Driving through Louisiana, naturally, I had some feelings coming up on La Place.

The last time I drove through was during my 2020 visit to the Whitney Plantation nearby. This time, I’d just published the final post of 2022’s TheAmericanBlackstory: a narrative of the Louisiana German Coast Uprising, the biggest slave revolt in U.S. history, to which hundreds of ancestors’ lives were lost.

As soon as the La Place highway exit sign appeared overhead, Santigold’s “Disparate Youth” from my SOUND IN COLOR 2020 playlist began.

Don’t look ahead, there’s stormy weather
Another roadblock in our way
But if we go, we go together
Our hands are tied here if we stay.

Oh, we said our dreams will carry us
And if they don’t fly, we will run
Now we push right past to find out
Oh, how to win what they all lost.

Headed in for St. Joseph’s Day & Super Sunday with the Black Masking Indians, I knew this song was claiming its place as the soundtrack to a weekend of incredible, ancestral experiences that would validate my projects, my travels, and my path.

I had no idea.

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where i wandered: