MIXED SENTIMENTS SURROUNDING JUNE AS DESIGNATED MONTH OF CELEBRATION

An Essay for June (Pride & Black Music Month)

by Terri Lyne Carrington

June celebrations bring joy and fatigue with subjects very close to my heart.

Anyone that knows me socially knows that, like Beyoncé, “we like to party!” I’m always down for a celebration. And I also like to celebrate authenticity in humans, especially when it’s connected to freedom.

June being both LGBTQ+ Pride Month and Black Music Month creates intersectional celebration for some of us. I personally have never loved the idea of having a month to celebrate something as significant as one’s gender or identity, or one’s race, or a community or music genre for that matter. I mean, how is there to be a month to celebrate Black music, when it is the foundation of most American music. Field hollers, work songs and blues birthed popular music, and when we look at what is consumed right now in the United States, hip-hop dominates at about 33 percent of it. And when you add the global appeal, it makes Black music not only a huge business (even with the fall of record sales) that a lot of non-Black people benefit from, but highly impactful and influential to popular culture the world over. Jazz has been recognized globally – possibly more than in its birthplace – and has spurred creative inventions on every continent, and rock, funk, and R&B have been absorbed and recapitulated by many cultures. If we remove Black music from the world, I truly wonder what music would sound like. So, sometimes I feel conflicted about celebrating it in June, as it is a part of how I live and breathe and it is celebrated by nearly everyone I know, every day, all year.

I feel similarly about Black History Month and Women’s History Month. I am Black and female, so I get to celebrate two months in a row! I’m sure my sarcasm is coming through, but I do wonder if these celebrations are more for the people who are not already celebrating these things, and if a signal toward justice would be when we no longer need a month to acknowledge the culture and burdens of millions of people whose identities or work fall into these categories.

Yet, with the above disclaimer (or mini-rant), I am left with, why not?

We musicians/artists need angles, stories, reasons to capture the attention of others to our work and if it means participating in a campaign focused on things that I believe should be commonly shared, learned and respected, then ok. If it means supporting ideas surrounding people celebrating themselves and others, well ok, because in a world where folks on the margins don’t feel celebrated enough, it makes sense for us to grasp onto a moment where we feel seen. Another reality is if it means picking up a check or spreading the good word when presenters, publications, or anyone with a platform feels it’s a good time, then I’m down if it aligns with my mission and my conditions – we all proselytize or hustle in some way or another. I am hoping not to appear cynical while I allow my honesty to lead.

For me, the big tie-in factor of Pride and Black music is freedom – to live and express oneself freely, and to expand and remove oneself from confining spaces. The band I put together, Terri Lyne Carrington + Social Science, is a step in that direction for me, with the goal to align with the freedom desires and concerns of others – bandmates, collaborators, fans, patrons, etc. Our sophomore album, Trip the Night Fantastic, is due for release July 31, 2026 – and I am excited to celebrate that no matter what month or day it comes out because it is an effort to say, “I see you. I feel you. Let’s come together in solidarity. Let’s speak truth to power and let’s have a good time doing it!” Music is such a powerful way of communicating thoughts, hopes, dreams, concerns, and it can also rally, inspire and inform.

The new album is an extension of our 2019 release, Waiting Game, with some new themes, as well as expansion on previously visited themes. We are not preaching. We are testifying in a way that we hope brings people together – and possibly inspire them to dance, whether wildly, agilely or inconspicuously. Dance has long been associated with ritual, storytelling and cultural expression. With this in mind, we made “groove” and “feel” important thematically, along with the varying social justice themes we highlight. For this outing, the June themes are represented well, especially with “Identity Song,” “Abolition Song,” and “Solidarity Song.”

“Identity Song” is a song I wrote in alignment with LGBTQ+ Pride, saying, “Just be. Be who you wanna be and love who you wanna love. Them, they, he or she.” It is sung on the album by the exquisite Michael Mayo, also with rap by Nappy Nina, closing out with, “Be who you are in the face of the noes. You perfect from toes. Ain’t nothin’ here to dispose.” This song was inspired by some of my students at Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, which I founded in 2018. They understand gender as a social construct, and many are refusing to be boxed in the binary and choosing to be fluid. I admire their courage to go against societal norms.

I must say that if I were just embarking on adulthood, I might have chosen to be non-binary as well – not that it’s too late, but I have grown quite used to being on my side of the gender box, so maybe I wrestle with a tinge of envy that they grow up in a time when there seems to be more freedom to choose your box, or have no box at all.

I am not sure that I have said this out loud before, but will confess I never knew about Juneteenth until this last decade. I guess the plot to keep it a secret continued in its own way! I am grateful to Opal Lee and all the other activists who helped to make it a federal holiday, because if we can celebrate presidents who were enslavers, then we can celebrate the day the last of the enslaved found out they were emancipated.

“Abolition Song” speaks to third wave abolition which refers to modern grassroots movements seeking to dismantle the prison industrial complex and systemic racism. I wrote this lyric as a very simple way to embrace the idea of transformative justice. If we lived in a society where everyone has what they need, then we would not need punitive justice, which prioritizes punishing the wrongdoing as opposed to repairing harm. And “Solidarity Song” is a satirical take on the “left” and “right” of America, who in the end come together, realizing that their differences can be exploited to keep them fighting against each other and distracted from the common forces of oppression.

This June, I am happy to celebrate Black music and LGBTQ+ Pride, as I do every day.

And as we are celebrating these things, I’d like to encourage us to expose ourselves to a new Black music artist and support them somehow beyond just streaming their music. Also, I encourage us to be aware of our own homophobia, internalized homophobia, transphobia, or enbyphobia – all while we practice being anti-racists. Doing this kind of self-awareness work can be so rewarding!

Forms of expansion and pushing boundaries, generally and personally, are two things I find totally exciting and there are so many areas in life to do so that at times it makes it hard for me to sleep at night. It is both scary and exhilarating to wonder about the many possibilities awaiting – for myself, for others and for the world. Let’s go! – Terri Lyne Carrington