 Runnin' through the rain, seein' through the smoke Facing all my goals, I know Rise today, ain't no easy way To get through what we say I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna Gonna, gonna get by When the going down's swingin' I still smilein' and my heart still sinkin' And if I go down, then I go down swingin' I still smilein' and my heart still sinkin' How's everyone doin' tonight? Hey, my name's Mattali Bonda This place called Boston, Massachusetts I live in this place called Brooklyn, New York And I grew up in this place called Atlanta, Georgia So when I wrote this music I was writing about home And for me, home means so many things It means Massachusetts It means New York It means Atlanta It means the Midwest where I also grew up But more importantly than that, it means where my family's from And that's Malawi And so when I wrote this song and this music I was writing about home and I was writing about when I went home And I was writing about what home could tell this story But I wanted to tell this story Without saying the why Why did I feel like I needed to be home Why did I feel like I needed to be saved Why did I feel like I needed to be changed And why did I feel like home needed to give me something And I wondered why was I scared to do that right Why was I scared to address the why And I realized because the why's scared I realized I was running from that why And I realized what those why's were The why's were ghosts Right And a lot of those ghosts weren't just my ghosts But I didn't know it at the time And when I say ghosts I don't mean What we see in the movies Or in ghost stories But what I mean is the pain Trauma Abuse All these things that we deal with All this pain All this negativity that stays with us Until we address it And so for me What my ghosts were I was starting to come into terms with that Sometimes ghosts they stick with us Sometimes they leave us And come back and return to us And we keep thinking we can outrun them We can keep thinking we can not address them But that's not how it works, right And so I was realizing There was some real things That I had to come to terms with As a young adult A young black man coming into this world And that was what were my ghosts And some of those ghosts Were from my father In his actions In his inaction And then how that impacted me How they impacted my sisters Our family His marriage, right His own life And so at the age of 24 I sat him down And I told him what I was battling And I told him I had ghosts And I told him some of those ghosts Were his ghosts And that there's We might have moved past A lot of things We might have been at a good place At that moment But at the same time I had to get past some certain things And so he looked at me And he told me it was time And so the next month I'm on a plane to Malawi For the first time And when I went there I started to see what Malawi meant for him And my family I started to see the influence That they had In the Malawian independence And I started to see The things that they went through then And the things that they were going through now And I started to understand My dad had ghosts And he was doing his best To get rid of them But I needed to know What the origins of that story was For me to fully feel like I could keep living And keep moving And so originally That's what I wrote this music for It's about going home Right And it's about What that might mean And so all these songs Are inspired by Growing up And all the different places That I feel like are home What are we doing With the lights right now What's going on Y'all gonna stop Messing up my vibe today Alright I need everyone to just relax Just chill Alright That's it Alright So I'm getting my PhD From UMass Amherst In African American studies We're with a concentration In auto ethnography And performance theory And a part of that Is understanding that There's no way you can Discuss other cultures Without first looking Inward at yourself And so when I Wrote this music I was like How do I talk about Malawi But also talk about the fact That I'm a black American That grew up here Right And so a lot of this music It's meant to look at Malawi It's meant to look At that culture And how I perceive it But it's also meant to be About all these other places That shaped me And inspired me So I hope y'all enjoy So now I'm going to Stop talking real quick What I want to do is Y'all look like you can sing Can y'all sing Repeat after me Oh Realize y'all can't go as low as me Oh Let's try that Oh Oh Just this side now Oh But y'all gonna have to be strong With it with your chest Oh There's too many in this room Not to feel it That's still a little Mm We got close to a A close to a stack in here Alright keep that going Now this side Pay attention Alright watch this Oh Oh Let me hear y'all Oh I used to be a chorus director I'm going nice and strong I'm gonna get by When the going gets rough I'm gonna love life Till I'm done growing up And if I go down Then I go down swinging I still smiling And my heart still singing I'm gonna get by When the going gets rough Down swinging I still smiling And my heart still singing Give me more Last time I got funky reeds So that's why I'm like That's the worst If