Lightbringers…

Great Rising Your Highness, I hope you are exceedingly well. Children of the sun I invite you all ring Mother Earth’s Great Bell.

The world saves “Black Friday” for one day of shopping lines after Thanksgiving. Around here, every Friday is Black Friday, and the only line we care about is the one that runs from our pockets straight to our people. So let’s talk about what a little money and a whole lot of vision can build.

Eight Hundred Dollars on West Grand Boulevard

On January 12, 1959, in Detroit, Berry Gordy Jr. took an $800 loan and started Tamla Records. Before the year was out, the name Motown was on the door, and a house on Grand Boulevard became Hitsville U.S.A., the little studio that taught the whole planet how to dance.

Think about that. Eight hundred dollars. No hedge fund, no major-label deal. A family, a vision, and a building full of Black genius writing, arranging, recording and selling its own sound. In 1988 Gordy sold that company for $61 million. That’s what ownership looks like when you plant it early and tend it daily.

As a son of Flint, Michigan, I can’t tell you how much that Michigan story means to me. And the story is still standing: Gordy’s sister Esther Gordy Edwards founded the Motown Museum in 1985, right there in the original Hitsville house, so the next generation could stand in Studio A and feel it for themselves.

Meanwhile, Across from Howard

Fast forward to right here in the District. Since 1998, filmmakers Haile and Shirikiana Gerima have kept Sankofa Video, Books & Café on Georgia Avenue, across from Howard University, specializing in films and books about people of African descent around the world. Sankofa means go back and fetch it, and that’s exactly what that store does for our community every single day: it keeps our stories in our hands.

Motown and Sankofa are two sides of the same coin. One built the sound, the other guards the story. Both remind us that culture is an economy, and that an economy we don’t own is one we only rent.

The Next Hitsville Is Already Here

Here’s the part I want every independent artist in the DMV to hear: the next Hitsville won’t look like a house on Grand Boulevard. It looks like a coalition. That’s why we built COBRA Music, the Coalition Of Brilliant Recording Artists, so artists like Phantom Phunk Collective, Nasim Siddeeq and Venor can own their pen, own their masters and build together. Gordy had $800. You have a phone, a community and a coalition. Let’s go.

PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE THE MUSIC IS

• 🏛️ Visit history: Plan a trip or donate to the Motown Museum
• 📚 Shop Black-owned in DC: Buy your next book or film at Sankofa Video, Books & Café
• 📻 Tune in: Hear independent artists on SoulFusion Radio
• 🐍 Build the coalition: Discover and support the artists at COBRAMusic.net
• 💵 The $5 Challenge: This Friday, spend $5 with a Black-owned business or an independent artist: a book, a download, a coffee. Eight hundred dollars started Motown. Five can start something too.

#BlackFriday #BuyBlack #Motown #BerryGordy #Hitsville #SankofaDC #BlackBusiness #BlackExcellence #DCMusic #SoulFusionRadio #COBRAMusic

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