Nikki Giovanni & the New York Community Choir – Great Pax Whitey/Peace Be Still
Nikki Giovanni & the New York Community Choir – Ego Tripping
Nikki Giovanni & the New York Community Choir – All I Gotta Do/I Stood On The Banks Of Jordan
Nikki Giovanni & the New York Community Choir – Woman Poem/Amazing Grace
This is a record that I have owned maybe more times than any other. In fact, I’ve owned three different versions of this album, each with a different cover, though this most recent copy, featuring Nikki Giovanni’s face, likely reading her own poems, is my favorite. I don’t have any reason for why I’ve ultimately parted ways with this recorded multiple times, it’s just been related to the ebb and flow of my collection, where I’ve sold significant portions of it for a number of reasons.
I do however, have some very good reasons for always getting a copy of this album, and that is because it features some of the most soul stirring performances I’ve ever heard. In this case, I bought this album, once again, here in this surreal Summer of 2020. As the US has been embroiled in conflict with multiple pandemics, the renewed emphasis on issues of Race and our Racial and often Racist history has put Nikki Giovanni into my mind more than a few times.
The particular catalyst for getting this one (in addition to a couple other Giovanni albums that I hadn’t owned before) was her conversation with James Baldwin originally broadcast on SOUL! In 1971. Baldwin is rightly recognized as one of the best minds to tackle issues surrounding Race in the US, remaining relevant through much of our current difficulties, but Giovanni’s critical eye was no less prescient, as is clearly evident on her poem “Great Pax Whitey,” originally published in her collection, “Black Feeling, Black Talk, Black Judgement, and here is combined with a rendition of “Peace Be Still” by the New York Community Choir.
Nikki Giovanni – “Great Pax Whitey”
“In the beginning was the word,
And the word was,
Death,
And the word was nigger,
And the word was death to all niggers,
And the word was death to all life,
And the word was death to all,
Peace be still.
The genesis was life,
The genesis was death,
In the genesis of death,
Was the genesis of war,
Be still peace, be still.
In the name of peace,
They waged the wars,
Ain’t they got no shame?
In the name of peace,
Lot’s wife is now a product of the Morton company,
Nah, they ain’t got no shame.
Noah packing his wife and kiddies up for a holiday,
Row row row your boat,
But why’d you leave the unicorns Noah, huh?
Why’d you leave them?
While our Black Madonna stood there,
Eighteen feet high holding Him in her arms,
Listening to the rumblings of peace be still,
Be still.
Can I get a witness? Witness? Witness?
He wanted to know,
And Peter only asked, who is that dude?
Who is that Black dude?
Looks like a troublemaker to me,
And the foundations of the mighty mighty Roman Catholic Church were laid,
Hallelujah Jesus,
Nah, they ain’t got no shame.
Cause they killed the Carthaginians,
in the great Appian Way,
And they killed the Moors just to civilize a nation,
And they just killed the earth,
And blew out the sun,
In the name of a god,
Whose genesis was white,
And war wooed god,
And America was born,
Where war became peace,
And genocide patriotism,
And honor is a happy slave,
Cause all god’s chillun need rhythm,
And glory hallelujah, why can’t peace be still?
The great emancipator was a bigot,
Ain’t they got no shame?
And making the world safe for democracy,
Were twenty millon slaves,
Nah, they ain’t got no shame.
And they barbecued six million,
To raise the price of beef,
And crossed the 16th parallel,
To control the price of rice,
Ain’t we never gonna see the light?
And champagne was shipped out of the East,
While kosher pork was introduced to Africa,
Only the torch can show the way.
In the beginning was the deed,
And the deed was death,
And the honkies are getting confused,
Peace be still.
So the great white prince,
Was shot like a nigger in Texas,
And our Black shining prince was murdered,
like that thug in his cathedral,
While our nigger in Memphis,
was shot like their prince in Dallas,
And my lord,
Ain’t we never gonna see the light?
The rumblings of this peace must be stilled,
Be stilled, be still.
Oh, Black people,
Ain’t we got no pride?”
Even though the poem references the song, “Peace” is still an interesting choice for this poem. The song was made famous by James Cleveland & the Angelic Choir in 1963, recorded soon after the Birmingham church bombing that also inspired John Coltrane’s “Alabama.” The song is one that references scripture where Jesus calms turbulent waters by saying “Peace, be still,” and as such it’s a song for troubled times where faith in a better tomorrow is tested. We get almost 3 full minutes of the choir before Giovanni steps in with the fiery indictment of “western” civilization,” and especially American racism that unfortunately remains all too familiar and far too relevant. The way she says, “Nah, they ain’t got no shame,” is just so perfect. In these waning days of the “Pax Americana,” where just when you think things can’t get worse, or horrific actions couldn’t be topped, but they are, I often hear Giovanni’s voice, “nah, they ain’t got no shame…” No matter how many times I’ve heard it, it never fails to give me chills.
Thought they bookend the first side of the record, the one-two punch of “Peace” and “Ego Trippin” is truly something. While the former is an indictment of Racism and all it produces, the latter is a beautiful, joyful, raucous, celebration of Mother Africa and Black history, ending with some of the most beautiful lines of Giovanni’s whole oeuvre.
“I am so perfect so divine, so ethereal, so surreal,
I cannot be comprehended,
Except by my permission.”
Giovanni’s manifold talents at this stage in her career are marvelous to behold. And the deep, deep feeling she inspires is not only focused on issues of Race, but also around Gender (and class, a kind of proto-intersectionality roughly 15 years before the term started to be theorized by Black feminists like Deborah King and Patricia Hill Collins) as evidenced on “All I Gotta Do,” and “Woman Poem,” the latter beautifully and unironically paired with “Amazing Grace.”
Nikki Giovanni – Woman Poem
“You see,
My whole life is tied up to unhappiness,
It’s Father cooking breakfast,
And me getting fat as a hog,
Or having no food at all,
And Father proving his incompetence again,
I wish I knew how it would feel to be free.
It’s having a job they won’t let you work,
Or no work at all castrating me,
Yeah, it happens to women too.
It’s a sex object if you’re pretty and no love,
Or love and no sex if you’re fat,
Get back, fat, black woman,
Be a mother, grandmother, strong thing,
But not a woman,
Games woman, romantic woman, love needer,
Man seeker, sweat getter, love seeking woman.
It’s a hole in your shoe,
And buying Lil’ Sis a dress,
And her saying you shouldn’t,
When you know all too well that you shouldn’t.
But smiles are only something we give to properly dressed social workers,
Not each other,
Only smiles of ‘I know your game Sister,’
Which isn’t really a smile.
Joy is finding a pregnant roach and squashing it
Not finding someone to hold,
Let go, get off, get back, don’t turn me on you dog,
How dare you care about me,
Cause I ain’t nothin’,
And you must be lower than that to care.
It’s a filthy house,
With yesterday’s watermelon,
And Monday’s tears,
Cause true ladies don’t know how to clean it.
It’s intellectual devastation of everyone,
To avoid emotional commitment,
‘Yeah honey, I would’ve married him,
But he didn’t have no degree.’
It’s knock-kneed, mini-skirted,
Wig wearing, dyed blond, mamma’s scar,
Born dead, my scorn,
Rough heeled, broken nailed,
Powdered face,
Me,
Whose whole life is tied up to unhappiness,
Cause it’s the only for real thing I know.”
Amazing Grace indeed…Here on this album, Giovanni presents all the sides of Black life, the good, the bad & the ugly, as well as the resilience, fire and joy of her experience, with such fierce honesty that there is no way you cannot listen…Peace, be still.