About the "Underground" soundtrack

"Underground Is My Home" frames this website's first homepage. Considered an anthem for Gospel-House enthusiasts, "Underground is My Home" is featured prominently in Rennie Harris's "Home," a theatrical performance by the Alvin Ailey dancers to commemorate World AIDS Day and the brilliance of Alvin Ailey.  Here are the lyrics that inspire us: "deep, deep where the sun don't shine is a place that I call home, where the planetary alignment is right and the deejay cuts out the lights, deeeeep is where I'm home."  

This notion and naming of an underground--- a radical, unencumbered space where Black imagination and full embodiment can be free--- resonates through Black cultures, so much so that we can consider it a central expression of Black rhetoric and language.  Here are just a few instances with considerable hold on the black imagination: the Underground Railroad, the digital underground, the underground in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, underground Hip Hop... the list goes on.  These lyrics--- this entire thumpin celebration--- seem appropriate for this college course that focuses on Black rhetoric and language.  

There is often little support or encouragement for students to take such a class in college, to center Black vernacular in what we do and how we survive as an intellectual and radical endeavor, or to write about it with fervor and conviction in 21st century digital spaces.  But that's okay because we will do all that and more... welcome to the Underground... where we will find HOME!