Judah Adashi
Last Words for singer, loop pedal, and pre-recorded track
2017
“Last Words” is an excerpt from a larger work-in-progress entitled Unseen, a musical composition about Kalief Browder. In 2010, the 16-year-old Browder was accused of stealing a backpack. Unable to post bail, he was held on Rikers Island without trial for three years, spending two of them in solitary confinement. Browder committed suicide in 2015, two years after his release. “Last Words” imagines Browder's final hours, on the night of June 5, 2015. The text comes from a conversation that Browder’s mother, Venida, shared with Jennifer Gonnerman of The New Yorker. Gonnerman writes: “his mother explained that the night before [he took his own life], he told her, ‘Ma, I can’t take it anymore.’” Venida Browder fought relentlessly for her son’s release, and, after his suicide, shared his story in support of criminal justice reform. She died of heart failure in October 2016 at the age of 63. “Last Words” is dedicated to her memory. Audio of Venida Browder courtesy of The Marshall Project (www.themarshallproject.org).
His mother explained that the night before he told her, "Ma, I can't take it anymore."
in memory of Venida Browder (1953-2016)
Last Words
Jennifer Gonnerman The New Yorker
Judah Adashi (2017)
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January 2017 Baltimore, MD
Audio of Venida Browder, courtesy of The Marshall Project: "When he came out, he was not the same...not the same. It was too much baggage he brought from Rikers with him. It was too much baggage. The memory of beatings, starvation... There was times when he wasn’t even allowed to take a shower. Kalief...he was angry. He started getting real paranoid...he was not the same. He was angry. And his life just spiraled from that...and his life just spiraled. He would tell me things when I would visit him, about...about being beat. He told me, 'ma, I gotta fight...I gotta fight. If I don’t, they gonna think I’m soft, I gotta fight.' Imagine being locked up...in solitary. 23 hours a day...in solitary. This is your life. Four walls…that’s it. He couldn’t take it. They told him, 'we’re gonna break you…we’re gonna break you.' And, in reality they did."
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