PAPER TRAILS: Lawmaker jazzed she's tied to song

Sean Clancy, Paper Trails columnist
Sean Clancy, Paper Trails columnist

A member of the Arkansas Legislature is featured on a new jazz album, but she doesn't sing or play an instrument.

"Convo with Senator Flowers" is the 10th track on Solidarity, the LP released Friday by New Jersey drummer and band leader Jerome Jennings on his Iola Records label.

The song is built around a recording of the impassioned address by Sen. Stephanie Flowers, D-Pine Bluff, against Senate Bill 484 during a March meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The proposed "stand your ground" bill, which failed, would have eliminated the "duty to retreat" from Arkansas' self-defense law. Flowers was having none of it and was also miffed by a motion to limit debate on the bill.

"It doesn't take much to look on the local news every night and see how many kids, black boys, black men are being killed with these stand your ground defenses," she said.

Video of her impromptu and dramatic speech, in which she raised her voice and cussed -- "You are not going to silence me," she yells at one point -- went viral.

Jennings first saw it on Instagram.

"It resonated with me," he says from Montclair, N.J. "When someone takes a chance and sticks their neck out for vulnerable people they become instant heroes, particularly in the black community. I felt like Senator Flowers was speaking to people who can really only say these things in the privacy of their own home. She let it be said, and there was no mincing words."

Flowers was not aware that her speech was being used on the album -- which is inspired in part by the experiences of black women in America -- but recently watched the video of the track at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aukbtVWwEAY.

Hearing it for the first time was exciting, she said. "It brought out the intensity that I felt and the intensity of the whole subject matter. I really like his beats. The rhythm helps to really express the feeling, the emotion and the subject matter. It helps to dramatize the whole debate."

Jennings' empathetic drumming lays a foundation for Flowers' fury on the song, bopping in and out of her speech.

Flowers reached out to Jennings and gave her approval, which was a relief to the 38-year-old musician.

"I didn't know how it would be received by her," he says, "but one of the greatest days of my life, and I will say this until the day I die, is her sending me an email saying that she cried tears of joy when she saw [the video]."

Flowers said she hopes Jennings' song will make people think twice about bills like SB484, "stand your ground" laws and gun violence.

"He's dealing with present-day issues, and he's done a good thing. I know a lot of people will appreciate it. This is another way of bringing about awareness and mixing it with art."

email: sclancy@arkansasonline.com

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