The More Melanin May Playlist: Grief, Growth, and the Songs That Hold Us

There are seasons in life when words do not fully carry what the spirit is trying to say. Sometimes grief sits too deep in the body for language. Sometimes growth feels quiet, tender, unfinished. And sometimes music becomes the bridge between what we are surviving and what we are becoming.

Y’all know I love creating playlists, and this one was made in a space of becoming.

This playlist is a more melanin-centered soundtrack for grief, transition, joy, memory, softness, and becoming.

Not just songs to listen to, but songs to sit beside, to allow to wrap around you like a cozy blanket.

Lately, I have been thinking deeply about grief beyond death. The grief of my son growing older. The grief of identity shifts. The grief of releasing versions of ourselves that once helped us survive. The grief that comes with watching your life evolve while trying to remain grounded inside of it.

As my own son prepares for college, I have found myself sitting with the ache and beauty of transition. Pride and grief can exist together. Love and letting go can exist together. We do not have to choose one feeling to honor another.

And in the middle of all of this, I keep returning to the land.

Planting.
Touching soil.
Watching things grow slowly.

I have been inspired by the wisdom in Braiding Sweetgrass and by reflections on my own Pawnee roots, as I consider what it means to reconnect with rhythms that are slower, more intentional, and more ancestral. The earth does not rush healing. Seasons do not apologize for changing. There is something sacred about remembering that we are allowed to evolve, too.

This playlist reflects that journey.

It holds songs that feel like mourning and songs that feel like sunlight breaking through the window after a difficult season. It carries softness, resistance, tenderness, sensuality, grounding, memory, and hope. It is meant to accompany journaling, long drives, crying in the shower, planting herbs, lying on the floor, dancing in the kitchen, and the quiet moments when you are trying to find yourself again.

For many Black people, music has always been more than entertainment. It has been archive, testimony, medicine, resistance, prayer, and survival. We have carried our stories through rhythm long before the world created language for our pain. Music reminds us that even in grief, we remain connected to ourselves and to each other.

This playlist is also connected to the deeper intention behind the Soul Story Practice.

The Soul Story Practice is not about “fixing” yourself. It is about listening to yourself honestly. It is about reconnecting with the parts of you that became buried underneath survival mode. It is about learning how to hold joy and grief in the same hand without abandoning yourself in the process.

Growth is not always loud.
Sometimes it sounds like resting.
Sometimes it sounds like boundaries.
Sometimes it sounds like silence.
Sometimes it sounds like a song that finally lets you exhale.

My hope is that this playlist feels like companionship for whatever season you are in.

Whether you are grieving.
Whether you are growing.
Whether you are trying to remember yourself again.

You deserve spaces that allow your full humanity to exist.

So press play slowly.
Light a candle.
Journal a little.
Step outside.
Put your hands in the soil.
Call someone you love.
Cry if you need to.

And remember:
Even in seasons of loss, something within you is still reaching toward the light.