1960. A time of civil unrest and social upheaval in America. Black people, for so long marginalised and down-trodden, were rising up in protest over segregation, social injustice and biased policing. Riots followed marches followed tear-gassings followed crackdowns like patrol guards during inspection. By all accounts, it was a rough old time. The system failed us then. The system is failing us now. Oh, on the surface it looks like Blacks are making progress. You have blacks in the Senate, sitting in Congress, serving as judges on the Supreme Court, sitting on high profile boards, making music, making waves in research, philosophy and science. But the stigma from 400 plus years of slavery just wont quit. It festers still in the breast of many, Black and White, like a cancer or a malignant tumor, tainting relations between races, countries, communities even neighbourhoods. Resulting in shootings, lynchings, aggravated assaults and battery. As things stands, turns out, change is really hard to come by. Attitudes and biases tend to harden over time not soften. Social media has a field day with black on black violence, misogynistic music and black aggression painting us brutish, angry and hard to contain malcontents that need to quarantined for our own good and everyone else around. So, maybe, since the 1960s to now, not that much has changed. We might not be restricted to the back of the bus today or have to wait our turn in a separate 'Blacks only' section in the fast food food joint like days past. But the negative perception and the institutionalised prejudices that we have lived with since setting down our cotton picking baskets in Alabama after slavery was officially abolished in the 1800s, shucks, they're alive and well and spreading still. Some of the bad PR is admitedly of our own making. But the biases that have dogged ever since are still there weighing us down, drawing us into ever increasing roads of bigotry and violence. Sam Cooke wrote this memorable song during the 1960s with the civil unrest in America hitting ever pitch. He was a star then, known and all, but after being turned away from the whites-only hotel he and his group had booked before a gig and then, to add insut to injury, arrested for disturbing the peace when they tried to book elsewhere, Sam had a serious look at what was going on around him – aching feet, tired eyes and a bone deep weariness – and decided he'd had enough of being a pop star. He wanted to write something deep and meaningful about what was going on with his people in a land he called home. Bob Dylan's Blowing in the Wind, provided him with the inspiration he needed and so Change was born. Now, years later, I'm reinterpreting this song for today using a music style Black artistes have long since ceded to rockers - grunge rock. Well, turns out I happen to love grunge rock (props to Nirvana et al) and so I'm staking a claim right here and now. Cuz I believe change is still coming. And although I might not be around when it gets here, I like to think in keeping the hope alive, all of us artistes, black and white, rockers or trap artistes, in our own way, are helping to make Change a reality if not during our lifetime, then during the lifetimes of our kids and their kids. So to those who enjoy music, let's sit and tap our feet in time to change and pray it happens. God bless us all.