Remembering the Madness: The Defense of Home in Ari Lennox’s 2022 Dreamville Fest Performance
Ari Lennox is known for her impressive power in the delivery of intimate lyrics that equally speak to many. One example is “New Apartment” off her 2019 debut studio album, Shea Butter Baby, where she details the initial moments of newfound independence. She sings, “I just got a new apartment/I’m gon’ leave the floor wet/Walk around this bitch naked/And nobody can tell me shit.” Lennox is narrating the process of making a home in a way that may remind older listeners and crate diggers alike of Diana Ross’ 1979 release, “It’s My House.” Here, she similarly proclaims her freedom from impediment and interference. For both Lennox and Ross, their homes are places of pleasure—"built for love” where they can “pop [their] woohah[s] in the sky,” but you “got to follow the rules” to play. This is a black feminist praxis that Ari Lennox continues to expand and encourage.
Lennox’s performance at the 2022 Dreamville Festival provided a moment to re-engage with her song under new conditions. Listening to “New Apartment” after the two year anniversary of the murder of Breonna Taylor at the hands of police and the ensuing civil unrest of summer 2020 requires fresh ears and a “blackened consciousness” that refuses to forget the past that is never truly the past. In her live performance—which took place in the midst of Aries season, a time of initiation and aggression—Ari(es) Lennox provides a subtle recounting of the inescapable violence without re-displaying it. This places her within a tradition of other soul singers who share her astrological sign, Marvin Gaye and Aretha Franklin. These performers, named the “Prince” and “Queen” of Soul, respectively, had a way of throwing their entire being into their music to communicate the seriousness of the situation black people find themselves in. Ari Lennox is no different as she asks us to reflect on the times we’re perpetually situated within.
I’m left thinking about what “home” means when it is also a place that can be casually invaded by outside forces. I’m left remembering Breonna Taylor who was shot without reason in her Kentucky apartment on March 13th, 2020, underscoring that we cannot simply think about police brutality as a threat only to the lives of black men. In her unpublished manuscript, Black Metamorphosis, cultural theorist Sylvia Wynter writes that home is wherever we struggle; it is the terrain on which confrontation occurs. Ari Lennox’s “get the fuck out” is a call to acknowledge the struggle we are in where even our homes are not safe. Perhaps “get the fuck out” is what Korryn Gaines told the Baltimore County police officers who murdered her while she was defending herself and her son from their attack in 2016.
Lennox began her performance of “New Apartment” with its traditional arrangement as found on her studio album. Midway through, however, she and her band—composed of only femmes—inject new life into the song. As she sings the familiar lyrics, “I just got a new apartment…” her band begins to play the instrumental of “Summer Madness” by Kool & The Gang off their 1974 release, Light of Worlds. Interestingly, this album has nine songs to pay homage to our nine planets; the cosmic themes run deep. “Summer Madness”—a frequently sampled song—is a smooth, hypnotic, and delicately haunting track that has been in the collective memory for the last few years, circulating the internet on various social media sites. It was released in a period of political uncertainty as black riots and rebellions pulsed under the beating summer sun in routine response to police brutality and endemic inequality. It’s interesting that the song seems to have gained traction following the 2020 protests in which police precincts were burned and black rage was palpable. Of course, black music never loses its relevancy when the structural conditions that shape its form and inform its content have largely remained the same despite the brutal passing of time. By bringing “Summer Madness” into the present, Lennox reveals that we still have to grapple with the past.
“Let me see some muthafuckin hands,” Ari Lennox demands of her audience. This is so she might be able to intimately touch her adoring spectators in order to both appoint them as collaborators and incite touch amongst them, perhaps in ways that confront oppressive powers. All genders in the audience close their eyes and sway. The rupturing lows of bass and piercing yet dainty highs of synths emanate through the air alongside Lennox’s charged voice, creating a field of vibration that connects each listener and molds their bodies. It is almost like they’re now holding hands, consoling and caring for one another as they collectively remember, even if subconsciously. The desire for touch is prominent in black music, whether that touch is between lovers or foes, nurturing or confrontational, symbiotic or antagonistic. Therefore, Lennox brings the body front and center to close the gap between herself and her audience such that together they can take on the outside world and attempt to defend their homes. A 1975 music review of “Summer Madness” similarly remarked, “…the beat is more for the body than the mind, but there is enough for the mind, too.”
Ari Lennox compels us to feel and move but, just as importantly, she asks us to think and remember as co-conspirators in this production. And in this moment, Lennox stakes a claim on her home, which is not simply the concert stage but also the people before her and the vibrations swimming in the air that cohere their bodies. In a world that robs black women of any claim to innocence through violent lies and mythology about their existence, Ari Lennox says “fuck all that shit that you talkin.” She refuses to partake in discourse that can only lead to justification for her state-sanctioned violation. “Get the fuck out” is a prelude to a score yet to be penned. Ryan Gaines, the brother of Korryn Gaines, spoke of his sister as similarly “opinionated; she stood her ground…That's the thing about Korryn. Right or wrong, she stood her ground."
Lennox also stands her ground. But as summer approaches, will we be like supporting vocals and back her up?
