August 24
Urban Voices Project (UVP) is celebrating it’s ten year anniversary as an organization. It began as a music wellness program at Wesley Health Center in partnership with the Colburn School of Music.
Along with music wellness and community building music programs in a variety of locations and a performance choir based in Skid Row, UVP does three annual events. One is A Holiday Called Home which has happened four years in a row at Inner City Arts, a highly regarded creative campus on the border of Skid Row and the Fashion District which functions as a citywide after school arts program.
Another one is the C’Mon Sing Festival which has happened three years in a row as a sidewalk-level open mic in various locations throughout Downtown.
The third one is Coffeehouse which has happened eight years in a row.
Coffeehouse is an opportunity for individual choir members to receive several weeks of professional voice lessons to do a song of their choosing in a concert where the choir opens and closes it with a song. This year it was held at Inner City Arts.
I picked a song that I was introduced to at First United Methodist Church called Good People by Mumford and Sons and Pharrell Williams. The lyrics spoke to me powerfully about Skid Row, specifically about the Skid Row Action Plan, even more specifically about the Land and Labor Acknowledgments in the Plan — successfully implementing the Plan requires the right foundation.
Coffeehouse empowers the inner diva in all of us to come out with professional level Hair and Make Up.
I brought the Land and Labor Acknowledgments on stage on a large posterboard to begin the song and in the middle of the song I did a short spoken word to make very clear the point of the song.
Here are the lyrics with the spoken word in the middle of it. Our Emcee, Skid Row Artist Mello Re-Houston, held up the 92 page Implementing The Skid Row Action Plan for the audience to see.
Here are the lyrics. Back up singers sing the words in parentheses:
And I’m done being tired, so right now I’m inspired
(Welcome to the revelation)
I was once underwater and now I’m on fire
(Welcome to the revelation)
And I feel it in the air that Mother Earth ain’t steady
Feel so alive even though times are deadly
And in my soul (get ready)
Something is stirring now (get ready)
And I’m not worried (get ready)
You better get ready to see now
Good people been down for so long
And now it’s like the sun is rising
Good people been down for so long
And now I see the sun is rising
Skid Row Action Plan. Resident Community Centered. (plan is brought on stage and shown to audience) And there it is. Go ahead and read it. Resident community centered. Ooooh…but is implementation of the Action Plan resident community centered? Planners gonna plan plan plan plan and haters gonna hate hate hate hate. Im-ple-ment. Im-ple-ment. Here are the Land and Labor Acknowledgments from the Plan. Now if these acknowledgments are the foundation for implementation…justice, if justice is the foundation that implementation of the Skid Row Action Plan is being built upon — — then transformation is heading this way.
And in my soul (get ready)
Something is stirring now (get ready)
And I’m not worried (get ready)
You better get ready to see now
Good people been down for so long
And now it’s like the sun is rising
Good people been down for so long
And now I see the sun is rising
Long was the night, but you know we’ve been dreaming
(Welcome to the revelation)
The city’s getting loud ’cause the mountains are screaming
(Welcome to the revelation)
When you’ve been through it all and it won’t get no worse
And the first shall be last and the last shall be first
And in my soul (get ready)
Something is stirring now (get ready)
And I’m not worried (get ready)
You better get ready to see now
Good people been down for so long
And now it’s like the sun is rising
Good people been down for so long
And now I see the sun is rising
(welcome to the revelation)
(welcome to the revelation)
The sun is (the sun is) rising (rising)
It’s coming, it’s on it’s way
So nothing (nothing) tonight is (tonight is) Getting in the way
The sun is (the sun is) rising (rising)
It’s coming (it’s coming), it’s on its way
So nothing (nothing) tonight is (tonight is) Getting in the way
(welcome to the revelation)
(welcome to the revelation)
the revelation