WOKE UP THIS MORNING (WITH MY MIND STAYED ON FREEDOM)

​Music and lyrics by Reverend Robert Wesby, Performed by Nia Drummond

​

Woke up this morning with my mind stayed on freedom
Woke up this morning with my mind stayed on freedom
Woke up this morning with my mind stayed on freedom
Hallelu
Hallelu
Hallelujah

​

Ain't no harm to keep your mind stayed on freedom

Ain't no harm to keep your mind stayed on freedom

Ain't no harm to keep your mind stayed on freedom

Hallelu

Hallelu

Hallelujah

​

THE JOURNEY

Music by Albert Marquès, Lyrics written and performed by Keith LaMar

​

Hello everybody

My name is Keith LaMar

and I’m joined here in collaboration with a group of amazing musicians out of New York City.

 

We come to you under the banner of Freedom First

led by the incomparable Albert Marquès.

 

We’re here to share with you the strength and beauty of what it means to be part of a movement,

part of a campaign that has remained true to its cause.

We stand for truth and justice for all.

This isn’t just about me.

You see on May the 25th 2020, a Black man by the name of George Floyd was murdered in broad daylight,

killed by a racist cop who refused to stop kneeling on his neck.

We’re here to genuflect to the magnitude of this moment,

to bow our heads in respect to those who are dead and no longer here.

 

At the height of the pandemic, 

when fear forced people to shelter in place,

thirty musicians with no permit, for no pay, came out to play at a place called Grand Army Plaza.

 

That’s where it all started, yo. 

A grand army of improvisers standing in the blazing sun

with no hate, no guns,

trying to unfuck the world

 

A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

One step, if it’s true, 

can turn into two people having a conversation:

“Music can be the source of your liberation, Keith.”

That's what Arturo O’Farrill said to me. 

And I’ma keep it real: At the time, I couldn’t conceive it.

Three years later, and we’ve done concerts all over the world, on three different continents,

and I still can’t believe it.

It’s glorious, man!

From right here inside a tiny prison cell in hell,

I’ve been able to delve into the deepest parts of who I am.

There’s a gate between our heartache and pain,

a path that, once taken, leads to higher ground,

a place where truth, hope, and freedom can be found.

I’m talking about the journey, everybody.

Not the arrival at the destination,

but what happens along the way

if you stay the course.

 

We’re about to take you on a journey

through some dark places,

but there’s light on the other side, 

I promise you…

Come with us.

Come with us!

​

CALLING ALL SOULS

Music by Albert Marquès, Lyrics written and performed by Keith LaMar

​

When people typically think of an artist, what usually comes to mind is someone who uses their imagination to capture and convey reality as it is seen and felt. In the main, what we do (or leave undone) in the course of our everyday lives is viewed as insignificant, unless or until we are thrown into the crucible of adverse circumstances and forced to demand from Self the strength and focus necessary to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds.

I write and recite these words on September the 10th, 2023, a little over three years away from my proposed execution, which is scheduled to take place on January the 13th, 2027. In other words, I'm standing on the brink of my existence, staring directly into that terrifying darkness that awaits us all. It's a difficult dilemma to be in, I won't lie, but the only way to face it is to make it mean something; it is in this very strict sense of the word that I consider myself an artist: someone who’s trying to make a way out of no way.

The music you are about to listen to comes out of the realm of the impossible, something that, in reality, should not have been doable. Whether or not I am successful in stopping these people from killing me, you are right now listening to my last will and testament, the embodiment of everything I've endured, learned, and conquered. 

 

Because of the courage and vision of some very remarkable people who believed when there was no reason to believe, this project has come to fruition. My friend and brother, Albert Marques  (who's accompanying me on piano right now) is foremost among these fearless souls. On paper, he and I shouldn't have anything in common. After all, we speak different languages and come from two very different worlds where there exist barriers that aren't always easy to overcome. But music is a bridge, and all we need do is open our hearts and minds to be able to comprehend the complexities that constitute our shared humanity. Ain't that right, Albert?

You see, for the past three decades I've lived out my existence in a cell on Ohio's death row, trapped in the carceral silence of solitary confinement. For the uninitiated, this means I've spent the bulk of my life (22 hours a day!) inside a cage no larger than the average closet. How have I survived without losing my mind? Music!

When I first arrived here almost thirty years ago, I was a deeply wounded and bitter person. And if it's true to say, as James Baldwin has said, that “hate, which can destroy so much, never failed to destroy the one who hated," I was surely on my way to a definite undoing.