you're a reed player You know what I'm talking about That's how my aunt in here Modi greeted me With me, my father My auntie, Sakane They took me back To the village in Malawi Hit a little more With my vocals At least in the monitors Please, thank you And so this is in Shatuka village In the Inkata Bay region of Malawi I think it's the best region In Malawi I'm a little biased And in this region The Tonga people, my people They played for generations And generations And so welcome home That's how my auntie Nea Modi greeted me Go up and you see all the stars Today we woke up And we go to the wrestling place Of my grandfather Who I'm actually named after I'm Tali Kabanda Flowers And we said prayers As we were walking away My auntie turns to me And she goes full circle You've come home You've paid your respect To the ancestors The lost The circle is complete I wrote this song I wrote this song about That Right, it's called Blackboard Fairytales This whole stuff is called Blackboard Fairytales Because for me this Felt like a fairytale This idea of going back home To Malawi Never seemed possible to me And I was a poor black So this idea of going there Was like I didn't know I didn't know I could go there And so spring 2019 At the very end of the Baha'i Fast I was getting ready to Perform all this music That I had I That I thought was finished And I was actually in Washington, DC at the time And I know she's somewhere in here Is Nicole Best in here? Nah Where's Nicole? What's up girl? So I was playing music with her And I was going to perform This very song about going home And I got this call from my moms And it was my go-go My grandfather Her father And he was sick He was 96 years old And although he had always been sick For a long time And in and out of the hospital This time felt different This voice that there wasn't much time And so this song specifically Just had me thinking about What does it mean to go home? You know, what does this idea of Home going mean, right? You saw that in the title, right? And it's this phrase about Going to a place you've never been before That's always been home Right, so that could be Malawi But it could also be so much more You know, maybe it's not somewhere physical And so when I went to see him As soon as I got back And the doctor said he had six months Right, and I saw him on Tuesday And we talked And he told me so many beautiful things That I still take with me And I don't really share But it's so much a part of my life What I do right now And he told me he loved me He believed in me And he wanted me to stand on this music And do something beautiful with it And I remember when I was leaving the room You know, when he was sitting there And it felt like he was looking At something across the way But no one else could see it Now my grandfather was blind So that's what makes this even more Surreal Now this was on a Tuesday Doctors gave him six months to live He passed away that Thursday A day before I was going to play this music And so it just had me thinking About what this means And this idea of home going That we're all on, right? I think we're all on this idea And preparing for this next world, right? Because I know he was You know Some of y'all might have known In Raymond Elliott And he was ten toes down From how he embraced the next journey It was so beautiful And then I think about four years later Just this past July My grandmother transitioned And I remember how she embraced it And how when the doctors said You know, you have a choice, right? You can keep doing this In and out of the hospital You can keep coming back here Or you can make peace with where you're at At 91 years And welcome it And she looked at me And she looked at my sister And she goes, what do I have to be scared of When I know what's on the other side? Let me say that one more time Because when I play in front of all black people They know how to respond to that What do I have to be scared of When I know what's on the other side? You know, she talked about praying For the people that she loved That were over there You know, but there's only so much praying She could do, she told me They're further and further and further and right And she's like They're living their lives on that end, right? And it might be time for me to join Right, that was in Mac And I was fortunate enough To where I got to be with her In those last breaths Now there's a caveat I'm leaving out of this, right? Last August, my mother went To the family house on Cape Cod Right, and there's this house That my family owns on my mother's side And it's been on our family Since my great-great-grandmother Purchased it in 1954 And she turned it into a bed and breakfast Not just any bed and breakfast But a bed breakfast on the Green Book route Right, the route that African-Americans would take Because they didn't know where they could stop And Massachusetts was no exception To racism in the world Right, if you're from Massachusetts You know what I'm talking about And if you don't, look and work You know, and so my grandmother My great-grandmother Opened up this bed and breakfast So black people Regardless of where they were from They knew where they were on Cape Cod Close to Bourne, Massachusetts There