26. Open Mike Eagle - “(How Could Anybody) Feel at Home”

This jam is steeped in the aura of the subconscious, almost as if you’re haphazardly drifting down someone else’s stream of consciousness, only this person’s stream of consciousness is suspended in space, precariously holding itself together as pieces of it continuously try to drift away into the eternal and alluring darkness of the nothingness that surrounds it. This repeated effort can be felt in the sense of frantic repetition throughout. There’s an endemic lack of comfort, almost as if someone is willing their sanity forward, continuously looking over their shoulder and gathering themselves in an effort to break through and avoid all of the barriers, obstacles, and traps that are continuously being hurled their way.

It’s a feeling that seems emblematic of the experience of most POC within the modern world (and pretty much ever since the 17th century). Systematic racism and inequality have led to an eternal and pervasive feeling of discomfort that in turn has caused life to devolve into a continuous struggle for survival – and not just a struggle for the basic needs of living (although that certainly exists), but a struggle for mere personhood and individuality. Instead POC are left in an eternal state of flux that necessitates code-switching, assimilation, avoidance, second-guessing, defensiveness, and self-denial, all of which in turn places one upon the cusp of an ever-budding insanity. Without acceptance all one can ever really feel is displacement. They can never truly be comfortable in their own skin – in who they are as a person and an individual, and so instead they’re left wandering and searching, building up an unsought sense of resiliency and continuously holding themselves together against the powers that be.