I SEE U, Episode 114: Healing The Art and Soul of America with Samora Pinderhughes

[00:00:00] Eddie Robinson: Acclaimed multidisciplinary artist Samora Pinderhughes is all about infusing his work with consciousness and empathy. He’s a pianist, a vocalist, a composer, a filmmaker, and all of those skills are on full display in his powerful performances which are meant to inspire change. Especially confronting realities of incarceration and police brutality.

[00:00:24] Samora Pinderhughes: The Healing Project is, is actually an organization where we co create artistic works of all kinds with people around the country who have suffered from structural violence in the carceral system.

[00:00:33] Eddie Robinson: I’m Eddie Robinson, stay tuned for a personal conversation with internationally renowned artist Samora Pinderhughes.

[00:00:40] Eddie Robinson: He sheds light on his latest work, The Healing Project. And how it’s creating space for people to come together to grieve and mend and imagine an equitable future. Oh yeah, I feel you. We hear you. I SEE U.

[00:00:59] Samora Pinderhughes – Masculinity: Young man come down from that tower. It isn’t yet your time. I’ll tell you five years later, you made it out alive. Playing games gonna lead to that pill. For real, it’s such a thrill. You might get lost in the darkness.

[00:01:27] Eddie Robinson: You’re listening to I SEE U. I’m your host, Eddie Robinson. They say that art imitates life. But I would argue that art is just an extension of our lives. A part of the conversation about what’s important, what’s beautiful, what’s painful. Think about the earliest art made by humans. Handprints in caves made 40, 000 years ago.

[00:01:54] Eddie Robinson: It’s powerful to look upon that art and feel a connection to a person from long ago. Musicologists think that humans have been playing drums for as long as we’ve had speech. The art of music is the same. It’s just that ingrained within us as a form of communication. Our guest Samora Pinderhughes very much embodies that notion of art being part of the conversation he’s having with his community and with society.

[00:02:24] Eddie Robinson: He’s a multidisciplinary artist, a composer, pianist, vocalist, filmmaker, a performance artist that believes collaboration is key. Some of his past collaborators include Herbie Hancock, Sarah Bareilles, David Diggs, and Layla Hathaway. He works frequently with rapper Common on compositions for music and film, and is a featured member of August Greene, a supergroup formed by Common, Robert Glasper, and Kareem Riggins.

[00:02:59] Eddie Robinson: A SamorPinderhugheses performance is not just music, but brings in elements of theater, poetry, even paintings and digital arts.

[00:03:16] Eddie Robinson: He’s in Houston to perform his latest work, The Healing Project. It also incorporates recordings of community members who’ve been incarcerated or had experienced some form of systemic violence. I SEE U as we’re pleased to have some more of Pinderhughes with us in studio to talk about his life and career.

[00:03:38] Eddie Robinson: Samora, thanks so much for being a guest on I SEE U.

[00:03:43] Samora Pinderhughes: Honored to be here. Thanks for having me.

[00:03:45] Eddie Robinson: Samora, we received a lot of adjectives from PR agents, management, folks who are representing you during this Houston trip, where they’ve described you as multidisciplinary, vocalist, composer, filmmaker. For those who’ve never heard of Samora Pinderhughes, describe for them.

[00:04:07] Eddie Robinson: How would you define your music? How would you define your energy of Samora Pinderhughes? Go!

[00:04:16] Samora Pinderhughes: Um, yeah, I mean, I think It, it changes all the time, but I think right now I’m mostly focused on trying to be honest. So I think that’s part of why I like changing mediums. I really follow the story. I follow what the story needs and what the information needs that’s coming through the channel.

[00:04:37] Samora Pinderhughes: And just, uh. You know, if that’s a film, if that’s a performance, if that’s an album, if that’s a community project, you know, it’s really just trying to serve something that I think is moving through the channel. That’s what I always say. It’s like, it is me trying to be honest. It’s in every sense, but it’s also understanding that I am in service of a communication that is larger than me.

[00:05:03] Samora Pinderhughes: I first heard of you and became familiar with your artistry when I came across rapper Common and he, alongside Robert Glasper, Kareem Riggins. They had this super group called August Greene.

[00:05:19] August Greene – Black Kennedy: If I was a Kennedy, I’d be a Black Kennedy. Black car, black tux, this is black symmetry. Raised in the Chi but my family from Tennessee.

[00:05:27] August Greene – Black Kennedy: I remember me, Reem Dilla, we was in the deep.

[00:05:29] August Greene – Black Kennedy: Riding through the city with the top down. We ain’t got no ceilings to our thoughts now. It’s a beautiful ride.

[00:05:37] Eddie Robinson: And that album actually prepped me mentally. For the death of my father because it was released two months prior to his death. So it actually put me in a very interesting mindset.

[00:05:51] Eddie Robinson: And you know how something really tragic happens in your life. And then musically something is released and you’re like, Oh, I needed this. Thank you, you know, the gods were thinking of me because they brought this release for me, you know, Robert Glasper, Houston native, plus my homegirl, Brandy, you know, we’re both from Macomb, Mississippi, but they had the nerve, the audacity to sing Sounds of Blackness and remake that, Optimistic, what?

[00:06:32] Eddie Robinson: But no sooner than maybe two years later, the pandemic happened. And I heard this song on your Black Spring EP entitled, For Those Lost, For Those Taken.

[00:06:46] Samora Pinderhughes – For Those Lost, For Those Taken: Promise me I’ll be alive on my way home. Promise me I’ll be alive when I drive alone. Stop lights can be murder. Movements could be murder. Conversations be murder. Promise me I’ll be alive.

