Where there is joy, there's music. Frustration, music. Hope, music. Love found and love lost, music and more music.
It articulates emotion when words alone are too flimsy, and soundtracks life in its most uneventful and its most thunderstruck moments.
In the Mississippi Delta, the cradle of a renowned blues heritage, the Black experience has been chronicled by enduring and endearing songs that lament racism, relationship tumult, social inequity, and the inconveniences of being broke. It's a local export to the world, one of the gifts the area is most known for. It spills out of the unassuming juke joints that come alive after dark and, in the process of making good music, has inadvertently produced more Grammy Award winners per capita than any other state.
The blues is not necessarily the preferred language of the young men coming up now, though. They speak hip-hop and make personal heroes out of Southern-born rappers like Lil Boosie and Yo Gotti, celebrated for their lyrical realness and rags-to-riches success. The issues that both genres address are the same, the old and the new, but the stories born out of them are set to a different beat.
It's fertile ground for Healing with a Groove.
Launched in 2013 at Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi, and funded by a $150,000 grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the program introduces youth ages 12–19 to the cathartic art and technical science of creating their own music. It gives young Black men a constructive platform for self-expression—no previous musical ability required—and a chance to hear, see, and feel the entire song-making process. "Healing with a Groove grew out of a discussion program that I was a part of when I was a professional singer and songwriter in Nashville," said Tricia Walker, director of the Delta Music Institute (DMI) and entertainment industry studies program at Delta State.
"The Country Music Hall of Fame developed a curriculum on lyric writing for elementary school students. Volunteer songwriters would then put music to the lyrics and the singers, songwriters, and children would come to the museum for a field trip to hear their songs recorded. That was one part of it," she explained. "The other part was a dialogue group that would facilitate a discussion about issues of race and diversity. They created a safe environment to talk about the questions that sometimes make people uncomfortable."
Walker used the model to mold Healing with a Groove as a response to some of the specific concerns in Bolivar and Sunflower Counties, two of the 18 counties that make up the Mississippi Delta, where the population is more than 65 percent Black, and 34 percent of residents live under the boot heel of poverty. The program gives boys instruction in songwriting, audio engineering, and music technology—which is the fun part—and outfits them with the additional support of college-student mentors who look like them, which is the essential part.
It gives young Black men a constructive platform for self-expression—no previous musical ability required—and a chance to hear, see, and feel the entire song-making process.
Breaking Down the Black-Boy Bravado
In the center of a relatively empty auditorium inside the DMI, a cluster of teenage boys sit in a circle of hardback chairs. They're quiet, slouched in the signature way of teenage boys demonstrating their resolute kind of cool. It's the first day of Healing with a Groove and they are, for the time being, a band of same-aged strangers sizing each other up.
The atmosphere is tensionless but reserved until Travis Calvin, the project coordinator and a Delta State alumnus with a fresh degree in music industry studies, cuts into the silent posturing with an icebreaker. He asks each of the young men to introduce themselves—name, school, what they like to do in their spare time—and strike a pose at the end of their spiel. When a person's turn arrives, he has to repeat the information of the one beside him, with the onus on the last man standing to rattle off all of the names and the distinguishing details of those who came before him.
The first boy takes his turn: "My name is Shawn. I like to play ball and pull girls." He whips out his cell phone and places a pretend call as his pose. His ring of new compadres nod in agreement and everybody laughs, including Calvin and his staff. They know this guy because they essentially are this guy, and the room begins to come alive. They're warmed up now as another stands. He says his name and offhandedly adds, "I like to trap."
"We gonna change that," someone shoots back. Trapping is slang for "hustling," more often than not the hustling of drugs, and it's claimed the lives of far, far too many Black boys intoxicated by its instant financial return. Still, no one in the group judges this self-described trapper, no one lectures, no one scolds fire and brimstone damnation upon him. The certainty that he will be positively influenced, perhaps even into a whole new level of decision-making, is enough for now.
With everyone given the chance to learn a little bit about each other, the group sits quietly for a moment. Then someone beatboxes and instinctively, every head in the circle starts bobbing. The music—even in its most homegrown form, even more organic than the harmonicas and cigar box guitars that produced the music of their blues-singing grandfathers—is one of the shared loves that knits Black men together. This group is no different. The brotherhood is the beat, the comradery is the bass line.
Although Healing with a Groove is designed around racial reconciliation, the initial moment of self-discovery has to begin here in this ring of brown boys, before integration is even introduced into the conversation, Calvin explained. "Right now, to deal with race relations, we talk with the guys based on perception and identity because I believe that in order for us to come to the table and communicate, we have to address issues with ourselves first. We have to build confidence in ourselves and learn who we are."
In its first year, the program served 75 young men. This year, they have 20 students enrolled in one month alone. Each participant has been referred by an educator, not necessarily because of his stellar academic performance or pristine behavior in school. The 'A' students aren't the kids the program is primarily trying to reach, but rather the ones with promise who can likely benefit from the unique mix of social candor and hands-on learning that is the hallmark of Healing with a Groove.
For the next three weeks, this group will meet to discuss what it's like to be them, to be young and Black and male in Mississippi, in the South, in post–Trayvon Martin and post–Michael Brown America, and the challenges they experience internally—within themselves, their households, and their communities. Using what emerged from those conversations, they'll write their lyrics and create their music. The process culmination of their participation, they'll lay down their tracks in the DMI Mobile Music Lab, a recording studio and production room housed in the high-tech splendor of a customized bus that travels to partnering locations.
