In case you were wondering about the fuss over new Education Secretary Betsy Devos, heed the summation of The Black Opera’s Jamall Buford:
“We need money to go into these public schools and not more money taken away.”
Buford spoke those words on CNN, where he and his partner Magestik Legend were invited to speak to because of the music workshops and mentoring programs they run in the Michigan Education system that DeVos threatened to ruin in her position as Chair of the Michigan Republican part. Injustice like that were part of the inspiration for the groups recently released—and wonderfully titled–African America album.
Along with the album, the duo dropped a video for “Beautiful City.”. The video starts out with scenes of a snowy Michigan, as the duo drops bars showing their unconditional love, rhyming, “dope dealers, tainted water, my city’s beautiful.”
The soulful song tells a too-common story of the corruption that can happen with institutional abandonment, this time from the lens of the duo’s native Ann Arbor and Detroit. It’s a poignant expression of what the group calls “seeking solace and reflecting the frustrations of a people who struggle to find a true sense of home and belonging.”
African America can be purchased on iTunes and streamed on Spotify.