[00:07:09] Eddie Robinson: And it was a tribute to this 28 year old fellow prayer review graduate, Sandra Bland, who. For those who don’t remember, Bland was found hanged in a jail cell in Waller County some three days after being arrested during a traffic stop.

[00:07:23] Recording of Sandra Bland Traffic Stop: You okay?

[00:07:24] Recording of Sandra Bland Traffic Stop: I’m waiting on you.

[00:07:26] Recording of Sandra Bland Traffic Stop: This is your job.

[00:07:27] Recording of Sandra Bland Traffic Stop: I’m waiting on you.

[00:07:27] Recording of Sandra Bland Traffic Stop: Whatever you want me to do.

[00:07:28] Recording of Sandra Bland Traffic Stop: Well, you seem very irritated.

[00:07:29] Recording of Sandra Bland Traffic Stop: I am. I really am. Because I feel like I should be. I was getting out of your way. You were speeding up, tailing me. So I move over and you stopped me. So, yeah, I am a little irritated, but that doesn’t stop you from giving me a ticket.

[00:07:41] Recording of Sandra Bland Traffic Stop: So, here’s your ticket.

[00:07:44] Recording of Sandra Bland Traffic Stop: Oh, are you done?

[00:07:47] Recording of Sandra Bland Traffic Stop: You asked me what was wrong and I told you.

[00:07:49] Recording of Sandra Bland Traffic Stop: Okay.

[00:07:49] Recording of Sandra Bland Traffic Stop: So now I’m done, yeah. Okay.

[00:07:52] Eddie Robinson: Some incredible artists, but yet you’re an artist who’s very deliberate at making sure audiences are capturing somewhat of a visual component to what you’re delivering to us. You want us to hear it, but you also want us to feel it, to even see it, uh, and perhaps on some level, take action on it.

[00:08:13] Eddie Robinson: What’s been your. Inspiration behind the music that you write because with this particular song, For Those Lost, For Those Taken, you know, it sounded as if Sandra was singing the song herself. What’s your writing process like? Because it, it sounds like you’re speaking through the ancestors, through people that have passed on and the music and the lyrics work beautifully.

[00:08:43] Samora Pinderhughes: Yeah. Thank you. I mean, thank you for sharing that. First of all, and Aṣẹ to your father and much love to you for that.

[00:08:49] Eddie Robinson: Thank you.

[00:08:50] Samora Pinderhughes: And I think, I think that is a perfect example of, of what I was talking about in the sense that the music is not for me, like, you know, I would never know that it would connect with you that way when we’re making what we’re making, but you trust that there’s somebody on that other side of that material that needs it.

[00:09:08] Samora Pinderhughes: And so it’s always very. meaningful to have that like echoed and kind of ratified in a sense. And I do think that that’s been for me, the biggest part of, of the songwriting process is trust because I don’t really all the way know where it comes from. I think that part that is very intentional for me, as you say, is very detailed is, is kind of everything that happens before the songwriting, which is really a lot of thinking, a lot of research, a lot of writing.

[00:09:39] Samora Pinderhughes: A lot of very intentional kind of like creating of containers and trying to understand what I want to write about, you know, and I think some of that is inspired or comes up as a result of things that have happened, like with the song For Those Lost, you know, that I wrote that after Sandra was, was killed, was murdered by the police.

[00:09:59] Samora Pinderhughes: And it’s, as you say, I think, you know, I knew going in that I wanted to write that. And I knew that I wanted to speak to that moment. I even reached out to her mom and like we’ve had cut correspondence about that piece and about the work that that her mom, Geneva’s doing in the community. And, but, you know, in terms of what came out through the song, like it, it does feel like I was talking to her, but that’s also very presumptuous for me to say.

[00:10:27] Samora Pinderhughes: I think that’s how I feel about it. And I do think that we all speak to different things. We, you know, we do in, in our form and fashion, speak to spirits. And we talk to people that have left us in a lot of different ways, whether that’s through a spiritual tradition or whether that’s just through. Um, missing them and trying to communicate with them when they’re gone.

[00:10:49] Samora Pinderhughes: There’s there that is a form of that as well so I think I’m always just very grateful that through music and through the arts I’ve been given a gift where I can have a place to put that stuff. Whereas in our society most days I think a lot of us have the capacity and even the desire to express ourselves in that way and to communicate But we don’t really have the opportunity to do that And, you know, as an artist, that’s like literally my job.

[00:11:17] Samora Pinderhughes: So that’s the greatest gift in the world. And so then that becomes also a responsibility of paying that forward in terms of making work that I feel is, carries that intention and is very, I guess I would say like loving in that process. It doesn’t mean that every song is nice. But I do think that I try to maintain a practice where I’m trying to reach out and really deeply connect with whoever’s on the other end of that music.

[00:11:48] Samora Pinderhughes: And even if it’s going to be performed, whether it’s for five people or one person in their room or a hundred people, I wanted to always feel like how we are right now, where we’re just together, you know?

[00:12:05] Samora Pinderhughes: Situations like the August Greene group, that, that’s always a great opportunity to do that because you also meet other people’s process and being in that group with the three of them. And also a shout out to another Houston native,

[00:12:17] Samora Pinderhughes: Bernice Travis Boone Bishop,

[00:12:18] Samora Pinderhughes: who’s on the bass for all those, all that music.

[00:12:21] Samora Pinderhughes: You know, he’s the other like real main collaborator with me and the three of them working with them in that process. I think that. It is very free in that way that we’ll talk for a couple hours about, you know, what are you dealing with? What do you want to write about? You know, a lot of times we follow the lyrics that, you know, Common is writing about what he’s moving through at that time and then trying to shape that sonically.

