by Dan O

Storytelling makes a huge difference. Hip hop has shocked white audiences with very vivid songs about being stopped by police. The problem is shock is not the desired effect. It hasn’t really paid off in building empathy. What the author wants is for the audience to feel the difference. Lukah has changed the format completely with A Colored Night into A Black Man’s Worst Fear sitting comfortably as a track 8 to track 9 united story within his spellbinding new album Permanently Blackface (The 1st Expression). When you press play listen to how A Colored Night begins. The three minutes and twenty seconds gives you everything that happens before that stop.  I won’t quote lyrics (because you need to listen to every word yourself) but it starts on a Friday night with our narrator thinking about how hard the week was, how hard he worked, how excited he is to meet friends. Before he leaves, his wife loves him and tells him to be safe, foreshadowing a danger that is proven very real. Since it is Friday night traffic is nuts and convenience store clerks give bad vibes that are instantly recognizable as racial. A Colored Night achieves an important goal. Before we get to the police stop, this song provides us a clear Ice Cube It Was A Good Day understanding of the old land mines buried inside the environment. We feel how heavy it is that our narrator has to stay suspicious to survive, game planning for multiple circumstances on each interaction. The sense of safety isn’t taken away by the police stop. It was never there.

When A Black Man’s Worst Fear kicks off our narrator is in his own head running all possible reactions. Some are emotional, just dealing with how much he hates this situation. Some are logistical, did this cop follow me? Rather than watch this situation unfold through omniscient narration Lukah wants you in his brain. 1st person description where he is hoping this is a good cop, musing on how he would have reacted to this situation during more reckless days. How much is he willing to take if this isn’t a good cop? How many “yes sirs” until he has to stand against foul treatment and accept the consequences? We really don’t get direct cop movement until one minute and thirty seconds. That whole first portion makes you live in his head. Our narrator admits to overthinking but how could he not?! The composure he manages when talking to the cop is given full scope by the events you take in as the audience. That composure is not a default but an unbelievable triumph given how the world has tested him, how desperate the history of these interactions are for Black America and personally for our narrator. I marvel at the writing because in these two songs he teaches whoever is listening how hard it is to keep your head and how lucky you are to keep it as a Black man moving through Friday night. It’s why writers write and artists create.