Jamila Woods lulls us into her world of soulful, bubbly R&B. “Black girl be in a bubble, bubble.” This is Heavn. With the opening song Bubbles, Jamila Woods zooms into the life of a quiet black girl. “Floating quietly out of trouble, trouble.” She keeps quiet. The lyrics speak of youthful innocence, being in a bubble. “Black girl braids filled with bubbles, bubbles. Jump in puddles in double, double. How many different oils we know, we know to turn our skin from brown to gold?” Black girls are magic.
However, the ethereal beat keeps her distant. She keeps shy and quiet in Chi-town. She is innocent, but growing aware of the cost of blackness. "You should know that I keep knives inside my kitchen. I'm not the one you're thinking.” She is just like everyone else, armed in the same way everyone else is. She is not dangerous; she is black. “I've been picking my hair out and I know, now how cold I really feel.” She loves her blackness, but it comes at an emotional cost.
The wavering pitches of the next song VRY BLK seem to pop the bubble. “Black is like the magic, and magic's like a spell.” To the tune of Miss Mary Mack, Jamila declares, “I'm very black, black, black. Can't send me back, back, back. You take my brother, brother, brother. I fight back, back, back, back.” Heavn is an act of resistance. She mourns the losses in her community, while condemning the oppressors. “My brother's went to heaven, the police going to…” She does not finish her sentence. You, I, and they all know where they’re going. She also has words for those who condone the oppressors, the media, politicians, and anti-blackness. “Everything is relative, politicizing evidence. I heard a politician reiterate all the messages.” Although we have countless video evidence of murder, everyone views it through their own political lens. Politicians and police chiefs say we don’t know the entire story. VRY BLK is a song of mourning, but also of celebration of African-American culture, of hand games, chants, and solidarity and love in the struggle. “And all I wanna do is find love.”
A new beat comes on, less surreal, but still withdrawn. "Lonely lonely that is me,” Jamila croons. “Say don't take from me quiet. Don't take from me my tears.” She demands that you don’t dictate her emotions, her reactions to trauma. “I could be crazy, but my crazy is my own… I’ll be crazy on my own.” She feels more than the average person and doesn’t quite understand this. “I don't wanna wait for my life to be over to let myself feel the way I feel.” She is entitled to her emotions, to express them openly and freely. “I'm not OK, thanks for asking. I can tell I've said too much I'm out of touch. Guess no one ever really wants to know.“ She cares about others. It is strange to her that people speak out of obligation. She doesn’t understand why others don’t care. “I put a post-it note on my mirror so I might love myself, so I might be enough today.“ She suffers from self-hatred, not for lack of love from herself, but from culture and society. “I don't wanna wait for our lives to be over to love myself however I feel.” Happy, sad, angry-- she wants to love herself no matter the circumstance. She flips the reference (by Paula Cole). She is not impatient for romantic love, but for self-love. “A place where I'm alone, searching for a place where I'm alone. I get lost when I'm alone.” She needs time and space to process things. She wants to accept herself. She wants to find the place she belongs in herself.
In the titular song, Heavn, Jamila Woods opens with a reference to The Cure. Instead of asking for the secret to a neck kiss, she asks “Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick the one that makes you love someone.” In a world so cold, so antiblack, so capitalistic, how does she love someone? “The world wants us so numb and alone.” The chorus of her voice emulate the crashing waves, both near and distant. She thinks of her ancestors, how they loved despite it all. “They're dancing in the deepest ocean. See? Not even death could stop them.”
In My Name is more cutting, the beat more straight-forward and traditional. Jamila prefaces the song by revealing that she chose her own name. “Keep my name out your mouth cause you can't handle the fleek. Don't cut your tongue on my syllables.” She is tired of tongues twisting, gutting her name of all meaning. How many times does she have to repeat a name for someone to get it? “Bet you need a syllabus to teach you how many vowels sound. It's a long ‘i’ baby, but your tongue too lazy.” She is not foreign, not other. She is black. “Fix your face and say your grace before you pray to me.” She is a goddess. She is heaven in a name. The track ends in a group of children, reciting a quote from Freedom Fighter Assata Shakur.
The next track, LSD, greets us with an insect-like noise, taking us to nature, our natural habitat. This track is a Chance track through and through, Acid Rap himself. The beat explodes like a gospel. Chicago is more than what media depicts. “This here ain't for no Vice doc. This here ain't for no Spike op,” he says. Chance preaches to love each other out on the streets. “I shake up some hands on the right block; block club president, night watch.” Jamila and Chance love Chicago for Chicago. Jamila defends, “I won't let you criticize my city; like my skin, it's so pretty. If you don't like it, just leave it alone.” Despite its gentrification and over-policing, Jamila and Chance demand that you love Chicago and its people or leave it alone. They will fight for their city. “I'm a dragon slayer, I can't fly away to some hideaway. I gotta find a way.” Chicago is their home, community, and identity.
Blk Girl Soldier begins in a low, driving electric guitar riff. Despite centuries of oppression in America, black girls have and still thrive. “Look at what they did to my sisters last century, last week. They put her body in a jar and forget her. They love how it repeats… They make her hate her own skin. Treat her like a sin.” Despite such a toxic and hating culture, “She don’t give up.” She has plenty of freedom fighters to guide her. Jamila Woods names Rosa Parks, Ella Baker, Assata Shakur, Sojourner Truth, Audre Lorde, and Angela Davis as freedom fighters. “She taught us how to fight.” Blk Girl Soldiers march on.
A piano leads us into Emerald St., riffing like romantic R&B. Jamila Woods explores the beauty of young black love. “I be in my nightgown, chicken wings ready. If you bring the mild sauce, we can go steady.” Their love is pure and innocent. She echoes a childhood memory of Mr. Rogers. “It's a wonderful day in the hood, Would you be mine, would you be mine? Won't you be my neighbour?” Jamila Woods rejects the sexualization of young black girls and criminalization of black youth by celebrating virtuous black puppy love.
The remaining 5 tracks are musings on love; past, present, future, and self. Jamila looks to heaven for guidance, making reference to the Bible. “Give me today my daily bread. Help me to walk alone ahead. Though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no love.” Jamila wants an otherworldly love, a love that appreciates her in all her holiness and alienness. “I'm an alien from inner space. They can't read my mind all in my face… Just cos I'm born here. Don't mean I'm from here.” Disillusioned with the hardships of Earth, Jamila looks up. If only we loved one another in all that we are, we could create heaven on Earth. Maybe one day we can look at each other, instead of up, for hope. Jamila Woods is willing to work for this future. Until then, at least we are blessed with her piece of Heavn.
Text: Shanika Lazo
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