VocalEssence Singers Of This Age, Timothy Berry, drums, Casey Rafn, piano

Brittany (B. E.) Boykin is an accomplished pianist, composer, and choral director currently serving on the faculty of the Georgia Institute of Technology. With the poetry of Brittny Ray Crowell and the “magic words” from Virginia Hamilton’s “The People Could Fly” guiding the way, Stardust is a call for justice, and it invites us to
reflect on the Black and Brown lives that have been taken away from us without regard for their humanity.

If we are only stardust
Let your names reach to the sky above us
Like petals wafting on a breeze
We lift you up beyond our reach
“Kum Buba Yali, Kum Buba Tambe”
Amen, Amen
“Kum Buba Yali, Kum Buba Tambe”
We say your names
If we are only stardust
May your blood never be in vain
Like petals wafting on a breeze
We lift you up beyond our reach
“Kum Buba Yali, Kum Buba Tambe”
Amen, Amen
“Kum Buba Yali, Kum Buba Tambe”
We say your names
Each day we grieve another face
Maybe all this stardust
Will carry us home one day
To a home where we can run
A home where we can pray
A home where we can breathe,
To sleep and dream without fear—
Is justice this far away?
We cry your names
For the strength to keep on fighting
With the hope that you are flying
“Kum Buba Yali, Kum Buba Tambe”
Stardust
—Brittny Ray Crowell