The brotherhood is the beat, the comradery is the bass line.
This program is that bridge, that common ground where we can communicate, hear each other, and then move forward.
The Healing Place
There are no signs of the tangible kind barring anybody from going anywhere they please in Cleveland or its neighboring Delta communities. But their social imprint lingers and the area remains largely segregated, mostly out of antiquated convention. It's not difficult to imagine that Black boys coming of age in the margins of their own community would feel unheard.
"There were areas that certain people were restricted to, and over time, even though those boundaries were no longer there physically, they remain mentally. We want to eliminate that. If a person feels like certain parts of the county are not available to them, that's a problem," said Will Hooker, administrator for Bolivar County. He is a homeboy by definition—born and raised in the area—and knows those prohibitive conditions for young Black men firsthand because, before he was an elected official with a title and an office in city hall, he experienced them himself. His involvement with Healing with a Groove dates back to its inception; he now serves on its board of advisors.
"When this program came about, we found that we still have some mental barriers that we need to identify. There are those who sometimes feel like they don't have a voice. We want their feedback. If you take time to hear what they're saying, there are still areas that we have to tackle because young men growing up in this community will never reach their potential if they place limitations on themselves. We want to free them up," Hooker said. "This program is that bridge, that common ground where we can communicate, hear each other, and then move forward."
Cleveland is partitioned, like many working-class towns, by a set of railroad tracks, dividing the Black side from the white. Two high schools—East Side High, with its nearly all-Black student population, and Cleveland High, integrated but seemingly more privileged than the former—exist just barely a mile from each other, still accommodating the archaic laws of segregation.
Pressure has been put on the district to be more intentional about blending the populations. Its proposed solution is to turn East Side into a magnet school to attract whites. Until then, having two high schools means two different homecoming parades, two different athletic programs, two different everything. That duality is symbolic of the area itself, one side silently tolerant of the other, but a sense of real community eluding them because talking race, really talking race, can get messy and hurtful and ugly.
Healing with a Groove fortifies the students growing up in this atmosphere with programming that breeds honest dialogue accompanied by personal revelation. So while the racial dynamics may not change in Bolivar County any time soon, the young Black men inside of it can and hopefully will. Mic Hargrove, a junior at Delta State and a mentor with the program, has seen it happen. "We did a workshop in Meridian and one guy we were working with asked, 'Do you know what it's like to be invisible?' That's how he felt. But by the end, he was one of our main participants. He was the one who recorded the 'Rise' verse," he said, referring to a song the group did together.
"We give people a chance. We choose which person is going to actually put their voice on the song. Everybody collectively helps write it, but then we choose one person to actually record. The 'invisible' guy was the person that ended up recording the song. It was cool."
Activities like the icebreaker Calvin led with the young men in the circle help to lower defenses and machismo. Maintaining that transparency throughout allows them to feel at ease enough to share their stories, experiences, concerns, and realities. "When we tell about ourselves and be open with them, when they see that we are real and that we are there for their benefit, then they kind of open up. Once we open up, they open up," said Hargrove, an artist in his own right who describes the message in his music as "hope and faith and progressive thinking." That, whether in song or in spirit, is exactly what the young brothers under his tutelage need.
Taking the Music on the Road
A state-of-the-art production studio inside of a 26-foot-long bus would intrigue the average adult; it downright thrills the Healing with a Groove guys. The DMI Mobile Music Lab is indeed an impressive outfit: it's dark, cool, an environment conducive for creating. A shiny wood-grained doorway in the back ushers them to the booth where they'll record the songs they've thoughtfully written. The production workspace, composed of four big-screen Apple monitors mounted flush to the walls and lighted equipment tucked under the desks, looks like the control panel for something great. For them, it is.
When Calvin's latest group mounts the bus for the first time, they are all visibly and audibly wowed, transformed for the moment into wide-eyed kids taking it all in. Vickie Jackson, the lab's project coordinator, never tires of seeing their reaction. Then she puts them to work. She admittedly loves catalyzing an a-ha moment, but her strategy is to entice the young men with the bells and whistles of music production, then covertly slide in as many teachable moments—about race, about women, about themselves—as their shared time will allow.
When we tell about ourselves and be open with them, when they see that we are real and that we are there for their benefit, then they kind of open up. Once we open up, they open up.
"The whole process, from songwriting to recording, is important. I want to provide them with a platform to speak honestly about themselves and race relations. Once you get your self-esteem, you're saying, 'I know who I am. Now I can figure out who I am with you,'" she explained. "But I also want to teach them about the science, the art behind creating music."
Jackson isn't necessarily trying to churn out the next generation of great American artists and producers. She does hope that navigating the music-making process will expose them to the college experience and encourage students to continue their learning. "I tell them, if this is something you really like, you can come to a university and study more about this. There are other opportunities out there for you." Sometimes they become interested in the production side and consider, maybe even seriously, a career behind the scenes. It does happen, Jackson said, but she's satisfied just to broaden their perspectives on the whole.
There's a line in a song called "Trying to Make It" on the 17-track CD produced by the young artists at work that is profound, probably without even trying: "The more I learn, the more I understand where I'm coming from," which, as grown folks who have lived a little bit of life know, is just as important as being clear about where you're going. There's tremendous power in storytelling for both the person weaving the tale and the others who have the honor of hearing it. For their part, the architects and executioners of Healing with a Groove will have done beautiful work in the dozens of young men who experience the program, simply by introducing them to themselves through their greatest legacy of music.
