I am not religious, but Afro House, I think God made you for me.

***

I have always loved EDM and oontz oontz music variations, but last year, I got into Afro House, and goodness gracious, what a homecoming it felt like and continues to be. 

The bass thumping, the vocals pitched/smooth/haunting/upbeat, the underlying track that feels like rnb, wrapped together in that particular afro vibe? That’s heaven to me (sort of related; listen to Tyler the Creator’s Heaven to Me; it’s not House, but it is a Tyler deep cut that needs more love)

There are multiple ways out of what we call human living, and for me, house music, particularly Afro House, is a way out that I continually tap into.

I could be cooking, writing, working, thinking, hurting, or laying on the floor with my Afro House as a companion that requests nothing from me but gives me an immersive space to get lost or find myself when I need to. 

In this genre, the juxtaposition of dance melodies with singing that would fit right in a blues album is a solid representation of what it means for joy and grief to coexist alongside each other.

I am overtly familiar with grief. It knows me by names no one else does. I know its intimate parts from too many days and nights spent lying with it. It has taken up so much space, and this year, I want to push back. After all, I am the owner of this house, this body, this heart, this mind. 

Grief is a rude, uninvited guest I have no choice but to respect, but you see joy? The perfect house guest whether you called it to come or not. So let me see what it is like to pay attention to the joy deliberately. 

Let the grief and its cousins - pain and suffering, know that it is not a sole occupant; happy and gleeful and joyful and enjoyment and pleasure are its housemates, and by God, it will respect their presence.

***

If you are an Other™️ in one way or multiple ways, Identity is a block you are always chipping at to find answers to questions, salves to aches, and paths to understand what you are.

For me, under the influence of house music, identity loses its strictness and becomes freeingly fluid, and I melt into it willingly.

What I have been, what I am, what I want to be, what I show, what I hide, all of them cease to matter while still being valid. It’s a conundrum that doesn’t ask you to solve it; just be, exist in that space, shut up and bop. 

***

What I mean when I say Afro-House music saved my life is that one night in my room, I was dancing to it with my headphones on, and I felt my heart open softly. I saw with startling clarity that I would be okay.  

I mean I took a walk some days ago listening to Erro by Afrokillerz, and I came home and journaled so hard I forgave myself of the multiple grievances I had committed against my spirit. 

I mean I listened to a playlist with black coffee, nitefreak, thabza de soul, naarly and layefa on it, while doing the dishes and saw in tangible bits and pieces how happy I could be if I stopped standing in my way so much.

I mean I played iplan on repeat and made a promise to myself to always lean into the ways out of real life that the universe offers me.

***

The plan was to write this essay in solid form, flowing from point to point, but Jojo proposes, and the words giggle and do what they want anyway. 

Thus, let us call this a public journal entry; thank you for reading my journal. 

Close the page softly on your way out, and may the music that saves your life find you often.