Nicholas Payton

As a Black American, when I think about abolition, my mind immediately goes to music as being the first means of crafting our liberation, post-colonization. When we were not allowed to speak our native tongues, we created a new language in the Blues. In this piece, we use sound and visuals as a means of recalling a lineage in which our traumas are not commodified for entertainment or media fodder. We use repetition to help break through the mental fog of false constructs like racism and sexism. Throughout the composition, our ancestor Nina Simone is heard reminding us that freedom is no fear. To me, abolition is more than just visualizing a future in which we are free, but that freedom is now and it starts in the mind.