For George Floyd’s former partner Courteney Ross, healing from the trauma, anguish, and grief of his death can be a daily challenge. This Thursday, May 25, marks three years since Floyd was murdered by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. After losing him, Ross says remembering their strong bond over music has become an essential part of her healing.

“When he came [to Minnesota] and I first met him, we loved to go back and forth with rap songs together,” she says. “I didn't know he was an actual rapper, and he had music out there.”

Before moving to Minnesota, George Floyd lived in Houston, Texas. There, he was immersed in the rap and hip-hop music scene and was known as “Big Floyd.” As a member of the 

 collective, Floyd rapped over the late DJ Screw’s unique, slowed-down beats on mixtapes often referred to as the “Screw Tapes.” He also collaborated with another Houston-based rap group, Presidential Playas.

DJ Screw - “Tired Of Ballin' Freestyle” - (Grace, Big Legend, Mark, Big Floyd)

Presidential Playas - “Chopped” (feat. New Suspects, Big Floyd, Po Boy & Big Miller)

Music was so important to Floyd that Ross says he kept what meant most to him within arm’s reach. “Floyd had two books by his bedside,” she says. “One of them was the Bible and another one was a book about hip-hop.”

Ross says she still listens to his music and has fond memories of music Floyd recommended to her during their relationship. Although Floyd was most known for performing rap and hip-hop, she says his taste in music spanned from a variety of decades and genres. When it was time to part, she would usually ask Floyd, “What should I listen to on the way home?”

One of his last recommendations to Ross before he died: “What a Fool Believes” by the Doobie Brothers. Listening to the song now evokes different emotions and feelings for Ross because of experiences with the media following Floyd’s death. “The [negative] image that even [media] had of Floyd — there's Floyd for me, and then there's George Floyd for the world,” Ross says.

The song, one of many Floyd introduced her to, is part of Ross’s ongoing playlist. “It's one of those things that I play to heal, especially if I'm getting hurt by something that's out there [in the media],” Ross explains. “If I am feeling bad, I'll put that on [thinking] we don't need to worry about what other people think because they didn't know [Floyd] and they don't know me.”

Ross says her love for music began at age three when she started tap dancing. “For me, music is my life,” she says. “It's been [in] my whole life.”

Gallery

Connection is also important to Ross, who is a known part of the community in northeast Minneapolis where she was born, raised, and still resides today. At the time of Floyd’s death, she was managing the Coffee Shop Northeast where she and her son Gavin, who also worked there, would showcase their collection of music-inspired T-shirts, and listen to local artists like Brother Ali.

Ross calls herself Brother Ali’s number one fan, and says the rapper reached out to her after Floyd died. The connection to Ali’s music and what Ross considers “mentorship,” was an important component of her healing. 

“He’s a person I really put my heart into so much of his music for over two decades,” she says. “I really idolized him. But then at the time, he was just this sweet person that was reaching out to me. I just poured my heart out to him in our conversation.”

Nearly every day, she listens to “Goin’ Through It,” a song she says continues to help process her emotions. When Ali released the song in 2020, Ross says it was really healing. “It made me not feel so alone,” she says. “In a time where I was feeling pretty isolated and alone, even though it seems like the world's looking at you, it's really lonely. That [song] was really huge for me.”

Feeling music through listening, performing, or even moving is therapeutic for Ross. She has her playlist of songs she holds close when she needs to lose herself in music, but at times, she also revisits tap dancing.

“In my solitude, I dance a lot,” Ross says. “I still create routines that I do for myself just to express myself.”

At the height of the social unrest in 2020 after Floyd’s murder, music was an important form of healing for many others. The trauma after the world witnessed Floyd’s murder ran deep for many — especially those who have personal experiences with racism, discrimination, or police brutality. 

of Twin Cities Music Therapy, believes that at the time of Floyd’s death, music was a powerful way for communities to not only heal, but come together.

“The power of music really holds and conveys even some of the most challenging emotions,” Markworth says. “Sometimes words are hard to find in times of grief or times when extremely traumatic things happen. But music has a way of meeting, validating, and holding space for those really complex experiences.

“That can be very healing just to share that space with someone and [play] music without having to even use words. Music is a voice for calling, for change and amplifying voices and messages. It can carry forward messages in a way that cuts through a little bit more than just saying something out loud.”

, healing has included performances. Johnson, like many others, anxiously awaited the verdict during the Chauvin trial on June 25, 2021. As he waited with community members in George Floyd Square for the verdict to be read, he pulled out his violin during the somber silence of the crowd and began playing.

His experience that day led to the formation of 

, a group formed by musicians who began showing up to play with him weekly at the square. The group meets every Monday at 4:30 p.m. to play at George Floyd Square, providing a therapeutic backdrop as community members pay homage and honor Floyd three years later.

“Music was a release of tension for people and [a chance for them] to relate [to each other], " Johnson explains. “We developed a repertoire of connection and healing. It has been going on for a year and a half, maybe two years now. We're very amazed by everything that has transpired. We've become a part of the total movement for injustice and reconciliations and using music as that healing tool.”

Ross, Johnson, and Markworth all have embraced music’s healing and therapeutic properties. Though everyone experiences music differently, it still has the power to connect communities. 

“It's so unique and individualized,” Markworth says. “I think that's important for people to remember too that there is no wrong way to grieve through music or process trauma. It's a very individualized path. Trust what feels right.”

For Johnson, being raised attending a very musical Baptist church helped him understand how music impacts healing and forgiveness and creates common connections between people. “Purpose and universal language,” Johnson says. “You don't have to use words in order to convey a feeling. It [music] readily connects people.”