That an innocent man could be thrown into the depths of hell is an unspeakable horror, one that stretches back to the agony and pain that attended the middle passage. Indeed, what I am going through is not unprecedented; it has been done before, a long time ago and recently. It took a fellow prisoner to point this out to me, an old man named Snoop who turned me on to the healing powers of music. It is to him that I owe my sanity. He gave me the means to sublimate my pain and the tools to reconstruct my mentality, which, in turn, allowed me to see and understand that what I'm caught up in is, in fact, the continuation of a centuries-long struggle against oppression and greed. 

John Coltrane was my introduction to improvisational music, the music most commonly known as jazz, and served as the entry point into the vast reservoir of resistance and accumulated wisdom that accompanied would-be slaves on their journey to the New Land. Put in its proper perspective, this music is the blood-drenched document of man's inhumanity to man and the overcoming of it. John Coltrane's A LOVE SUPREME should be seen in this light: as the recapitulation of the fight to hold on to one's humanity. In the face of the unspeakable, unthinkable, one must not only speak and think clearly, but one must also strive to find the fortitude to love supremely. That's the moral of the story, folks.

When heard separately, the crashing of a cymbal can be likened to the sound of a wave; the snare to that of a heartbeat; the bass line is the rising and setting of the sun; the piano is how the wind blows; and the horn is the blood-curdling scream of someone trapped inside a dream gone mad. And it’s only when these polyrhythmic sounds abound and come together that the Creator's voice can be heard: EVERYTHING IS BEAUTIFUL! 

Planted within the perilous plight that awaited my ancestors was a seed of hope, which was watered and cultivated by music. Through the lifting up of every voice came the singing, came the ringing of this glorious thing called freedom, which is love's true destiny. Indeed: Love is the only freedom. Love is the only freedom! LOVE IS THE ONLY FREEDOM!

We assert our true value when we persist, when, in spite of all and everything, we insist on the highest and best from ourselves and each other. This music is about trust and faith, about stepping out even when you can't see the stairs and believing that your foot WILL find something solid to stand on. Following your heart is the purest form of improvisation, being true to that voice that calls you forward and then doing, with dignity and grace, the thing that needs to be done. To change this system, to change the world, we must first change ourselves! That's what John Coltrane believed. It is to this that we are calling all souls. Calling all souls! CALLING ALL SOULS!

 

TRANSFORMATION

Music and lyrics by Samora Pinderhughes, Performed by Nia Drummond

​

We shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye

We shall be changed, shall be changed

We shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye

We shall be changed, shall be changed

​

Give us justice, now!

Give us justice, now!

We need justice, now!

We need justice, now!

​

TELL ‘EM THE TRUTH

Music by Albert Marquès, Lyrics written and performed by Keith LaMar

​

You know whenever I think about all the struggles and strife I’ve been through in my life, 

it’s truly hard to comprehend. 

I mean, I’m sitting inside a cage on death row, yo, 

so far away from home, so far away from everything I know. 

Might as well be sitting inside the hold of a slave ship. That’s what it feels like to be here. 

 

Yet it’s hard sometimes to see how what I’m going through is connected to what my ancestors suffered and survived. 

Truth be told, I’m lucky to be alive, real talk. 

 

Sometimes when things get too heavy to carry, 

I close my eyes and drift back to a time when everything was all good, 

a time when it was fully understood that being here on this earth was the biggest blessing. 

My grandfather taught me that. 

 

You see I grew up in a neighborhood called The Village, 

a small enclave on the East side of Cleveland, 

a beautiful place, yo, 

with fruit trees and sweet things on every corner. No lie. 

 

I was surrounded by my family and friends then, 

and I’m telling you, there was no end to the love we shared, 

a real community planned by people whose only plan was to live and give everything they had. 

And they gave it all. 

Children of slaves who braved the worst of it, 

so we, their children and grandchildren, could make the most of it. Yeah. 

 

But to shield us from the pain of knowing the truth, 

they never explained what kind of society we were born into. 

They didn’t tell us about all the tricks and traps that were designed to re-enslave, 

or about the hate that could deliver us to an early grave. 

 

They wanted us to be free. 

They wanted us not to see all the ugliness around us. 

So a lot of us got caught up in the darkness, 

and lost the light that was meant to guide us through. 

 

You gotta tell the children the truth.

Tell them it’s not what they say, but what they do. 

Tell them the real about reality, 

that life isn’t meant to be fair, that it’s meant to be lived. 