was a place where they called home Call home Now this is a house that I remember going in my whole life And it was a refuge We do Thanksgiving It was Christmas there And it was filled with so much life And so much joy And so it wasn't too far From where we lived in Brockton So my mother decided She liked to go there And so she met up with her cousin Some of y'all might know her Donna Denise My aunt And they went They had a whole weekend planned And they walked up the canal They saw the sunset Walked back And this is beautiful You never get the chance Go to Bourne, Massachusetts I promise you won't be disappointed And they came back They had dinner They made jokes Donna went to bed My mom Martha Elliott went to bed Their other cousin went to bed But my mom didn't wake up And the reason why I'm here right now And I'm doing this set right now Is because of her Because for a lot of y'all know Right, we're my ATL family Y'all might have remembered us When we was here You know, she sang in the choir You know, and she loved What Atlanta did for us Me and her, we hopped in a U-Haul band From Madison, Wisconsin And drove down just me and her Solo dolo And what we found here was so beautiful I'm gonna play the sax If it wasn't for Atlanta Right And so I dedicate this song to her Martha Elliott I dedicate this song to my grandmother Mary Elliott I dedicate this song to my grandfather Raymond Elliott I dedicate this to my father Kenny Bonda To my other grandfather Metallica Bonda To Jeannie Bonda To the ancestors To my auntie Rose Who also recently passed I dedicate this song to everybody That's trying to find a home Because what is home Right, but where Where the love and the light is Alright, so now we're gonna play the song How'd that sound? Wake up, I hear your voice It pains me you're not here And every time I close my eyes I know that you are near It pains me to know I can't hold you Yes, I gotta spread my wings The world can be lonely without you And now I gotta find my way home Oh And every time I close my eyes I'm looking for the way up I know it's been a year But you're weighing on my mind And I don't know what to say You gave me all my dreams You taught me how to hope And I hope I make you proud But I I don't know what to do here I'm still here Being here if you hear Gotta go, wanna go Home is home So you know it's safe Oh And every time I wake up And every time I close my eyes Then you go and cross my mind Can we just give it up for this band one time Wanna keep it a buck one hundred with y'all I just met them today Never done this before Think it's going good, right? And I wanna introduce them But like I said I just met them So normally like I got people's names on lock, right? But I'm meeting a lot of new people today And I'm gonna keep knowing the name Cause this ain't the last time We're playing together, right? Y'all wanna play with me again too, right? So like don't be weird with them afterwards Like they just meeting the friends of the fade Like don't, don't, you know, just be cool Just be cool, all right I wanna keep coming to Atlanta So I'm keys We got Danny Everett Like I said I just met Danny today So I don't know much more Usually with my band mates I got a fun fact or a fun little tidbit You single Danny? So are they Worst thing y'all gave me a mic All right, next up We got Shayna Jenkins Shayna Jenkins My phone locked And she funky on that bass Shayna you got any fun facts you wanna share? She from Atlanta Okay Joshua Dublin Joshua is not single So I'm gonna need y'all to chill You know, his girl's here She look like she can fight You know what I'm saying? So Last but not least We got Darian Ware on guitar So Darian actually is the person That helped me put this whole group together Originally I had You know, I live in New York I have my New York connection Musicians And something that's cool About the music world Is it's kind of like Our world of high faith Where like We kind of just all know each other And like when you go to a city Like you end up doing a gig And you're like Oh, you know this guy You know that guy What's up? So when I did this I was like I did the bird call Right, who do y'all know In Atlanta And so they put me In contact with somebody And I had a whole band lined up And then Homie got married And his mother-in-law Decided to give him A surprise honeymoon That extended A couple of days And what he thought So Homie's chilling right now Living his best life And I love that for him I do I love that for him But I still needed a band And so he put me In contact with Darian And then Darian was About that life And then he just like Did the busy work So I'm really appreciative of that Right, you're not single No, no His girl might be able to fight too So Y'all just need to chill Just chill We got a keys player I might be single too But ain't nobody asking about me Alright, jokes aside Jokes aside This next piece So when I went When I went back to Malawi You know there was There was really a A main theme that I knew That I was going to have to Address And that was me and my father Having a real honest conversation In ways that I don't think too many people Have with their fathers Especially black men Right, when I was 6 years old I had a half