[00:12:46] Samora Pinderhughes: So, I don’t really have a specific process because the collaboration is the biggest part of it. But I will say that I think where the intention, like I say, where the intention comes for me is in the, almost the preparation and the practice of trying to really always be engaged in working through both my own feelings about things and trying to understand the world around me as much as possible.

[00:13:09] Samora Pinderhughes: And then also, I think revision is a huge part, particularly when it comes to language. Like when I’m writing lyrics, you know, there’s what comes out and then there’s the revision process. And I think for any writer, that’s a huge part of the process. And I kind of apply that to my life, too. Like, I kind of see life as revision, you know?

[00:13:26] Samora Pinderhughes: You’re always trying to better yourself and, and get in the details of that.

[00:13:31] Eddie Robinson: I love that.

[00:13:33] Eddie Robinson: I’m Eddie Robinson, and you’re listening to I SEE U. We’re speaking with multidisciplinary artist Samora Pinderhughes at our studios in the Third Ward. He’s in town collaborating with Houston musicians for a performance of his latest work, The Healing Project performed at the historic Eldorado ballroom, just a few blocks away from our I SEE U studios.

[00:13:59] Eddie Robinson: There’s a mantra that I tell my team members for I SEE U as a design technique for our show. It’s to thread the music beds and the soundtracks within the stories and the narratives as being told by the guest.

[00:14:12] Eddie Robinson: And I often tell them that audio is not meant to be heard. Audio is meant to be felt. And it’s that component that drives our process. Um, when looking to engineer those emotions, those feelings, those genuine emotions coming from any kind of project or episode that we’re working on. There’s been a history of artists using their music as a tool for activism.

[00:14:37] Eddie Robinson: You know, can we think of Nina Simone, right? And her rendition of Strange Fruit

[00:14:42] Nina Simone – Strange Fruit: Southern trees barring, strange fruits.

[00:14:51] Eddie Robinson: Fight the power, Public Enemy.

[00:15:04] Eddie Robinson: Some might say, you know, I just want to enjoy the music. Keep the politics out as our Houstonian Beyonce says, to the left, to the left. Why is it important for you to use music as a medium to talk politics?

[00:15:21] Samora Pinderhughes: I think. You know, you brought up Nina and people use, you know, uh, she has an interview that people reference a lot where she says, you know, how can you be an artist and not reflect the times?

[00:15:32] Nina Simone Interview: An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times. I think that is true of painters. Sculptors, poets, musicians, I, as far as I’m concerned, it’s their choice. But I choose to reflect the times and the situations in which I find myself. That, to me, is my duty.

[00:15:56] Samora Pinderhughes: And I think people take that in a very particularly, like, literal way.

[00:16:00] Samora Pinderhughes: But I think, I think what she meant by that was, if you listen to the full interview, like, she’s basically saying, I live here now. So if I’m being honest about my experience, it’s all of it. And that’s why if you listen to a Nina Simone record, it’s all of it. Like she has love songs on there. She has songs about What’s happening in the Civil Rights Movement?

[00:16:21] Nina Simone – Mississippi God D***: Alabama’s got me so upset. Tennessee made me lose my rest, and everybody knows about Mississippi

[00:16:32] Samora Pinderhughes: and what happened to Emmett Till, and she has, you know, um, songs about global geopolitics. And then she also has songs about like, my lover left me and I’m destitute about it. You know what I mean? So. It’s really all of it.

[00:16:44] Samora Pinderhughes: I don’t really consider myself to be trying. I’m never trying to be a political songwriter or something, but I just don’t think you can divorce that from life because living is being in the world. I will say I, I do make a distinction between arts and entertainment. I don’t necessarily begrudge entertainers.

[00:17:03] Samora Pinderhughes: Because that is also, uh, it’s a practice as well. And it’s like, you need to work on that and be good at it, but it’s just not what I do. I think for me, like, I’m interested in the practice of art. And for me, what that means is really engaging with the very complex notion of what is it to be alive right now.

[00:17:24] Samora Pinderhughes: That’s what I think Nina is talking about in that interview. And so, you know, that’s everything. And, and, and. It doesn’t mean that we have, I have to have a song that’s about every particular topic, but I think it just means that once, when something comes into my orbit and affects me or affects someone around me, or even feels like it’s important, even if it doesn’t affect me personally, I do feel like I have to respond to that.

[00:17:50] Samora Pinderhughes: And if I don’t, then I am making a choice and I don’t begrudge other people making the choice not to address those things, but that’s just as much of a choice. Making the choice to address them. I think oftentimes we we kind of set it as one way of Well, there are artists that just speak to their experience and then there are artists that do political work.

[00:18:12] Samora Pinderhughes: But if an artist is speaking to their experience, they’re actually probably should be doing all of it, you know, because that is their experience. You can’t divorce yourself from what’s happening around you.

[00:18:32] Eddie Robinson: Coming up, we continue our chat with multidisciplinary artist Samora Pinderhughes. We learn more about why he embarked on a series of conversations with people of color who had been incarcerated or had experienced some form of structural violence. These conversations now form the backbone of his latest performance piece interwoven with music, poetry, and video, The Healing Project.

[00:19:00] Eddie Robinson: He’s also worked with and collaborated with some of the biggest names in the music industry. How has privilege impacted his career? I’m Eddie Robinson. Don’t move. I SEE U returns in just a moment. We’ll be right back.

