from life and love to lynchings and rapes,
from Fannie Lou Hamer and Sojourner Truth
to a celebration o f all black wom en and all
peoples.
Sweet Honey in the
Rock: The Message
and the Music
Ntazake Shange writes about colored girts
considering suicide when the rainbow is
enuf; Alice Walker writes that the nature o f
this flower is to bloom ; Zora Neale Hurston
declares how much she loves herself when
she's laughing... and then again when she’s
looking mean and impressive; and Sweet
Honey in the Rock com e on singing, casting
their own spells and everybody knows that
they are, Sweet Honey is, in essence, all at
once, that rainbow, that flower, that laughing,
m ean and impressive woman and much,
m uch more.
It’s all in the music. O r it’s all in what they
d o with the music. Or it’s all in the lyrics. In the
com bination o f it all. In their everything. Five
black wom en singing unaccompanied by
any instrumentation. Patting their fe e t Clap
ping their hands. Occasionally shaking and
tapping the percussive African shaker.
Their voices weave and dodge, dip and
swell around each other. Voices that can
create patterns and configurations so
com plex no com puter could ever decipher,
or voices that can drift down into a beauty so
quiet and powerful in its simplicity, that even
the m ost hardened heart cannot help but be
overwhelm ed.
Their perform ances are always ones of
passion and intensity, that chill and arouse,
com fort and, m ost o f all, reveal love. Magic.
Am azing the way they change rhythms, shift
leads, moan and holler, com e together as
on e or separate into a myriad o f voices. You
cannot listen, you cannot be there, hearing
these sounds — Bernice’s heavy contralto,
Evelyn’s sweet alto, Yasm een’s shouts and
wails, Asaye’s deep, utterly deep, bass, and
Aisha's electric resonance — and walk away
untouched.
You cannot hear the words without being
touched. The m essages. All the old familiar
spirituals and protest songs. Other songs
with m ost o f the lyrics written by the m em
bers themselves, telling, testifying on a range
o f subjects from El Salvador to South Africa
¡tfc.
If you had lived with Harriet Tubman
would you wade in the water
If you had lived with Fannie Lou Hamer
would you shine her light
O r words reminding us that
The hands o f oppression
are the hands o f hunger
The waters o f Chile
fill the banks o f Cape Fear
O r lovingly, using the words o f poet June
Jordan:
But what I need is quite specific
terrifying rough and terrific
I need an absolutely one to one
a seven day kiss
Lyrics, music, all o f it forces response and will
not leave you untouched.
I recently spoke with Dr. Bernice Reagon,
founder o f Sweet Honey, and for many years
cultural historian for the Smithsonian Insti
tute in Washington, D.C.
It was twelve years ago that Sweet Honey
em erged, out o f a vocal workshop o f the
Washington, D.C. Black Repertory Theatre
Company. Bernice was the vocal director.
O ver the years several things have changed
about the group: “ nineteen black women
have lent their voices so that there could be a
“ Sweet Honey in the Rock." The repertoire
has changed — expanded and extended by
the additions o f different women.
But remaining the same throughout, has
been the presence o f Bernice Reagon, the
shared com m itm ent to the style o f Sweet
Honey, and to being socially conscious, polti-
cally aware black wom en artists.
W hen asked whether Sweet Honey had
accom plished all they had set out to do,
Bernice explained that “ initially, with Sweet
Honey, there were no goals, at least in the
usual sense o f the word. At its inception,
Sw eet Honey was intended only as an avenue
o f expresison for black wom en who simply
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tire.
Sweet Honey in the Rock.
wanted to sing, needed to sing.” What she
envisioned was a group o f black women,
rooted in traditional black American music,
“that could vocally explore a range o f con
tem porary issues, both political and
personal." The response to Sweet Honey —
singing unaccompanied in an era where
electric music was/is the rule — has been
profound.
Sweet Honey’s lyrics are often difficult for
som e to digest — Not because o f their com
plexity but because too many are reluctant to
hear about, and thus acknowledge, the exist
en ce o f racism, o f discrimination, oppres
sion, rape, nuclear energy, homophobia, sex
ism, hunger. The decision to explore and
delve into topics that may be uncomfortable
to som e, speaks well o f Sweet Honey’s com
m itm ent to resist with their voices and words,
always, those “ isms” o f the world that con
stantly deal death blows. The world may be
the way it is, but we can change it That we
can rebuild and re-create is the major chord
that runs throughout their music.
After com m enting on Sweet Honey’s ap
peal to groups as diverse as Lesbians and
Gays, Black church members, peace activ
ists, Central America and anti-apartheid ac
tivists and feminists, I asked Bernice for her
thoughts on coalition building.
“ Coalition is som ething we struggle with,
and o f course it’s im portant And our com
mitm ent to building our particular issue/
com m unity is important The struggle is in
balancing those. It requires a great deal o f
intensity and work, but we haue to work at
changing things that are oppressive and
exploitive.”
Finally 1 asked Bernice how the excitement
she and Sweet Honey generate becom es
m ore dazlzing with each year. I wondered
where “ it” keeps com ing from, that force
inside them that keeps the audience re-acting,
m oving, responding.
Bernice, a smile in her voice, replied that
no matter what. Sweet Honey believes
strongly in remaining positive, believes
strongly too in the values o f what they sing.
And when they sing, while they sing, they get
trem endous strength, peace, and serenity
from each other.
“ People ask m e all the time,” said Bernice,
“ how do I do what I do." She paused and then
several times, with wonder, repeated herself.
“ I always think, how could I not do what I do.”
It is a question we hope she nor any other
m em ber o f Sweet Honey ever has need to
answer.
M em bers o f Sweet Honey are: Bernice
Reagon, Evelyn Harris, Yasmeen Williams,
Ysaye Barnwell, Aisha Kahlil, and Shirley
Johnson, interpreter for the hearing
impaired. Don’t miss it!
Just Out. September, 1986