sister Who was 16 Right, now to a 6 year old That's awesome Right, who doesn't love A mid-season casting You know So I was like I've done scene These other people Like that we Let's bring someone else Into the pod This is dope And for the next 10 years I was like this is awesome I got a half sister But then I started to Connect the dots And do the math Right, so if my half sister Is 16 Or 10 years older than me And my older sister Full sister Is 8 years older than me But I know My parents met in college And they stayed together They'll get where I'm going at with this Right, we're doing The math is mathin Or it's not mathin Depending on How you like to look At the glass Half full, half empty Right, so when I was 14 years old This was when me And my mom's was in Atlanta I remember just being like Yo, like, what's up? Like, did this go down? They're divorced by this time So there's a whole lot of things And she kind of tells me the story And she gives me the context As to how my half sister Came to be Right, Malawi was Formed its independence in 1964 Right, this is where My Ph.D. hat comes out And for the first From 1964 to 1993 There was only one president Hastings Kamuzubanda Dr. Hastings Kamuzubanda No relation to me I know we got the same last name We don't claim him Alright, he from a different Part of the country I don't know, we don't No connections, right? But for him He felt like he had a right To be dictator And so in the 70s He made himself dictator And he would go around Saying, I dictate by consent Because no Malawians Was opposing him And the few that did Had to flee And one of those people Was my grandfather Another one of those And, you know He had to go to the U.S. You know, he didn't want To kill these people Because he knew what that Might cause in a civil war Because it was about North and South Kamuzubanda was from The South My family was from the North And then I had my great Uncle As well who Formed him Malawi Newspaper And if you've ever been That's my uncle's newspaper, right? And they were very critical Of what Kamuzubanda was doing And they were very honest, right? And so Kamuzubanda got put In jail And so when my dad Came back to Malawi in 1977 He was 22 years old Had just graduated From UMass Amherst And was hired to be The Olympic coach for Malawi But when he got there It was a completely different Malawi Than when he left in 1966 You know, Kamuzubanda's Dictatorship was now At its full swing And anyone that was doing Anything that was in Contradiction to Kamuzubanda Could be killed Could be put in jail You know, my dad Was harassed for playing Tennis one day When Kamuzubanda was Giving a rally And so when him and my Mom met Right And I got a song about That too But we're not doing that Tonight But when him and my Mom met Their plan was to get married And move to Malawi And start a family there And that's what they began to do Now anyone that met My mother knows She's a tall, beautiful Light-skinned woman Now in the 70s She had a big old Afro Who else was tall Light-skinned with a big Old Afro in the 70s? Angela Davis You know what I'm saying? This is the peak of On the talent of black power And so here's someone My dad who's connected To somebody that Kamuzubanda doesn't like And here's this new Light-skinned woman From America With a fro And so they barged into his home And they told her She has 24 hours to leave And so my dad thinks He's never gonna see her again He thinks he's never gonna Leave Malawi again And so it was in that time That he starts putting on a front Has to go party Has to have a smile on his face Because any act of anger Aggression might be seen As an act against Kamuzubanda And so he meets a woman Has a kid with that woman But then something changes And my mother gets in touch with him And I don't know all those details But she said, We gotta wait for you to get out But you gotta take it now And now my dad didn't Know what no if he stayed or go And so my grandfather Was pleading with him not to leave But he didn't know what to do He loved my mother And he didn't feel like There was anything in Malawi for him And so he left And he didn't go back again For a long time When I was in Malawi I needed to hear what that story was from him I knew my mom did the most To put it into context And to be forgiven towards him But I needed to hear What that meant for him And he told me And his story And my mother's story Matched up from start to finish And I'm so grateful For what these moments are Because I think as men As black men especially We don't usually have this Open dialogue with our fathers We don't have that connection And I think a lot of us see Sometimes at least with mine Sort of him walking around Living this half-life This life where dreams Weren't always fully realized This life where the things he wanted And the things he was working for Didn't always get realized Because over there He had to deal with what He had to deal with Kamuzu And then when he came back here They're running away from those ghosts And the actions he did And the actions he's did As a black man living in the U.S. Also cost him a lot And so I write this song about that About me and him going on a hike In Mount Mulanji in Malawi And having this