[00:19:33] Eddie Robinson: If you’re enjoying this program, be sure to subscribe to our podcast I SEE U with Eddie Robinson. You can hear all the past episodes and be notified when new episodes are released. Also, please take a minute to give us a review or comment. We love getting feedback from our listeners.

[00:20:04] Samora Pinderhughes – Stare Straight Ahead: A high rise apartment, a job in New Orleans might last you the year. Now it’s your neighborhood, ain’t it? You wanna make it good, paint it on. Make it plain, uh huh. You change the name, Now, you saved it..

[00:20:29] Eddie Robinson: I’m Eddie Robinson. And this is I SEE U. We’re chatting in studio with acclaimed musician and visionary Samora Pinderhughes.

[00:20:39] Eddie Robinson: He’s in Houston this week to perform a concert at the historic nightclub that once hosted icons like Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, along with Ike and Tina Turner, right here in the third ward. Just blocks away from our studios, the Eldorado ballroom, Pinderhughes will perform a Houston version of the production of The Healing Project, which is co presented by the Mitchell Center, Project Row Houses, and the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston.

[00:21:08] Eddie Robinson: Pinderhughes was also recently awarded a 1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. He’s putting All his resources and ongoing partnerships to work as he brings awareness to social issues through song. We’re so grateful Samora is here with us on I SEE U before his performance here in Houston.

[00:21:31] Eddie Robinson: How did you come to all of this? You know, I mean, was this from Berkeley, California, where you were raised? You know, at age 13, you and your sister Elena Pinderhughes, who was nine years old at the time, started making music together and are both renowned artists. Was music something your family encouraged you to do at an early age, or was this a passion you formed on your own?

[00:21:57] Samora Pinderhughes: Yeah, I mean, I was very lucky. My parents really, for both me and my sister. Who, as you said, she’s a genius musician herself.

[00:22:04] Elena Pinderhughes: No gal mate has got a shade on sweet Georgia Brown.

[00:22:09] Samora Pinderhughes: And, you know, she’s like my inspiration. But, um, we really, yeah, we were very encouraged. But we were never pushed really into anything.

[00:22:18] Samora Pinderhughes: I think it was what, what it was, was when we showed an interest in something, we were encouraged to follow that and we were given, you know, support to do that. And I think that’s the best, obviously the best case scenario for any kid. So I really, you know, give it up to my parents so much for that. And not just that, but also, I mean, they very much shaped who I am today because they are educators and community activists and they do really important work in the community.

[00:22:44] Samora Pinderhughes: So when it comes to how I see the world and my relationship to having, you know, a responsibility to try to Make the world as beautiful and beneficial and my community is being beautiful and beneficial as as possible That comes directly from them. And even though they’re not musicians They always have music on in the house and they’re dancing all the time oh yeah, so it was it was in in the house from when me and my sister were very young and It definitely is also part of being from the Bay Area for sure, because, and I think Houston is somewhere I have so many friends, you know, music friends from Houston, because obviously it’s like a huge creative space.

[00:23:26] Samora Pinderhughes: I think there’s a kind of a connection with the Bay in that way, but in a similar way, you know, it’s like, Growing up in that kind of cultural environment where music is so all around you and everyone is doing art, you know, you can’t really help but get swept up in it. So I think once me and my sister pretty early kind of showed that passion for it, my parents were just like, here you go, we’re going to put you with this great musician and this person that they just knew in the community.

[00:23:54] Samora Pinderhughes: And so, you know, I was lucky to have a lot of, Just amazing teachers growing up. I mostly actually grew up in the, in kind of like the Latin and Caribbean American music scene, people like John Santos and Jackeline Rago and like legends of, you know, Venezuelan music and Puerto Rican music, Cuban music. So that’s actually the music that me and my sister started out playing.

[00:24:17] Samora Pinderhughes: And then we found creative improvised music, what people call jazz music, like later and through this program called the young musicians, choral

[00:24:26] Eddie Robinson: Your mother, Raquel Rivera Pinderhughes. He’s a professor at San Francisco State. Your father, Dr. Howard Pinderhughes, is Chair and Professor of Social Behavioral Sciences at the University of San Francisco. You yourself are pursuing a doctorate at Harvard.

[00:24:43] Samora Pinderhughes: Correct.

[00:24:43] Eddie Robinson: While also having a successful career as a composer, pianist, vocalist, filmmaker. I mean, was there pressure to ensure you achieved a certain level of academic success? Within your household.

[00:24:57] Samora Pinderhughes: Yeah, there never was. I mean, there was definitely, I think what there was, I wouldn’t even say pressure, but I think what was most important in the household was I think thinking for yourself and trying to think deeply and at a high level, we were very encouraged in the household household to be a part of like, like I was a part of adult conversations since I was five, six years old.

[00:25:18] Samora Pinderhughes: And they’re like, what do you think about this? You know, and giving me books and giving me different things. So I think in that way, it was just naturally encouraged, but. Juilliard was the only music school I applied to for undergrad, which is where I went for for college. And I got into a bunch of academic schools and I asked my dad, you know, like, what do you think, you know, I should do?

[00:25:40] Samora Pinderhughes: I really want to pursue music, but, you know, there’s all these good opportunities. And, and he told me, you know, the face you make when you play the piano, you don’t do that when you’re studying. So I think you should pursue that.

[00:25:56] Eddie Robinson: You’re listening to I SEE U. I’m Eddie Robinson, here in studio with Samora Pinderhughes. He’s a composer, pianist, and vocalist who’s known for large multidisciplinary projects and for his use of music to examine the problems of the world today. With regards to your background in terms of racial makeup, how do you describe or identify with on that level, on that note?