 

Tell the children the truth. Yeah.

Tell them the truth. 

​

Don't let these young people make the same mistakes we made growing up.

Let's give 'em a chance. Put them in the position to advance, to move forward.

We owe' them that.

Their future is in our hands. They're the ones who can get us out of the mess that we're in.

If we we just place our trust in them, place our faith in them.

Tell the children the truth, everybody. Yeah. Tell 'em the truth.

​

INTRO TO STRANGE FRUIT

Remarks by Keith LaMar​

​

Good evening, every body.

I want to thank you all for coming out tonight.

It really means a lot to have you all here with us.

The music we've been listening is the music I've been listening to over the past three decades,

part of why I still have my heart and mind intact. 

I'm sure you'll find it peculiar to learn that the song we're about to perform, Strange Fruit, which is a song that was made famous by the late, great Billie Holiday, is one of my favorite ones.

Of course it's tragic that the lyrics remain so heartbreakingly relevant.

On that score we haven't silenced the devil, not yet.

​He's still lurking in the details, in the fruit that has been produced.

 

And isn't it strange that we live in the richest country in human history and yet boast the highest incarceration rates in the world?

And, of course as we all know, Black bodies make up majority of those who languish behind these blighted bars.

Between 1877 and 1950, 3,959 people were lynched in America, and so it's not a coincidence that I'm making this call from a cell on death row. Never mind the fact that I'm innocent. Never mind the fact that I didn't receive a fair trial.

 

It's more important to note that we live in the 21st century and still haven't found our way to a human path. We should remember, as Kahlil Gibran reminds us, that the fruit turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree, which is to to say, we KNOW what is being done in our names. The question is whether or not we're going to remain silent. 

​

So, as when it was first sung by Billie Holiday in the 1930s we offer this song as a warning, as a clarion call to forestall our doom. 

Nia Drummond everybody. Strange Fruit.

​

STRANGE FRUIT

Music and lyrics by Abel Meeropol, Performed by Nia Drummond

​

Southern trees bearing a strange fruit

Blood on the leaves and blood on the roots

Black bodies swinging through the trees​

A strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees

​

Pastoral scene of the gallant south

Their big, bulging eyes and the twisted mouth

Scent of magnolia, clean and fresh

Then the sudden smell of burning flesh

 

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck

For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck

For the sun to rot, for the tree to drop

Here is a strange and bitter crop

​

ON LIVING

Music by Albert Marquès, Poem by Nazim Hikmet, Performed by Keith LaMar

 

Living is no laughing matter                   

you must live with great seriousness                         

like a squirrel, for example   

I mean without looking for something beyond and above living,                                             

I mean living must be your whole life. 

Living is no laughing matter:                  

you must take it seriously,                     

so much so and to such a degree    

that, for example, your hands tied behind your back,                                             

your back to the wall,    

or else in a laboratory       

in your white coat and safety glasses,                        

you can die for people   

even for people whose faces you've never seen,   

even though you know living                

is the most real, the most beautiful thing. 

I mean, you must take living so seriously   

that even at seventy, for example, you'll plant olive trees    

and not for your children, either,    

but because although you fear death you don't believe it,    

because living, I mean, weighs heavier.
 

Let's say we're seriously ill, need surgery

which is to say we might not get up                                                  

from the white table. 

Even though it's impossible not to feel sad                                                            

about going a little too soon, 

we'll still laugh at the jokes being told, 

we'll look out the window to see if it's raining, 

or still wait anxiously                              

for the latest newscast

Let's say we're at the front                     

for something worth fighting for, say. 

There, in the first offensive, on that very day,          

we might fall on our face, dead. 

We'll notice with a curious anger,         

but we'll still worry ourselves to death        

about the outcome of the war, 

which could last years. 

 

Let's say we're in prison and close to fifty, 

and we have eighteen more years, say,                         

before the iron doors will open. 

We'll still live with the outside, 

with its people and animals, struggle and wind                               

I mean with the outside beyond the walls.

I mean, however and wherever we are,        

we must live as if we will never die.

 

This earth will grow cold, a star among stars                

and one of the smallest, 

a gilded mote on blue velvet                    

I mean this, our great earth. 

This earth will grow cold one day, 

not like a block of ice or a dead cloud even 

but like an empty walnut it will float along                  

in pitch-black space 

We must grieve for this now 

we have to feel this sorrow now 

for the world must be loved this much                               

if we’re going to say "I lived.”