conversation And I call this song Message to my pops Hope you'll enjoy it And so one thing I remember My father telling me in that moment From the moment he left Malawi He would have these nightmares And I remember being younger one time And I would hear him call out In his sleep And he told me that those dreams Was my grandfather telling him To come home and that he shouldn't Have left So he was wrestling with that That whole time He started going back to Malawi In 2005 And did a nonprofit And started giving back to the village And he told me as soon as he hit home As soon as he started giving back And honoring the tradition Of our family that those ghosts Stop This is a story about the ghosts we face This is a story about the ghosts we face This is a story about the ghosts we face This is a story about the ghosts we face This is a story about the ghosts we face Ways and I've seen how you've grown But I know you still hurt him So I just got to get it off my chest then You paved the way, you let me dream I looked to you for everything If you wasn't perfect I knew that it was worth it Two kings and one dream in the mountains And I know that those walls are behind us And you seem to be free What you've been through Standing you just want to be To be free, to be free This is a story about the ghosts we face And I ain't talking about them usual ways And I've seen how you've grown But I know you still hurt him So I just got to get it off my chest then I think I needed you to tell me How you made it I can't stay unless I make a way To be safe but I know where to stop I guess you had to go I guess I should've known Of all the places old You can always go home These walls are behind us This is a story about the ghosts we face And I ain't talking about them usual ways And I've seen how you've grown But I know you still hurt him So I just got to get it off my chest then We almost over y'all, I promise But y'all having fun, right? This next song, it's kind of like two songs It's called Summer Can't Last And I wrote this The second time I went back to Malawi You know, was for music, right? So I go back now and some people know about me In Malawi with the saxophone Because the musicians I play with In the experiences I had And the first time I went back to play I was playing at this festival called Lake of Stars And people from all over the world were there It's the most white people you'll ever see In Malawi I remember playing on that stage In that year of all years, right? It was in Kata Bay Where my family's from And here's the stage And just to yon the way My great-grandfather was buried Who I'm named after, right? And his family and all these different people And so when I say I was playing for the ancestors You know, we ain't false flexin' We was playing for the ancestors And I remember just being like my cup is full And I could stay here forever But I think we all know right that Summer can't last And we have these lives And these responsibilities And these commitments that we have to live with And those experiences are great But those experiences are great For us to take with us and go where we go Alright, hope y'all enjoy Remember Go to See myself Now when to go to See myself The scars The ghosts They stay Yes, I can go There's a place in my heart And I know it will never known change If you look close enough Yeah You gon' see that I'm listening There's a place in my heart And I know it will never know You gon' see that I'm listening Give them something daring I guess I can go I guess I can go Y'all can stand up too for this one This is a funky one And I leave and I got to I too Hold on for the better days Remember all the things they say Yeah I saw they lived through it And I was going through it And now it's time for me to see If I could hoard bridges I'm tantos for these tongue of people And tradition So slow down for the place Or a time zone So if I got to leave And if I got to go Then I'ma make the solo See me in the never It's too much We got It's too much Can I get this last four One more time for this band Thank y'all so much Thank y'all I know we went over by a lot So I apologize I apologize But please get up for this band Please get up Thank you, thank you, thank you Y'all are both First and foremost They just learned this music It's the audacity for me It's not to say we don't have one in us Are we allowed to? What's the deal? I'm not trying to break no lies in Atlanta I'm trying to come back So we're actually going to do this song And we didn't So let's do that So this is a funny song I wrote I started writing this song In 2018 I went up to Greenacre By high school My boy was out there And I lived close to there So it's not like that much of a journey So no one was there And I liked the piano in Reimer Hall And it's not like I'd be going up there like that This was just extreme circumstances I just broke up with a girl For two and a half years And I was like I just Like most songwriters you You gotta write And so I went up there And I was sitting at the piano in Reimer Hall All alone And I had a cup of coffee And I went up to use the bathroom And as I went up to use the bathroom I hit these notes And I was like there's a song there I hit those notes with my elbow It