Find Y.O.R Way Back
Cover of Beyonce’s Sountrack to Disney’s 2019 Lion King.
So…a lot’s been going on. But this isn’t exactly a post about that. As with most of my planned posts I’ve been letting my thoughts stew before sharing. Since last year around this time I’ve slowly pulled together a Y.O.R (#yearofreturn) playlist ( and my iphone keeps sending me sad reminders of this fact!). Back then, Year of Return, was a common phrase on the diaspora’s lips, spanning 2018 to even a little bit in early 2020. Ghana’s “Year of Return”— a months long tourism coup calling back tens of thousands of African descendants to her shores—was like the physical manifestation of my life-long drive to study West Africa’s diaspora and what draws the diaspora back “home”. Beyonce’s soundtrack to Disney’s 2019 “The Lion King” and her July 2020 visual album has just been icing on this long-baked cake. As the pandemic and it’s subsequent shutdown hit pause on social gatherings, and working from home became the norm for many, I thought a lot about what makes a home a home. Is it location? Is it people? Is it proximity to either of the two? As a daughter of immigrants, it’s not a new question.
I’m writing this in my Mom’s backyard in New Jersey, far from my new Brooklyn abode (more on that later) because ‘home is where the heart is” and my heart is wherever my mother is. Whether that be New Jersey or Accra, because for her—even though she’s now spent most of her adult life in the states— Ghana still holds her heart.
August is usually a time that she loves to return to Ghana and spend time with family, because (in my opinion) as a Leo, Accra gives her back big Leo energy during this time of year (#BLE) and because this is the Homowo season of the Ga peoples, when far-flung relatives celebrate at family houses/villages in accordance with their own understandings of migration, hunger, harvest, birth, the miracles of twins, and messianic religious lore [various Ga tribes are celebrated as descendants of the exiled tribes of Israel after the Exodus from Egypt].
Today is her birthday, and even though “a lot has been going on” it just felt right to drop it all and come to see her in a healthy and socially distanced way. It feels like returning home, even though I’m a New Yorker through and through. So this August 22nd, I wanted to share a playlist about returning home (whether from exile or a long-time-away), feasting among family and friends, seeking out new homes and making the most of unfamiliar situations in order to make them familial and homely. #covidcanttakethataway #home #homowo #gaadangbe #beyonce #spotifyplaylist #afrobeat #blackmusic #feasts #highlife #hiplife #reggae #bobmarley