Hello everyone! And welcome to those who’ve just joined. I’m so glad you’re here :)
I’ve missed a number of days posting here. While the intention was a song a day, it’s looking like #100Days100Songs won’t be one hundred consecutive days! It’s part of my own process of shedding perfectionism, a collective moment we’ve been in for over a year now (south node in Virgo for all the astro nerds out there). I’ve got some great songs/collaborations in the works that I’m excited to share soon.
Today I share a song (with the help of my looper pedal) for the anti-war movement that was born in the early days of the Gaza genocide by the prolific and prophetic, Lu Aya. As I share at the end of the video, this one has special significance to me. In March of 2024, I was part of nationwide coordinated campaign to protest the Biden administration’s continued complicity with the genocide in Gaza. In Boston, we took over one of the busiest intersections at morning rush hour to disrupt business as usual and get our message across.
Unlike two previous direct actions of a similar nature in which we had hours to make our voices heard, the police were very quick to arrest us. In the flurry of about fifty arrests, I was seemingly forgotten by the officers and left cuffed on the sidewalk unattended for a few minutes. While police bumbled around, I sang this song acapella at the top of my lungs for as long as I could muster. A fellow comrade organizer with IfNotNow caught some of this on camera and posted it on X where it got quite a few views and retweets (including from John Cusack, of all people).
A year later I would learn that the viral video found it’s way all the way to Gaza, specifically a man named Hani and his three children, who would watch the video on repeat to boost morale. When he reached out to me tell me this, we began a friendship across borders and bombs, language and religion, privilege and genocide.
If you’ve seen me raising money for a family in Gaza, it’s probably Hani and his beautiful children. Right now, like so many, he’s trying to scrape together a life for himself. If you can donate to his efforts to support himself and his family in this ongoing catastrophe, please do.
Ceasefire by Lu Aya
Ceasefire / Ceasefire
Our children* are dying / It can’t get more dire
Ceasefire / Ceasefire
The voice of peace / Must keep getting higher!
*In this recording I was also singing “our planet is dying”
Keep singing,
JHB
PS If you want to sing with me and others and are in the Boston area, check out next week’s BIG SING. I’ll be helping lead a Singing Resistance pod that will be heading to NO KINGS together to sing.
