Summer Jams: A Playlist
Dean Angela Onwuachi-Willig shares her love of music with a playlist of her favorite summer songs.
Photo by Doug Levy
Summer Jams: A Playlist
Dean Angela Onwuachi-Willig shares her love of music with a playlist of her favorite summer songs.
A Note from Dean Onwuachi-Willig:
The world is quite different today than it was months ago when I wrote this piece for the spring edition of The Record. Not only has the global pandemic radically transformed our daily lives, people are now mobilizing to confront our nation’s legacy of racism in ways we have not seen in more than fifty years. I admit, it may seem like an awkward time to post a playlist of my favorite summer jams.
And yet, music is a part of our common humanity. It is a fundamental form of cultural expression, and it also frequently transcends our cultural divides. Music celebrates. It grieves. It heals.
Perhaps music is one way we can come together—albeit virtually, for the time being—and still find some moments of joy.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved listening to music.
I grew up in a home where my mother played music all the time, and I have a lot of childhood memories of singers like Rex Lawson (a Nigerian musician), Jimmy Cliff, Miriam Makeba, Nat King Cole, and Christopher Cross. My oldest brother was a big Beatles fan, and we would listen to their songs together for hours. Plus, I grew up during the launch of MTV and Friday Night Videos on NBC. My neighborhood friends and I would mimic the dances we saw in the videos of our favorite artists at the time.
As we approach summer, I’ve been thinking about the ways music can provide an escape in times of stress, motivate us to action, and connect even a large, dispersed community. In that spirit, I have created a Spotify playlist of some of my favorite summer songs.
As Tom Petty said, “Music is probably the only real magic I have encountered in my life. There’s not some trick involved with it. It’s pure, and it’s real. It moves, it heals, it communicates and does all these incredible things.”
It’s true. Music really does have that kind of power.
Music is probably the only real magic I have encountered in my life. There’s not some trick involved with it. It’s pure, and it’s real. It moves, it heals, it communicates and does all these incredible things.
One summer song that has always stood out to me is “Feels Good” by Tony! Toni! Toné! So, it’s first on my playlist.
The song came out the summer after my high school graduation. I was preparing to leave my very small world in Texas to go to Grinnell College in Iowa. I was both excited to be moving on to a new stage of life and terrified to leave what I knew behind. The show A Different World—a fictionalized account of student experiences at Hillman College (loosely based on Spelman College, which I attended on exchange for a semester)— was popular among black teenagers at the time. While I was not going to a historically black college, I think the show made us all “feel good” about the paths ahead of us in college.
“Feels Good” always just struck me as an upbeat song. I love its beat; you hear it and you just want to move. My husband and I love it so much that we incorporated it into the procession when we renewed our vows on our 20th anniversary. It’s colorful and fun.
I hope you enjoy this playlist. Hopefully, some of these songs—my favorite summer jams—will also become your jams. As Tom Petty (whose songs are not on this list, although “Stop Dragging My Heart Around” is in my top 100) might say, enjoy the magic of the music.
Listen to Dean Onwuachi-Willig’s complete playlist on Spotify.