[00:26:23] Samora Pinderhughes: Well, obviously I’m, I’m very light skinned, like most people would not think of that I’m Black. Um, and so, you know, obviously that comes with a lot of privileges, but in addition to that, um, it comes with a lot of questions because I did heavily identify as black growing up and was very close to my black heritage and my history.

[00:26:42] Samora Pinderhughes: Very close. And my grandma was one of the, my dad’s mom was one of the first black genealogists in the history of the country. Elaine Pinderhughes. Yeah. Uh, she, she taught in Massachusetts. My father’s African American.

[00:26:55] Eddie Robinson: Okay.

[00:26:55] Samora Pinderhughes: And you know, like. As usual with Black folks, like got a lot of different stuff in there.

[00:27:01] Samora Pinderhughes: Some, you know, we have, uh, some Choctaw from, through, through Louisiana.

[00:27:06] Samora Pinderhughes: Okay.

[00:27:07] Samora Pinderhughes: And, you know, a bunch of other things that, you know, who knows where it came from. Not good situations. Um, and then, uh, on my mom’s side, uh, her family is Sephardic from Azerbaijan. And, uh, but she grew up in Spanish Harlem and both her parents were kind of like, I don’t even really know how to like, not necessarily outcast, but I would call them gypsies.

[00:27:31] Samora Pinderhughes: Like they were just their own people and really kind of, um, had a very different way of being. I grew up a lot, particularly actually in college. I lived with my mom’s dad. Um, he was like my best friend while I was at Juilliard. We, I lived with him and took care of him. Um, and, uh, Learned so much from him about just like living.

[00:27:50] Samora Pinderhughes: And so it’s a lot of different things in there. And then when I was 10 years old, my mom was, you know, studying as part of her work on sustainable development, she was studying what was happening in Cuba. So we lived in Cuba for a year. That was a big part of my musical development. Um, so people kind of think I’m from all over and I can, when I travel almost anywhere, I can kind of get away with people thinking I’m from there, which is, which is nice, you know?

[00:28:17] Samora Pinderhughes: Um, but you know, it did cause a lot of, yeah, like complicated identity issues growing up, I think. And it’s like very important in my family, but I was, you know, definitely challenged a lot growing up of like, are you Black? Can you prove it? Da da da. And it’s hard to fit in as in that, particularly that, Very vulnerable time of like middle school high school where you’re already generally trying to like find out who you are, find your community or like who your people are and kind of trying to a lot of times overdo it and prove yourself in different ways.

[00:28:50] Samora Pinderhughes: And so I kind of like felt, I, I always say I’m a little bit in between, like, I feel like I’m part of a lot of different places, but not really, you know? And so I think I’ve learned how to make that a feature, not a bug, but I think that took me a long time. It makes me look at identity differently, you know, because I’m very, In between, you know, I have a lot of identities and, you know, I grew up in a very specific, I think, unique way.

[00:29:17] Samora Pinderhughes: So it definitely does make me think about identity in a particular way. And, you know, now I feel very connected. I mean, I always did, but I feel very like solidly connected to my Blackness and also accepted as part of that community, which does mean a lot to me. Because certainly artistically, like I come out of that heritage, you know,

[00:29:41] Samora Pinderhughes: My name is Samora Abayomi Pinderhughes. I’m a composer, pianist, um, from the Bay Area. I’ve been working on this project called the Transformation Suite that combines theater, music, and poetry to examine and explore the history of African diasporic work and protest movements.

[00:30:04] Eddie Robinson: Let’s talk about a project of yours from 2016, you served as the director creator of the Transformations Suite. You know, what inspired this?

[00:30:15] Samora Pinderhughes: Yeah, that was the, um, that was the first project that I ever kind of created as my own thing in collaboration with, you know, other folks. I, I started that piece collaboratively with an amazing composer, actor named, uh, Christoph Abio. And then later also with another actor named Jeremy Harris.

[00:30:34] Samora Pinderhughes: Half the text in that material is based off of MLK speeches, but the other half they wrote, um, at the time, cause I wasn’t actually writing lyrics at the time. So I was just doing the music. And so, you know, as usual, like I always try to make sure that I give it up to my collaborators. And basically the genesis of that piece was we were all at Juilliard in undergrad and there, they had a, a Martin Luther King day celebration every year where people would put on musical performances.

[00:31:04] Samora Pinderhughes: It’s in honor of that day. And so, you know, Christoph and I, in creating that piece, we wanted to try to make something that would represent the more radical, you know, true legacy of what Dr. King really talked about in his speeches and what he said. You know, worked towards, uh, particularly towards the end of his life, um, and a lot of the things that get kind of ignored when people speak about his legacy and like quote him and all these things.

[00:31:36] Samora Pinderhughes: And that was also during the same time as a lot of things were happening, you know, Troy Davis was executed in Georgia, the Mike Brown situation happened, Trayvon, so. You know, there was a lot of, of both really tragic, really, you know, terrible traumatic events happening. And also a lot of, you know, uprising happening in the community, a lot of organizing happening.

[00:31:57] Samora Pinderhughes: So I think we wanted to create something that would just be in connection. With the, the movements that were happening.

[00:32:07] Samora Pinderhughes Performance: I think my mother knew. I think my mother knew. That freedom wouldn’t come in her lifetime. That freedom wouldn’t come in her lifetime. But it’s a matter of. But it’s a matter of. Either we stay like this.

