Despite the incredibly challenging nature of 2020 so far, I can’t help but see some silver linings as a distinct possibility. It’s a rare opportunity we have to take a hard look at institutions that need reform, sometimes down their very foundations. While this presents the daunting task of having to seemingly “start over” with something that was already established, consider the alternative, broken mechanisms that contribute to suffering, injustice, even death. With a fresh perspective we can broaden the scope with which we look to build, incorporating a wider (and hopefully deeper) view that incorporates more and different people and variables sometimes outside of our interests, biases and even spheres of influence. We can move forward with an awareness of who could be impacted and how to consider them, while hopefully spending as much effort to do good, as we do to help prevent accidentally doing bad. This doesn’t mean that mistakes won’t be made, but to begin with the intention of helping first and looking to prevent hurting will be a profound paradigm shift from the current mindset that we seem to employ in most endeavors.
As this relates to art, this moment of social change, economic uncertainty and global health crisis also presents the chance for art to touch people at a time when they may need it most. The pressures outside can settle to a lull in our minds, background noise that we can tune out, but the emotional toll it can take on us remains nonetheless. Art has given me an escape during this time and reconnected me to the joys that music can bring me, particularly in the music of my youth. To tie this to my thoughts from above, I make House music. My musical life takes place in the house (no pun intended) that gay people of color built. As a straight man, a day doesn’t go by that I am not aware and thankful for the contributions, both musically and culturally that these titans created that inform what I love and make as an artist. I appreciate the struggle to be seen, both as people of color, as people part of lifestyles outside of society’s prescribed norms, and as trailblazers in underground culture , something often misunderstood and even maligned but those outside of it. House music has shown and continues to show me people gathered together joyfully. There is no version of me that would give up the joys of uplifting music that touches peoples’ souls. And I won’t. Dance music is not a secret anymore. EDM often gets made fun of by other, less commercial forms of dance music, and I would often make fun too. But recently, in the face of this broader view of my life and our world, I accept everyone’s right to dance to and like what they want to. Rather than focus on what I don’t like about a sound or even a scene, I revel in what’s on offer in what I love, and there’s a lot. When I started going out, I wasn’t judged. And while it was a very different time, the impact it had on me, the feeling that I had found a safe place to grow creatively and feel fulfilled spiritually is something I would never deprive someone else the chance to experience.
So in closing I’ll just say that to me the silver lining of all of this is that it’s the chance to reexamine everything, and see what I could do better, how I could be better, and also how I could let myself just live more with this revised view. So far, it gives me hope that when we return to a world without masks someday, maybe this time we have to think about how and what we are doing has been spent wisely to give us something much better to return to.