Drumming Keeps Me Grounded

By Karen Smith

I have a hard time talking about myself unless I am in an interview and the interviewer leads with the most intriguing questions. However, I do journal so I am trying this task as a very extended journal entry… Making it through the world of isms… Wondering if they will ever go away or does it take a complete dissolve of this DNA. Maybe, I do say, it is not hard at all to be kind… Babies are groom to this doom so kindness has to start at home or else… The Isms will take over the mind, the body and eventually the spirit…

Hush lil baby…Hush, Hush…

Momma gonna buy you…Hush, Hush…

A mock-ing-bird…Hush, hush…

And if that, and if that…

Dear Littlest one,

There’s a legacy layered with an armor too heavy for one to move alone…

A force that has taken on battles centuries and centuries old…

Hush lil baby…Hush, Hush…

Momma gonna buy you…Hush, Hush…

A mock-ing-bird…Hush, hush…

And if that, and if that…

See those trees…Centuries of growth…They carry our truth, our stories…Some are special …Those special ones grow from under this planet, came with a sorcery that is spell-binding…to redirect the destructiveness that misguided nations have fed into in order to hold back other nations…

Their fights to sustain/maintain still lives on consistently on shaky ground…The unmarked burial grounds constantly used for capitalist’s background as their karma grows into poison ivy…

Hush lil baby…Hush, Hush…

Momma gonna buy you…Hush, Hush…

A mock-ing-bird…Hush, hush…

And if that, and if that…

I was born with more than a third eye, more than intuitiveness , more than having a gift to express myself on paper…through instrumentation …I was born to drum! My purpose was given to me before my official arrival… to spread kind, evenness, a calm to soothe the unruliest … a task that many before have attempted, some gave up, some gave in, some continue to give til they were out…

Dearest, little futures…

Hush lil baby…Hush, Hush…

Momma gonna buy you…Hush, Hush…

A mock-ing-bird…Hush, hush…

And if that, and if that…Mockingbird don’t sing… it is because dreams has been broken… promises were never fulfilled… positive leadership was destroyed before their eyes…so I drum…

And when the diamond ring did not shine…the bottles of wines moved to harder substances..I drummed louder… allowing the ancestors to clear the clutter…keep me from falling into that bottom-less lake of brokenness and separatism …pushing through all the things that would drown out my opinion, my voice…my mission…to the road of kindness no matter what has happened, no matter who is in leadership, no way will I wear invisible chains, no way will I not stand for something and refuse to fall for anything…I play…I drum…I speak with rhythms …I drum for the present and future babies who voices must be heard and lead to a direction that keeps Hope Alive on their journeys…

Hush lil baby…No don’t…Don’t hush…

Momma gonna buy you… Momma gonna buy you… your first drum…And you better play it, LOUD!

Karen "Magic Fingaz" Smith, is a professional percussionist, playwright, poet, director, teaching artist, curator, and recent recipient of a Pew Fellowship from The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.

Website: www.karensmithdrums.com