[00:32:18] Samora Pinderhughes Performance: Either we stay like this. Or somebody sacrifices. Or somebody sacrifices. Somebody lays the tracks. Somebody lays the tracks. So we don’t stay in a 360 degree. 360 degree deadly circle. Somebody has to break, somebody to break out. Somebody has to break out, has to break out and risk losing everything and being, and being poor and getting beat down.

[00:32:37] Samora Pinderhughes Performance: And getting beat down. But somebody has to do, somebody has to do something. Somebody has to do something.

[00:32:47] Eddie Robinson: Where most new artists tend to err on the side of caution with messages in their music and their art, you know, you decided to tackle inequality in both the United States and abroad. You know, what inspired you to take the risk to create an album of this nature with such a bold message?

[00:33:06] Samora Pinderhughes: Yeah, I mean, in the spirit of honesty, I didn’t really see it as a risk at that time because I didn’t have a career. Like I was just out of, I was in college. I was like, this is what I’m thinking about. You know, this is just what I want to make. I think that, I mean, I’ve, I’ve tried to keep that as, as I grow, you know, you have to remain courageous and remain as courageous as possible.

[00:33:26] Samora Pinderhughes: And I think that I, I often call back to that spirit, I think of, of me at that time, because you can get, I think, in a sense distracted by at different times. Like wondering what people think about things or whether they’ll work or whether they will, uh, have a certain impact or, or what consequences they’ll have.

[00:33:46] Samora Pinderhughes: And, and that’s all kind of a distraction at the end of the day, you either, you know, got to like stand on business or not.

[00:33:52] Eddie Robinson: Interesting. You bet. So that doesn’t bother you. Like you don’t think about what people are going to think about what they’re going to think about it all the time.

[00:34:00] Samora Pinderhughes: I think about it all the time. I think anybody, well, I shouldn’t say anybody. Some people, I guess, don’t aren’t Don’t think about that so much. But for most of us, we think about that all the time. It’s like, it’s inescapable. I mean, I worry about what people think about me 24 seven, even though I think about it a lot, I, I do know that if I’m going to do my best work, it can’t be based on that.

[00:34:21] Eddie Robinson: There you go.

[00:34:23] Eddie Robinson: You’re in town in Houston, Texas to perform your most recent piece, the healing project at the historic Eldorado ballroom in third ward, Houston. Tell us about this project and why was it important to share this artistic message now?

[00:34:38] Samora Pinderhughes: Yeah, well, first of all, I’m really, you know, honored to be sharing it here and to be sharing it at El Dorado.

[00:34:45] Samora Pinderhughes: And it means a lot to be a part of the musical fabric, even just for a few days here, because. It’s been such a big part of my life. This performance work is part of a much larger project. The Healing Project is actually an organization where we co create artistic works of all kinds with people around the country who have suffered from structural violence in the carceral system.

[00:35:05] Samora Pinderhughes: So we co create a lot of work with people who are incarcerated, both currently and formerly incarcerated. We also work with immigrants who have dealt with the detention system, which obviously is a big issue in Texas. So, The reason I created that project is I wanted to show how all the elements of structural violence are connected.

[00:35:24] Samora Pinderhughes: And what I mean by that is, I mean, there’s more than this, but it’s really any forms of violence that are created by institutional structures. And it’s more than people really consider. So obviously that’s the prison industrial complex, that’s immigration detention system, that’s policing, that’s the courts, but it’s also.

[00:35:40] Samora Pinderhughes: Interpersonal violence, because interpersonal violence, neighborhood violence is a result of institutional structures. When you study it, it’s a result of, you know, trauma from a lot of different factors in the community. It’s a result of poverty. It’s a result of environmental racism, all these different things.

[00:35:55] Samora Pinderhughes: So I think. Linking these elements together, you know, especially coming from the Bay, like all those elements are there too in California. For me, it was very important to create a project that links those things. And number one, like shows how, how those systems are working, but also how people are trying to heal from those systems and what they need to heal from those systems as an alternative to that.

[00:36:19] Samora Pinderhughes: And so I think that, you know, coming to Houston and being able to present some of that work is important. It’s an interview based project, which basically like the performance itself doesn’t include the interviews. It’s all songs that We’re based out of the interviews that we perform with a, with a group, but the interviews were conducted all around the country.

[00:36:39] Samora Pinderhughes: But I think what is special about that process is that hopefully it’s kind of like a community meeting place where anybody that’s dealt with these things can find themselves in the work and hopefully contribute to it.

[00:36:57] Eddie Robinson: Coming up, we wrap up our chat with multidisciplinary artist, Samora Pinderhughes. We take a deep dive into why many of his projects have led him to study and examine. the radical history of resistance, mostly within the communities of the African diaspora. Plus, the singer songwriter sheds more light into his latest single that features a death row prisoner who many say was wrongfully convicted and framed for a prison riot in the state of Ohio.

[00:37:29] Eddie Robinson: Could protest music be the answer to his exoneration? I’m Eddie Robinson. Our final segment of I SEE U comes your way right after these messages.

[00:37:54] Eddie Robinson: If you’re enjoying this program, be sure to subscribe to our podcast. I SEE U with Eddie Robinson. You can hear all the past episodes and be notified when new episodes are released. Also, please take a minute to give us a review or comment. We love getting feedback from our listeners.

[00:38:20] Eddie Robinson: You’re listening to I SEE U. I’m your host, Eddie Robinson. We’re in studio with internationally renowned multidisciplinary artist, Samora Pinderhughes. He’s in Houston to perform at the legendary Eldorado Ballroom. Historic nightclub built in 1939 and the city’s predominantly Black Third Ward Neighborhood.

