"A Place Where the Skin I'm in Feels Like It's Supposed to Be"

Here's a new one (to me) from the Carolina Chocolate Drops, "Country Girl" from the album Leaving Eden (2012).

I find this song and video challenging, liberating, troublesome, thought-provoking--and a lot of fun. I'm not naive enough to think this is an accurate or complete vision of the South that is and has been, but there is certainly something here of the South that must and will be, the South ready to bring all its gifts to the banquet table of the Lord. And truth be told, there is also something here of a South that has always been--a creole culture, a place of mixture and creativity and joy never entirely stamped out by the forces of materialism and white supremacy.

I can't yet say exactly why, but I believe this song speaks to the cultural experiences of so many people associated with the Baha'i community in South Carolina--an astonishingly interracial, self-consciously rural, unpretentious lot whose primary language of expression has perhaps been music.