that effect about Black music~!!!
President Obama changed the name of this observance to 'African-American Music Appreciation Month', but I actually prefer President Carter's original term, because it relates an appreciation of music by indigenous Africans world-wide, not just in America.
As one who personally celebrates an appreciation of this spiritual path each moment of Presence, President Carter's reputation as a politician aside, anyone who focuses on this wonderful transcendent 'gift' to the world from the African continent deserves honorable mention from me~!