wasn't on purpose So I was like let's go back to this And I found the chords And I had this idea I don't know Because I think so many times Like we don't know where we are And we don't know what we're doing And so I didn't have too much to this song written And like a lot of my songs Like I'm telling you I start writing them And experiences happen And then you're like This song feels different feels different and I and I say it's like you're writing a song that's still happening and so I had half of this song written for four years and then this past month I was at MCBI in Florida something about these high schools man that just be sparking creativity and I was just like just had this lyrics and they came to me and I was like I think this is about my mom's and you know because when she first passed I didn't know what to do you know and there's so much questioning I was doing you know I woke up on a Sunday morning got back from a gig at like 2 a.m. I was doing my morning stretches and actually she was the first person I called that morning right and so when I got the call from my daughter that my mom passed I didn't know what to do but what I knew was I needed to call my stepbrother who lived in Queens and we're gonna hop in my car and we're gonna drive to born Massachusetts where she passed now there was no fruitful reason for me to go to born Massachusetts other than just I wanted to be in the place in the house where she ascended to and that just felt like the right thing to do and then the next day we leave born and we go to the western part of Massachusetts where most of my family's from right and I remember meeting up with my auntie my auntie Linda who was my mom's best friend and I remember just being so confused as to what do I do because at the time right we had my 91 yo grandmother that we had to take care of so it's like how am I supposed to live this life I'm in New York I'm living my best life in Brooklyn I'm playing with some of the best musicians in the world but I know home is calling and I didn't know what to do but I went on a run and on that run it was crazy was I remember this conversation with moms and it was back in November 2021 and I was in having this conversation with mom on the phone and I was on I was on I was on set for the Whitney Houston movie right I'm in like a snippet of that movie like if you pause it at the right moment you're gonna see a light-skinned brother with a saxophone two-stepping but it's like a millisecond all right and I remember on that set though meeting so many inspiring musicians and at the time I had half foot in New York half foot in Massachusetts I had my apartment in Brooklyn but I had work that was still doing in Massachusetts and I was like I don't know what to do and my mom right y'all know her and she's great but my mom's also from Boston and you know Boston there's a hardened exterior right so so mom wasn't the biggest that given compliments and so what she said next meant so much to me and she told me all these stories about growing up me growing up about music and how she felt like I was always trying to create I was always trying to do something and that I had a valuable story to tell and that the only way I was gonna do that was to go to New York because I had exhausted all my avenues in Massachusetts and I had forgotten that conversation that happened a year prior to that until my run and so for the last year there's been so many moments where I'm just like I don't know but a conversation where they will come up either on my run or a drive or in the shower and so I write this I wrote these lyrics for my mom now these lyrics are fresh so I'm gonna pull up the lyrics on here that's a little tacky but and I don't know let's bring it down just a little for this next part I'm standing on my feet I'm thinking all the things that you said to me that I wish I could see I'm six feet over you and I pray for your soul through but I know you don't need me because it's soaring finally free I'm waking up as if I'll never leave I'm shedding tears because I just can't believe that you're gone and I'm here all alone and I fear that all the things that you was running from gonna catch up to me and I'll never know what to do without you without you I don't know and I don't know and I don't know where I used to run in circles I used to run in circles trying to catch the end of my hometown I used to run away now all I do is pray now trying to understand the words we're in because it's pain and this greed but this love that I need if I hear maybe I can finally know is it's hard but I fight through the scar this new and the six parts of sing along try this out with me and I just want to be I just want to be can y'all try that one this is our last song I just want to be I just want to be I just want to be I just want to be want to hear y'all do that do that with me this is our last moment right here we go I just want to be I just want to be I just want to be I just want to be I just want to be I just want to be I just want to be I just want to be let's do that one last time I just want to be I just want to be I just want to be I just want to be free all right y'all thank you so much my name is Matali Bonda and I hope y'all enjoyed