The following essay is featured in the book Black Men In Their Own Words,edited by Patricia Mignon Hinds with Susan L. Taylor.

Our People have shown amazing strength and resilience over the years. We have faced and conquered injustices and triumphed in every industry imaginable. We have cultivated our own identity, our own society, and our own customs, and we have seen our ideas and culture permeate every sector of this society.

As a musician, I feel the passion, hope, despair, struggles, and triumps of our people through our musical messages. It’s Mile’s horn crying a story, Parliament’s sexed-out funk, Curtis’s thought-provoking lyrics, and Marvin’s leaving a phonographic legacy. Artistically, we capture our lives in the form of song that connects time and space, evoking feelings of the past. It’s like when you hear a song on the radio today that your parents played at a barbecue, and it suddenly makes you hungry for ribs.

Music has a way of keeping life in perspective, creating change, and monitoring the pulse of society. Our music is a spoken legacy, much like the African oral tradition, and it continues to flow through our community like the blood through our veins. Our influence continues to dominate American pop culture, not just in music, where it is empirically obvious, but in film, fashion, and all other facets of this multi-media driven society.

Among ourselves, we have a comfort zone that’s sometimes unexplainable, but entirely familiar. Our collective identity belongs uniquely to us, a language that we don’t have to speak, yet you know that you belong just from the eyes. It’s about front porches and “speaking,” and saying “Yes, ma’am.” It’s fried chicken and collard greens, church on Sunday, the dozens, and everything in between.

As the future unfolds, African-Americans will continue to have our spirit of growth, perseverance, aspiration, and recognition of our past accomplishments. And as each generation succeeds the next, it carries with it a legacy that cannot be replaced, misplaced, or erased.

About the author: With the release of his 1995 widely popular solo debut,Brown Sugar, Michael D’Angelo Archer put his personal stamp on soul music with his blend of R&B, rock, funk, and gospel. His second album,Voodoo, which he called his spiritual and mental musical journey, also went platinum. A consummate musician, D’Angelo plays drums, keyboards, guitar, and bass. He has recorded soundtracks and has worked with such talented musicians as Lauryn Hill and B.B. King.