Elders vs. Old MuhFuckas
An ode to Charlie last name Wilson
Countin’ Coins
Some Thursday in 2006 my grandmother and I sat criss-cross-applesauce on the family room floor. She’s armed with a cup and an assortment of change. After she plops a selection into their chamber, she stirs the coins with a good ole yahtzee shake before releasing them for our created game.
*CLINK CLANK CLINK*
“How much change is there?” she asks.
I feel special, mostly because I am, my grandmother makes sure to tell me that, but also because I am learning to count coins a year before the rest of my classmates.
I say “ — cents.”
“Close, try again,” she responds eagerly. Which means I must be barely off. She wouldn’t lie to make me feel better.
“ — cents!” I exclaim knowing I’m right.
Elated, but not surprised, she sticks her tongue out and high fives me.
We repeat this until she wants her mind tested too and we shift to a two player game of cards.
She teaches me practical life skills. I remind her to keep her mind alive. She advises me on my approaches. I give her space to communicate in new ways. We experience each moment for the first time together.
What Role Do I Play in Community?
A couple days ago I posted this note on Substack:
I am often dissecting my position in the communities I find myself in, especially communities that aren’t just my peers. These tend to be my favorite because intergenerational spaces breed so much creativity and care when people’s needs are maintained.
At different times I’ve been a badass lor kid, a prodigy, a resentful teenager, a potential leader, an active leader, a mentor, a jester in a clown suit. I’ve had the opportunity and the range *clock it* to be a plethora of things to many people.
And then, I think about the rest of y’all. Who got on my nerves the most? I’d love to say I stirred over this question, but quite frankly it’s the old muhfuckas. Not the elders, you know those oooold muhfuckas that complain about the people who are what they once were. The ones who reach as deeply as they can into their shallow spirits to tell you that you are unworthy of the wisdom they never give. You’ve met them before, its the old bitch who spent their whole life working for acceptance from a world created to exploit them. Now that all their old muhfuckas are dead, you can’t prove they never attained what their old muhfuckas told them they should be. Those ones, they suck. Dragging their generational curses along with them, throwing them like boomerangs to dodge so they find their way back home.
Contrasting my destain for old muhfuckas is the elation of encountering an elder. Living legends. Superstars who shine with such brightness it lights every crevice of the room. These the ones that cuss like sailors. May try’n excuse their French the first time, never twice. Don’t remember what they ate for breakfast, but remember Rochelle from second street in ‘74. The ones that speak up first, then ask you what you think. Never phased, always amazed.
Earlier this year I got a bass and decided to start learning. After putting it down for 6 months, I recently picked it back up. With the encouragement of my sister, I called my Uncle who’s been a bass player for 50 years to show him. I’ve always been a nervous musical performer, grew up playing classical piano and was forced to play sonatas at church…like what?! Really threw me off game.
Ignoring my apprehensions I called Uncle Mickey (like the mouse) up. Behind his quintessential bass player nonchalance I saw his eyes light up. Within 30 seconds I was enlisted in a weekly lesson. Every Monday he calls me when he gets up just before 6am LA time, which is 2pm London time and he teaches me a single new thing, never more, for about 15 minutes and then we chat about everything else. I hold his history and he creates space for my dreams. His aspirations continue and my past experiences are acknowledged. We caulk every gap in time, space, experience, and energy for the other.
Uncle Mickey is my own personal Charlie Wilson. Bringing expertise to my mind, still mush and forming. He pushes me to both practice scales and sprout music of my own, always moving to the misshapen melodies of my thick stringed instrument. I Love you Uncle Mickey.
Becoming An Elder
The soul of an Elder is nurtured into its state, moulded and kilned into its form over a lifetime of encounters. I’d like to get there some day so I ask: How do I become an elder? In an attempt to avoid old-muhfuckahdom its best to explore this now before more of my neuro pathways crystalize into paths covered in black ice. We want smooth car rides on freshly paved roads, not hydroplaning over a bridge you thought you could trust. Ard, let’s talk about it and I’m finna expand on my Substack note by bringing Charlie Wilson along to illustrate a model.
Zoom Out
In the 5th grade I was introduced to the painting “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus”. It unnerved me. It visualizes Icarus’s feet flailing in the air, head underwater after falling from the height of the Sun, but only as a blip in the bottom right corner. The rest of the painting displays everyday routine, showcasing life’s continuum even in personal tragedy. Icarus’s inability to see outside of himself became his downfall…and the world kept spinning.
Elders hold themselves as a piece of the complex world around them. We can zoom into ourselves to understand internal systems, but as we zoom out we understand the existing context those systems were formed under.
You can’t just zoom out on a whim though. You set your pace of expansion through your own rate of understanding. Before taking in a wider perspective you must understand what is in front of you. If your arms are full, you must learn to handle what you have before adding. When what is held becomes organized, you can start stacking. Think talented table busser, masterfully placing each plate on top of another.
The elders I have been blessed with have a panoramic view of the rooms they exist in, while the old muhfuckas dissect their wrinkles in each reflective surface they come across.
