Music Saints

These musicians are mostly known for their music, but they impact me because their gifts were refined by the fires of personal and political struggle. I argue that no jazz, soul nor hip-hop music can be properly heard if you separate it from the social and political reality in which it was created. For example, everybody knows Billie Holiday for her iconic voice and flowers in her hair, but nobody seems to like remember that she was the first one to sing one of the most powerful protest songs of all time:“Strange Fruit”bringing the reality of lynching to the conversation on the national level.Hallowed icons of soul, jazz, hiphop and R&B such as Billie,Nina Simone, George Gershwin, Cohen, Sarah Vaughan, Amy Winehouse, Marvin Gaye and Tupac Shakur transformed their pain into a sacred, immortal beauty that has become a guiding light to so many.These are my personal shrines to these giants of Music as a thank you for their art.

“If Music was a Religion, these would be my Saints.”

— MissMe