 

THE DROWNED AND THE SAVED

Music by Arturo O'Farrill, LIVE Album Musical Arrangement by Albert Marquès, Lyrics written and performed by Keith LaMar

​

In this country

most of us operate under the delusion

that we live in the 21st century

and that somehow 

without actually doing the work

we have overcome our history

It’s not true

Instead of hanging people from trees

we use the so-called criminal justice system to perform legalized lynchings

and take this as a sign of progress

We confuse form with substance

 

When I embarked on this journey three decades ago

I was given the choice to either plead guilty to something I didn’t do 

or face the death penalty

I was twenty-five years old

and the thought that I would have to give up my life

represented a great burden to me

a burden I wasn’t so sure I could bear

You see, I didn’t fully understand back then that there was something more valuable 

than simply being alive

although I intuitively understood that existing was not the same thing as living

I also somehow understood that in order to live with myself

I had to be true to myself

and for this I would have to pay a hell of a price

 

After I was sentenced to death I was placed in solitary confinement

It felt as if I was thrown into the middle of the ocean

Try to imagine it:

water as far as the eye can see

and it’s just you by yourself, floating

That’s what solitary confinement is like

In situations such as this, God ceases to be an abstraction

some thing that exists apart from who you are and what you do

This is the domain of the drowned and the saved

Life is very real here

and your senses mean more to you than they ever will:

What you can see, what you can feel

what you can hold in your hands

these are the only things that matter

And you begin to comprehend that, under the circumstances,

a piece of driftwood can be God

I mean the smallest thing can save or change your life

and this piece of driftwood, a book, a dream, a random stranger

has not come to inquire about your particular race or religion

Instead, it has been sent to ask a more basic question:
Do you want to live?

 

And what does it mean to be alive?

Tell me, what are we doing here?

If you ask Nazim Hikmet, who’s one of my favorite poets,

He would tell you that, “Living is no laughing matter,”

which, to me, implies that we didn’t come here to play

to have fun

If that be the case then I can live right here where I am

right here on death row

I needed to know that

More importantly, I needed to know that it’s possible to lose everything

and still be saved

At some point, I had to be willing to accept that the vastness I was so afraid of was God

which exists inside of me, inside of all of us

To accept this truth, I had to go within 

and teach myself how not to be afraid

And what exactly did I have to be afraid of anyway?
Death? Hell?

 

Well, as James Baldwin once famously said, 

“When one is continually facing the worst that life can bring,

one eventually ceases to be controlled by a fear of what life can bring.”

I amen his clarity

The arc of the moral universe bends towards justice, we are told

This may very well be

but we, with our own hands and minds 

must bend it

We have to do the work

People are dying who could be saved​

People are dying

We can save them

People are dying

​

TRUTH

​Music by Kamasi Washington, Lyrics written and performed by Keith LaMar

​

When I was a little boy, I fell in love with a little girl named Liberty

We grew up in a small community called The Village

and walked down street that were steeped in history

Streets with names like Ohio, Lincoln, and Florida

names that carried great significance for those who came before us

those who undertook The Great Migration

who fled the south and its great plantations

Ohio was a stop on the Underground Railroad

Lincoln was the president who sorta, kinda, liberated the slaves

And Florida was part of the land of the free, home of the brave

Liberty and I came of age during the time known as De-Industrialization

which centered around the closing of all the mills and factories

and was the precursor to Mass Incarceration. Yeah.

Like most other places, The Village isn’t what it used to be

It’s no longer filled with friends who treat each other like family

people who loved each other when love was not a commodity

when happiness meant sipping sweet tea in the summer breeze

watching sweet kids run up and down the street

But, oh, those streets are so terribly empty now

and the fruit… the fruit no longer grow on the trees

 

We hold these truths to be self-evident:

It’s irrelevant to live in the richest country in the world

when most of its residents live on the fringes 

**Prison recording: You have one minute remaining**

when one in one-hundred will do time in prison

It’s a shame when you think about it

so we don’t think about it

We’d rather remain oblivious

look the other way instead of taking things serious

But no one is coming to save us…

We are the only ones who can save us

The rising of the seas, the burning of the trees

We are the only ones to blame, trust

We can do better than what we have done

Learn from our mistakes and make tomorrow about more than what we have won

To do that, we have to take account of what we have lost

and calculate the cost of our indifference

The truth is: This is our one and only life!

our one and only chance to do something righteous with our life.

We have to come

**Prison recording: Thank you for using GTL**

[together and fight, yeah!]​​