In my novel, Casualties of Truth, I write about Prudence, a woman who arrives at a business dinner with her husband only to realize that her husband’s new colleague is a man she knew twenty-two years prior. She met this man, Matshediso, back in South Africa in 1996 at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s’ Amnesty Hearings, where she would come to not only hear about the atrocities of the apartheid era but, during her stay in Johannesburg, would live some horrors of her own. Now, in 2018, Prudence is a successful strategy consultant turned stay-at-home-mom, completely unprepared to confront the memories she has worked so hard to lock away.
Bridge Over Troubled Water, Aretha Franklin
When Prudence first arrives at the dinner where she will see Matshediso again, the restaurant manager turns the music to the classic Soul selections he knows his two favorite patrons love listening to. Aretha and Al Green, Prudence tells us, roar from the speakers.
Let’s Stay Together, Al Green
This is Prudence and Davis’s wedding song. It’s playing over the speakers when Prudence realizes her husband is being admired from a distance by a strange woman. The song tells the story of a couple who promises they will stay together through good times and bad times. It’s a bit of a hint that this relationship will soon face trying times.
Let it Flow, Toni Braxton
When I lived in South Africa at the end of 1996, Toni Braxton blanketed the airwaves. This song takes me back to that time, and as I played it during my revision process, I remembered small details I’d forgotten about my time there, particularly about my loneliness. It was hard to make new friends who were not just other Americans like me. In the end, while living in South Africa, I was forced to contend with myself, forced to spend time with myself in a way I hadn’t since I was a young child. My months there sometimes felt sorrowful but it also turned out to be the most restorative and centering period of my life.
Can We Talk, Tevin Campbell
Prudence mentions in the novel that she attended two concerts while living in Johannesburg in 1996, one was Tevin Campbell’s show. I actually didn’t attend the Tevin Campbell concert but I did see him at a nightclub just after his show ended. I was thrilled to meet him and when we chatted for a few seconds, he was warm and generous, just as I’d always imagined he’d be, and yet, I also saw in his eyes some of the loneliness I felt during that period too. Of course, this isn’t something you say to a stranger, a celebrity no less. You pretend not to see it, as they smile at the squealing and the whispers behind them. And at twenty-four-years-old, I’m not sure I had the depth or the language to understand how a very young and closeted Black man might have been feeling so far away from home, living a dream life he thought he wanted. It was no surprise to me that Tevin disappeared from the public eye only a few short years after I saw him in South Africa. And yet, I still listen to all his songs, as they are timeless and they remind me of the kind of tenderness I think all of us want.
Ready or Not, The Fugees
This song was incredibly popular in 1996, but more importantly, I write in the novel that the song is playing on the radio the night Prudence escapes a harrowing event that will change the course of her life. She’s barely able to catch her breath, and when she hears the song, she has no idea that that harrowing night is not even close to its end. She is certainly NOT ready.
This is America, by Childish Gambino
Though the first half of the novel focuses on the South African resistance struggle, we soon learn that Prudence has had to deal with significant losses at a young age too. I wanted to add a song that symbolizes what I see as parallelisms in the struggles of Black Americans and Black South Africans, perhaps of all Black people in the diaspora. Childish Gambino sings of police brutality, capitalism, colonialism, and believing you’re a “big dog” when you’re really “kenneled” and trapped, which is no life at all.
All the Way to Heaven, Doug E. Fresh and The Get Fresh Crew
Prudence is a child of the late ’70s/ early ’80s. She was around when rap first entered the scene and this song is a nod to that early part of her life. You really had to be there to understand what it felt like to be part of a generation who developed a new genre of music. The excitement! Trying to record these songs from the radio onto your boombox cassette deck, then memorizing the lyrics so you could recite them on the playground at school. Sneaking out of the house to go to rap concerts! Our parents had no idea! This song, in particular, is about God, freedom, ambition, and not allowing obstacles to stop you. It’s so specifically Black and urban, so specific to a time. When I hear the lyrics “seventh Heaven” I am certain Doug E. Fresh and The Get Fresh Crew were offering a nod of recognition to Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon movie, which is now a cult classic, but for all of us at the time, the movie seemed a way to communicate that we were being seen and our lives reflected back with humor and love and anger and a bit of coolness and corniness. It’s all there in this song too.
Wobble, V.I.C.
One of my favorite scenes I wrote in the novel is when Prudence and her non-verbal son, Roland, dance to this song. It is, for me, a precious moment of levity in the story.
Solid, Ashford & Simpson
As Davis and Prudence drive home from that strange dinner at the beginning of the novel, much is revealed about the mercurial nature of their marriage. There is love and frustration and secrets and so much unspoken that they are happy never to speak. The song seems to be a reminder to both of them that they’re in it, together, loving imperfectly, until the end.
Nkosi Sikelel’I Afrika, Dumisani Ma-Afrika!
This song is mentioned during the testimony of one of the white national security officers as he recalls the day he murdered a Black ANC activist. It is the basis of the new national anthem of South Africa, adopted in 1994, and also the “unofficial national anthem.” It is a 19th century Xhosa hymn, “Lord, Bless Africa” that had been used during the anti-apartheid movement as a song of liberation not only in South Africa, but all across southern Africa. The lyrics are a series of requests for blessings. Bless the chiefs, bless the youth and the public men, bless the wives and young women, bless the ministers, the agriculture, bless our efforts to uplift and educate, blot out all wickedness, transgressions, Lord. Bless us. I chose this particular rendition of it because it’s simply beautiful.
Grazing in the Grass, Hugh Masekela
Prudence mentions that when she lived in South Africa, she learned of Masekela’s music. This song plays in the penultimate action scene of the novel. Hugh Masekela, the South African trumpeter, is known as the father of African jazz. He left South Africa just after the Sharpeville Massacre and “Grazing in the Grass” was one of his most famous songs, definitely the one that brought him global acclaim. It was inspired by a Zambian song that opens with a cow bell, which is the first sound in this brilliant song that makes me want to get up from my chair. The song is capital I iconic! It has been recorded by so many others, and I just couldn’t imagine not including it in this list.
Freedom Now, Tracy Chapman