Back to Charlie Wilson. His love of music has allowed him to expand past the genres he sprouted in. Coming up in the Funk genre he guided its sound, it only makes sense that he’d continue into the genres that it inspired. New age R&B and Hip-Hop are natural progressions for him, but as he ages out of holding what is deemed culturally current and cool he must look to new horizons.
Zooming out of a space that you dominate and into something new may seem scary, but Charlie Wilson understands his right to reside wherever he wishes, especially when those fresh branches are an extension of the plants he nourished.
His view is far more expansive than those younger he works with, based in his immersive lived experience as opposed to a retrospective learned history. Both are valid ways of understanding what once was, but living through experiences develops the skills it takes to continue forward. Learning tidied histories of a time before you only gives you knowledge of it. Charlie Wilson holds knowledge and is well equipped with the dexterity he gained through creating those histories.
Topple the Ladder, Use It As a Bridge
An old muhfuckah loooooves to remind a youngin that, as an older, they are to be revered simply because they haven’t succumb to heart failure…yet. In due time.
They look at the new generations with a high chin and a low gaze that refuses to see you eye to eye. They were taught that time exists in a linear fashion plotted on an xy axis. As time goes on they move up the line, pushing them to greater heights in the hierarchy of life. Bless them waning hearts of theirs.
Look, I’m no expert on relationship anarchy, but I understand I cannot hold relationships with anyone who thinks they are above me. I am not a friend to authority. I don’t care if you’re my professor or my mother, you need to understand that playing a role which requires teaching does not make you more important. Rather, you are special for being in a position to relay the knowledge you hold, just as it makes a pupil special for holding space to learn it.
As above, so below. Holding respect for those you choose to relay information to is important for the legacy of what you teach. I’m quick to throw a baby out with the bathwater if a demeaning asshole gives me the chore.
Charlie last name Wilson could write a master class in this. His willingness to feature on songs from artists of the moment is so admirable, mostly because the prominence of these artists varies. He goes where he can contribute. His voice is nostalgic and exudes a sensual recollection of the recent history he was a part of creating. He connects with the sound of Pharrell, Tyler the Creator, Cash Cobain, Don Toliver, anyone else who invokes a similar sense of pleasure he’s so skilled in conveying. And he does it in his voice! He steers away from changing his persona, he always been that nigga. Instead he changes where you see him and because of it he is relevant and curating beautiful sounds.
Rather than forcing youngers to face vertigo on a ladder to him he laid it flat, creating a bridge to connect them in any direction.
Y’all I am not playing, I love this man. Can’t say it enough.
Start Young
I’ve already mentioned how much time it takes to gain a full picture of our surroundings. It’s all so much to take in. The smells overwhelm my palette and I can’t taste anything. Gauging endless space is a journey one must decide to take as early as possible.
By the age of 10 I thought childhood was not for me. Adults do not trust you, you are seen as their property, except the elders who treat you like an entire person. With them you can be free and explore. Of course, as people are, I was wrong. Childhood is for everyone. I was right to see old bitter muhfuckas as old bitter muhfuckas and not the all knowing idols they pied for me to take them as. This was my first step in becoming an Elder.
You must engage in culture and continue to rebirth what suits you in new creative ways. We are an amalgamation of the spaces we are put in, find our way through. When we recognize this, we gain a handle (one of many handles controlled by different forces) on how we express ourselves. We are an archive of our ancestors expression and our own unique expressions are given to be archived in those that receive it. To become dependable teachers, we must first be willful engaged students.
When you listen to the Gap Band you cannot ignore the influences that flow through the lyricism and vocal prowess of Charlie Wilson. What did they say in their 1982 hit “Outstanding”?
Oustanding, Girl you knock me out. Excited, Makes me wanna shout!
Where you think they learned about shouting at? Their lyrics are infused with gospel motifs from their earliest songs. Constructing from what they knew, fusing it with the sound of the time is what enshrined The Gap Band as legends. Charlie Wilson continuing to take what he made in homage to those he looked up to and using it to assist those who look up to him is what makes Uncle Charlie an elder. A legend with nothing to hold them up becomes a myth. Mr. Wilson is securing his legacy by breathing life into his successors.
Thank you Charlie Wilson, for being an example of the elder we should all strive to be.
I hope everyone reading can look to an elder they know. Seek out that support and emulate the love they give you to everyone else.
If you enjoyed this, check out some of my other pieces.
This was so much fun to read. I also admire Uncle Charlie as an artist and his place as an elder in the game. I'm sure you saw his 'Tiny Desk' - the backup singers were carrying that man!! But I say he deserved to be, just as we should carry the elders we love when they need some uplifting.
This a favorite moment of mine - https://youtu.be/yNMJfgu8CyU
This is Y I'm glad, dat even tho Im in mah 60s, I got dem Young Chillren. Youngest 19 n 21. They keep mah Mind sharp. They learn me sumpen alla time. And CHARLIE WILSON and da GAP BAND is still DROPPIN BOMBS in mah Playlist.....Preshated U going WAYBACK for this THROWBACK.