From my perspective, the millennium baby is the Zone’s own Kellan, born half a month before the dawn of a new century. Everything that we know, everything that we write about on this website, is ancestral to the world Kellan will inherit. And the greatest proof of my own personal faith is that I can write this column with the assurance that the best is yet to come, in our music and in our society, and Kellan will bear witness to wonders us 20th Century Neanderthals can hardly imagine.

I respect people’s decisions not to be parents--for one thing those of you who don’t have children will probably hold on to brain circuitry the rest of us lost to months of little sleep and fingernails-on-chalkboard crying jags. We are freer than ever before to make these kinds of decisions about how we live our lives, and Lord knows, we are learning that healthy family systems have little to do with biological parenthood. We all know nuclear families that are sick as hell, and, at the same time, we all know of single-parent families and childless families that have strong, non-blood-related kinship systems that are the equal to or superior to any traditional family over the long run. (At least that’s what my experience tells me.)

But, as a father, I can’t help but share some of the blessings of being a parent. The very moment I heard my daughter’s, Sarah’s, first cries (almost eight years ago), I experienced a transformation that is still shaping who I am today. I experienced a sort of relief. It was deathlike, in a beautiful way. My life was no longer how I gauged the future. The future was my daughter’s, and what mattered most in my life was what was going to serve her future in some fashion.

Now, this is a dangerous insight because, if it does not grow, it can lead to a trap we are all familiar with--one in which parents quit living their own lives and only live for their children. That’s a dead end because--not only does it drive the kids crazy--it models a lifestyle based on martyrdom. But, though I myself fall short in a million and one ways, I know the dream is a give-and-take between parent and child--if a parent triumphs, then the child has a heightened chance of getting the most out of life as well. It’s a scary line to walk, and I, personally, am not sure many people would take on the job if they thought about it too long. And many, many people, who no doubt would make wonderful parents have probably stopped themselves for just that reason.

Kellan, for one, is a very lucky child--because his mother is Danielle Nelsen. And because I know Kellan is every bit as bright, talented and precocious as his mother, I want to address the rest of this column directly to him . . .

Now, Kellan, I need you to ask your mother to leave the room because some of what I’m going to say is going to embarrass her and some of what I’m going to say she might not approve of you hearing at your tender age. I don’t want to go behind her back, but I’m compelled to share these things with you.

She gone? Good.

Kellan, your mother is a hero, and she would be the last to admit it, so give me some time to tell you why. The 20th Century was a very dark time in many, many ways. It was a time when we still had a social system shaped by racism. Racism was the belief that one group of people, primarily grouped by skin color, could be privileged over another group of people. It was the product of over four hundred years of lighter-skinned people making slaves of darker-skinned people, stealing them from their homelands across the sea and selling them like cattle and household appliances for the light-skinned people’s use.

At the same time, the lighter-skinned people drove other darker-skinned people’s from their homes here in America, almost wiping out that group of people with war and disease. The light-skinned people also erected imaginary walls between people’s of different colors, dividing them into separate nations and keeping some from their native homes by force with a dividing line called a “border.” All of that sounds crazy enough, Kellan, I know, but it was even worse than it sounds. This way of thinking led to endless acts of violence, abuse and murder. This system was in place long before the 20th Century, but your mother grew up in a world that still had the look, shape, feel and prejudices of those evils.

Racism, though, was just the most visible part of what made this world so ugly. Your mother also lived in a world in which those people who made the most money were valued over those who made less money. In fact, the light-skinned people who made the least money were often plagued by racism in a unique way because they had to fight against the darker-skinned peoples for the worst kind of jobs. Even as the racist system began to dissolve, the poor light-skinned people and the poor dark-skinned people were blamed for the majority of our society’s problems, and often pitted against one another to take the blame.

Now, your mother probably told you this was a music website, and you might be wondering what all of this has to do with music. Everything!

Something happened before your mother was even born that began to change the way poor people of all colors began to relate to each other. They began to share a common culture, and that culture tended to revolve around music, the music they had sung for centuries working in the fields to endure the noonday sun and worshipping in the churches that held their poor communities together. Because of how it started, this music was first known as a field holler or a work song or a gospel hymn, but by the time your mother was born it had all fused together into the blues, country and gospel, and a very popular form of all of those things mixed together, rock and roll.

Rock and roll itself would burst into hundreds of variations, called things like “rock,” “soul,” “rhythm and blues,” “disco,” “punk,” “hip hop,” and “metal,” but it all had this common ancestry in the culture of those that suffered the most in our social system, and its greatest fans tended to come from the majority of people who, if they even had a job, worked forty hours or more a week for just enough money to put food on the table, clothes on their back and a roof over their head. When you are grown, you will no doubt look back at this system as barbaric--believe it or not being a mother wasn’t even a respectable paying job in the 20th Century although being a daycare worker for other mothers was--but it’s true, the basic necessities of life were not guaranteed for anyone in the 20th Century. But your mother has been a visionary. She fell in love with this music that brought people together in new and different ways, and she has dedicated her spare time (even when she didn’t really have any) to promoting this music and supporting those people who make it, without ever asking them for anything in return.

You see, your mother knows something very important. She knows that, if you give to others freely, you set a model for others to do the same. And if everyone were to do this, our society would not be nearly as sick as it is. I have gained so much from the things your mother has given me, and hundreds of musicians who use this website can tell you the same.

That doesn’t mean it hasn’t been a struggle. What your mother has done goes against the grain--offering free support others charge for. Those who charge for the same kind of service don’t like the competition, and those she is supporting are sometimes so frustrated and idealistic about the way they think things ought to work that they only complain about any little thing they think she might have done wrong. Sometimes I think people complain so much because they don’t want to face the challenge she represents--to give themselves freely. More often, I think they are bitter because they are forced to give of themselves freely when they know what they give should be worth more than the scraps they are fighting for--in a just world, it would be.

You see, Kellan, the funny thing about music in the 20th century is that something that comes from people’s most creative impulses, in their hearts and in their souls, has been turned into a commodity to be bought and sold like any other product. When a musician writes a song, to get a lot of other people to hear that song, most musicians sell away some of their rights to that song. If a song makes money, musicians see very little of it. Many of the most creative people on the planet today can’t put food on the table with their art, even if it has made enough money to do much more than that--a company with a bunch of other musicians working for it gets most of the money, and it gets divided between the richest people, who own the company, and the many people who work for them, promoting a variety of artists, as well as the stores that sell the music.

But visionaries like your mother are helping to make it easier for musicians to reach their audiences, offering free promotions, advertising and networking over this website. At first, that means that a lot of obsolete jobs are going to disappear, but, again, that’s why your mother’s work is so important. She is opening up new lines of communication, so that people can talk to each other and strategize for how we are going to make this strange, new future the best it can be.

She’s not alone. Hip hop musicians are networking together like never before, right here in Kansas City, throwing parties that bring together different parts of the community, and publishing magazines like Mo Cheez and the return of a veteran community-building publication for the New Year, FlavorPak. They are breaking down the barriers between races that still remain at the end of this millennium.

When you come of age, Kellan, I have some faith that we’ll have the basics figured out. Because of the hard work of millions of musicians, fans and people like your mother, we will have a world that honors music for its value as a life-giving force, not for its ability to turn a profit for a few people to get rich. The dialogue between that music and these visionaries will create a world where people are honored and valued the same way. In this brave, new world that you will inhabit, you will be free to live life to its fullest, enriched by the widest variety of music the world has ever known. That’s my dream for you.

--Danny Alexander
danny@thezone.org