i listen to motown in muddy waters

found out i was supreme

swam through heat waves in tambourine tubes

eating sugar pies with my honey bunch

soothing minstrel pains with soul spells

in beats and hollers to melodies so deep

they carry me la vie en rose from concrete

on strong arms to promise lands

where they trade star strangled banners

for sweet hymns sang in stacked

mahogany pews with outkast undertones

climbing ain’t no mountaintops to roll

down miseducation hills to meet marley in

the valley where we wail and pray

chess moves in God’s grace for baduism

over a picnic of roots and weeds and sway back,

back forth and it begins to purple rain

and i let it baptize me

and i bask in the Black in me that makes

my country’s soul so musical

— negro spirituals built american bandstands