Culture Thursday: In memoriam Frankie Beverly

Summer cookouts. Driving down the drag with the windows down on a hot summer night. Sweaty house parties where you discovered just where you sexuality lay.

Frankie Beverly of Maze was there for all of that. The tzaddik passed away yesterday, leaving us all the poorer.

I remember when David Bowie died. Some churl on Twitter went on a rant about how pathetic people were who were grieving over someone they didn't know. But we knew him. He was in our lives. He was on our radios. He was with us when we were high and when we were low. We didn't know David Bowie personally. But his music knew us. 

That's the thing about art. It's why we mourn when a great artist leaves our mortal realm. We will no longer hear him, read her, watch their films or see their paintings. When an artist we loves leaves us, it is as if we have lost someone who knew us, even if we'd never met them. Their art speaks to us in a way that mere familiarity cannot account for. They speak of the human condition: of joy; of sorrow; of triumph; of sadness.

Art is the glue that makes us human. There is a lot of bad art, art which shouldn't see the light of day, and is quickly, blessedly forgotten. There is art which traduces what art should be; rather than uplift, it brings down. Propaganda is art of a vile, twisted sort.

But true art binds us. We find commonality in it. Like listening to Frankie Beverly as the meat grills, as the drinks flow, as tías y primos josh you on a warm summer's evening.

Today we don't mourn. We celebrate. For that is life.

Leave your favorites in the comments, of any artist which has touched you who has left our mortal plane.

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