[00:38:42] Eddie Robinson: It once hosted musicians like Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, Count Basie, and B. B. King. Pinderhughes will perform music from The Healing Project, an initiative he’s created that uses music, film, and visuals to tell the stories and narratives Of people around the country who’ve experienced violence and other forms of social injustice, his latest single is entitled Sweet.

[00:39:09] Eddie Robinson: The track was built around a telephone call with a death row prisoner by the name of Keith Lamar. I SEE U as we wrap up our conversation with the acclaimed composer, pianist and vocalist, Samora Pinderhughes. Now, is Sweet a part of this project, that’s the short film with Keith Lamar, Sweet, which features recordings of poet, teacher, musician, writer, and painter, Keith Lamar,

[00:40:07] Eddie Robinson: Lamar has spent over 30 years in solitary confinement on death row in Ohio for murder following the 1993 Lucasville prison riot. But, you know, what, what brought, This man into your consciousness, Keith Lamar, how did you get involved with him?

[00:40:27] Samora Pinderhughes: Yeah, I’ve been connected with Keith for about, I guess I would say three to four years now, and he’s become a very dear friend of mine.

[00:40:34] Samora Pinderhughes: And as you said, you know, Keith, he’s a really deep person. He basically, you know, he went into prison for, for a smaller charge and then was framed for the largest prison riot in Ohio history, which basically everyone in the, you know, In the state knows he didn’t do like, it’s literally an open secret that everybody knows he didn’t do it.

[00:40:52] Samora Pinderhughes: And so, you know, we’re, we’re engaging in a process to try to exonerate him. And this piece, yeah, SWEET that you’re talking about is a part of that process. And, um, at the time that we were creating it, he had a, uh, a standing execution date of last November that’s been moved luckily to 2027 but he’s still on death row.

[00:41:12] Samora Pinderhughes: So it is an ongoing struggle to get him released from the prison. And so that’s why we put that piece out now But Keith came into my life actually because of the Transformation Suite while he was on death row He heard the record and he was like really moved by the by the music as you said, he’s a musician himself Like one of the deepest musicians I’ve ever met, listens to everything, reads everything, you know, like just super knowledgeable.

[00:41:40] Samora Pinderhughes: And um, so he had, you know, somebody from his support network reach out to me a few years ago because he just wanted to say like how much he loved the record.

[00:41:49] Eddie Robinson: Huh.

[00:41:50] Samora Pinderhughes: And I was conducting interviews for the Healing Project at the time. So I’d said, you know, why don’t you come into the project and we can talk and we can make some things together.

[00:42:00] Samora Pinderhughes: And that’s really how that collaboration started. And we’ve, you know, made a bunch of different pieces together. But this piece, in particular SWEET was the result of a new initiative that we started in The Healing Project, which is called The Healing Project Workshop. Where we are able to work with, you know, one of our core collaborators, who’s either currently and formerly incarcerated, to basically work with them on a transformative project for the year.

[00:42:28] Samora Pinderhughes: And the idea behind that is to try to show how art can simultaneously work as art, but also impact a person’s life on a really, like, structural level. And so with him, you know, we were making the piece while we were working on his case. And so that was kind of the project for the year. And this is a piece that has come out of that.

[00:42:48] Samora Pinderhughes: And hopefully, you know, we’ll also contribute to the longer term struggle to free him from the prison, you know? And, um, the project is an abolitionist project. So, you know, we don’t only deal in innocence. Like we do work with people who also. are, you know, in for things that they’ve done, but that I also believe deserve second chances and deserve to be, to be, to change themselves and to heal and to also heal the wounds that they’ve caused.

[00:43:16] Samora Pinderhughes: Which prison does not allow you to do that being said, you know, Keith does happen to be innocent. And so I do think that there’s a really strong case that is being built around his exoneration.

[00:43:28] Eddie Robinson: Yeah, that’s that that’s fascinating. You say that. And that brings me to wondering, you know, what are your thoughts on the death penalty?

[00:43:35] Eddie Robinson: You know, should states like Texas look at reforming the appeal process or, or even abolishing the death penalty altogether, given that there are so many people that might be exonerated.

[00:43:47] Samora Pinderhughes: Yeah, I mean, I’m, I’m definitely against the death penalty for multiple reasons, like you said, I mean, one core reason is that, you know, statistics have shown that we’re putting a lot of people to death that, you know, are innocent.

[00:43:59] Samora Pinderhughes: That being said, like I said, I still just generally don’t believe that anyone should be put to death. And the way that I look at it is a person should never be allowed to kill another person. I don’t think a nation state should be allowed to do that either. You know, like, I don’t think anybody should be allowed to do that.

[00:44:15] Samora Pinderhughes: And I don’t see why the nation state Or this, you know, the state itself, any, any arbiter in any way should be the moral authority to be able to put anybody to death. To me, I see that as an equal crime to a person killing another person, which obviously I’m against. So that is my, like, my main moral issue with it.

[00:44:38] Samora Pinderhughes: In addition to, like you said, the, the reality that the system we have in place right now is really, really bad. for that. Really figuring out who did what

[00:44:47] Eddie Robinson: right right?

[00:44:48] Eddie Robinson: This is I SEE U I’m Eddie Robinson, and we’re chatting in studio with composer Samora Pinderhughes What is the impression of you that those that listen to your music the audiences that watch your films the?

[00:45:01] Eddie Robinson: Experiences that you bring to your performances. What are you wanting the audience to walk away with?

[00:45:08] Samora Pinderhughes: Um? Yeah? I always say You know, I don’t want to legislate that too much because I don’t know what people will find in it, you know, but I will say, as far as what I hope for, I hope that in the process of me trying to be as honest as possible with the work, that people will come to it with their own honesty and that they will be open and vulnerable to allowing the work to kind of connect with them in whatever ways it does.

[00:45:34] Samora Pinderhughes: You know, I can only do my job if people are open to the work and that’s the part I can’t control. But I do really believe that if people are open to it, that they will be changed by it. Not necessarily because I think I’m like really good at whatever, but mostly just because I have had that experience of experiencing artistic work that has changed me in really fundamental ways.

[00:45:57] Samora Pinderhughes: So I, I, I think that’s what I hope for. And I think I also hope that people will find vulnerability in the work and find it to be a, a space where they can engage with all the parts of themselves as human beings that they might not necessarily be allowed to engage with in daily life. Cause I think that’s really important.

[00:46:22] Eddie Robinson: Is there something that happened maybe to you or perhaps it happened for you that allowed you to really come to grips with who you are? And It really kind of opened your eyes and pushed you forward to saying, look, this is who I am and there’s no way of anyone changing it. Is there a moment or something that you can reminisce on an incident?

[00:46:50] Eddie Robinson: Perhaps it’s a person.

[00:46:53] Samora Pinderhughes: I don’t necessarily know that I have one moment, but I have a few things that come to mind. I think one thing that really does that for me is just. Relationships, like, I think my friends do that for me all the time, like having good friendships where you can really be, like I said, vulnerable and like honest and connect and then they can, you know, throw things back to you that might, you might not see of yourself.

[00:47:18] Samora Pinderhughes: I think I’m, I’m realizing things about myself all the time. Just the way I am. through the relationships I’m lucky to have with my friends and my family and my partner and all these different things, you know, I definitely like learned a lot through therapy. And then I would also just say like, going back to what we were just talking about, I think the moments that I think about are really pieces of art.

[00:47:38] Samora Pinderhughes: I think that really, if I can, if I can think about specific things, it’s specific pieces of art that have done that to me. Like I think about. I mean, you know, we’ve spoken about Nina Simone, but I think about, you know, Nina, this song, Stars, They Come and Go.

[00:47:53] Nina Simone – Stars: Stars, they come and go. They come fast, they come slow.

[00:47:59] Nina Simone – Stars: They go like the last light of the sun, all in a blaze. We see his glory. But it gets lonely there, when there’s no one there to share.

[00:48:13] Samora Pinderhughes: Think about Kendrick Lamar, Sing About Me, I’m Dying Of Thirst.

[00:48:17] Kendrick Lamar – Sing About Me/ I’m Dying of Thirst: The truth has set you free, so to me be completely honest. You’re dying of thirst, you’re dying of thirst. So hop in that water and pray that it works.

[00:48:26] Samora Pinderhughes: I think about, you know, Moonlight, the film, I think Eight and a Half. I think about seeing Anna Deavere Smith’s, my mentor’s, like, plays for the first time. You know, those are the things that I think have, that I can point to as moments of like, wow, like I really, Was not the same after that and a lot of books as well, you know, the works of James Baldwin Robert Jones jr.

[00:48:50] Samora Pinderhughes: Kiese Lehmann Imani Perry, you know like these kind of writers that it’s just like they they articulate something in a certain way that it’s like oh, that’s what I was experiencing but I just never had the language for it, you know, so I I go back to the writers a lot for that You know, they give me that all the time, you know, yeah, Saidiya Hartman. Just so many you know.

[00:49:16] Eddie Robinson: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Of all that you’ve accomplished All that you’ve I guess, you know, you’ve released in terms of music film The accolades the rejections perhaps you’ve experienced the achievements you’ve made What lessons have you learned about yourself thus far?

[00:49:40] Samora Pinderhughes: Good question. And I’m glad you added rejections in there because people never talk about that part of it and it’s important.

[00:49:46] Samora Pinderhughes: You got it. You know what I’m saying? Like, no, I’ve been rejected. Yeah. You know, and like you said, sometimes that’s more important, you know, to your development, I think as far as like what I’ve learned the most about myself, I’ve learned that I’m a perfectionist and that can be good or bad, depending on the situation.

[00:50:11] Samora Pinderhughes: I learned that you have to have a relationship that is honest with your ego and not pretend that you don’t have one, but also make sure that you’re getting it out of the way. But you can only do that if you acknowledge that it’s there. And a lot of people I think pretend that they don’t have it. And as a result, then it’s just, it’s just running you, you know, I think that I can only do things with my community because of my community.

[00:50:47] Samora Pinderhughes: And I guess I would just say like, things never really begin or end. They just evolve. I guess that’s the only thing I would say.

[00:51:00] Eddie Robinson: Acclaimed pianist, vocalist, filmmaker. Composer. The best of all of them. Samora Pinderhughes. Thank you so much, so much for being generous for your time. And thank you for being a guest on I see it.

[00:51:18] Samora Pinderhughes: I appreciate you. Thank you for having me. It’s wonderful.

[00:51:22] Samora Pinderhughes Performance: Swing low. Sweet chariot coming forth to carry me home. Swing low, sweet chariot Coming forth to carry me home.

[00:51:44] Eddie Robinson: Our incredible team includes Technical Director Todd Hulslander Producers, Laura Walker and Mincho Jacob. I SEE U is a production of Houston Public Media.

[00:51:55] Eddie Robinson: Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and X. We’re at I SEE show. Subscribe to our podcast, wherever you listen and download your favorite shows. And be sure to check out our webpage. I SEE U show. org. I’m your host and executive producer, Eddie Robinson, and I feel you. We hear you. I SEE U. Thanks so much for listening until next time.