Ross believes that music is an important way for those struggling with trauma and grief to find their own path. Music helps her honor Floyd, but also reflect on their relationship and time together. “I want everyone to heal the way they feel comfortable,” she says. “But at the same time, I would say lean into it, feel it, and don't deny it. Find that song that makes you cry, makes you laugh, and songs that make you move. Without music, I don't know how to heal.”

The third annual Rise and Remember, George Floyd 

 takes place May 25-27. Brass Solidarity will perform at the candlelight vigil on May 25.

“What a Fool Believes,” Doobie Brothers

This feature is part of The Current’s 

 series, helping you enjoy the best of the season with weekly guides to events, entertainment, and recreation in the Twin Cities.

{"type":"doc","content":[{"type":"paragraph","content":[{"text":"","type":"text"}]}]}

Marla Khan-Schwartz

Bump Opera

Three years after the murder of George Floyd, music has been an essential tool for healing. Floyd’s former partner Courteney Ross and south Minneapolis musician Raycurt Johnson share their stories.


Bump Opera for MPR

Honoring and remembering George Floyd with music

Mike came to MPR as a newsroom intern in 1988 and since then has been an audio engineer, mail delivery boy, overnight news host, production manager, program manager and producer with MPR News talk shows Midday and Midmorning. Most recently, Mike produced The Morning Show with Dale Connelly and Jim Ed Poole. A native Minnesotan, Mike was a touring musician around the Midwest before arriving at MPR and holds a B.A. in Music Education from Gustavus Adolphus College.


Host, Radio Heartland and Producer for Classical Music

Mike Pengra

A dynamic collection of singer-songwriters and musicians, Minneapolis band Turn Turn Turn visited The Current studio to perform a session for Radio Heartland, after which they spoke with host Mike Pengra.


Guillermo Bonilla | MPR

The Current

Turn Turn Turn play a session in The Current studio for Radio Heartland

 sings are like time capsules, each with vast histories waiting to be uncovered. Some have journeyed across decades, even centuries, shape-shifting and meeting each moment as they are reborn again and again. At 87, Collins has given herself entirely to this work of ensuring the vitality of English folk music. 

 is her newest album and the third since ending a 

38-year period of what she has described as losing her voice

. It contains many songs that Collins has sung before, reshaped and reimagined, performed with the warmth and gravity that comes with years of accumulated perspective. Sagelike, Collins presents these songs as a testament to a life well lived, all its sentimental nooks and crannies fully intact. 

"Hares on the Mountain" has been a part of the musical landscape of Southern England since at least the early 1900s. It's a bawdy song about youthful desire (the rabbit metaphor being very intentional) that Collins has recorded twice before, including a canonical version from 1964 with guitarist Davey Graham. Here its plucky lyrics are tempered by a more cryptic tone, each verse slumping into a minor chord with weary slide guitar providing a counter melody. Rather than depress the song's lifeforce, the juxtaposition provides another perspective on irrepressible and loveblind yearning, insinuating a serrated edge. 

Collins is intrinsically linked with her home of Sussex, a coastal county in Southern England, and that sense of place permeates 

. In addition to "Hares," opener "Fare Thee Well My Dearest Dear" (collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1904 and originally recorded by Collins on 

 from 1976) and "Babes in a Wood" (passed down from the famous Copper Family of Sussex) have deep roots in the area. "High and Away," one of the few original tunes on the album and based on a phrase Collins borrows from Almeda Riddle, begins with the grounding sound of rain on the downs. Archangel Hill is a nickname Collins' stepfather gave to a peak nearby their home years ago; the title track features the singer reading a poem her father wrote during World War II as he longed for home. There seem to be memories of the land, her family, friends and collaborators embedded in each song, just out of reach for the listener but vivid as sunshine in Collins' mind.

 We're led into the heart of one of those memories halfway through the album: Collins cedes to a past version of herself, accompanied by her sister and steadfast collaborator Dolly on harpsichord in 1980. Featuring lyrics written by their uncle, "Head and Heart" is a story of complicated romantic entanglements sung gingerly over the featherlight plucked strings. This was likely one of her last performances with Dolly, who died in 1995. Collins' voice sounds very different now, and the contrast can feel jarring at first, but if you listen closely, a through line of tender earnestness emerges. That sincerity, the bridge between now and then, is the great gift of Collins' music and underpins the power of these songs that have resonated throughout her homeland and her life.  

Jonathan Williger

On Archangel Hill, memories of the English countryside, Collins' family and friends are embedded in each song, just out of reach for the listener but vivid as sunshine in her mind. 


Domino Recording Co.

Shirley Collins is an English folk song's bridge between now and then

Topping the Current Chart Show this week is “Not Strong Enough” by Boygenius for the second week in a row. A big jump for Hozier’s “Eat Your Young,” moving from No. 14 to No. 5. Depeche Mode reach 10 weeks on the Chart with their song “Ghosts Again,” which places them into the 

. Meanwhile, CHVRCHES, Jason Isbell, and local act Gully Boys all return to the chart, and The Hold Steady debut this week with their song “Sixers.”

 and listen to the Chart Show at its new time, Thursdays at noon.

This week sees a big jump for Hozier’s “Eat Your Young,” which moves from No. 14 to No. 5. Meanwhile, Depeche Mode take “Ghosts Again” into the Chart Show Hall of Fame. 


Darin Kamnetz for MPR

The Chart Show: Hozier takes a big bite out of the chart

This week’s new music includes a cut off Blur’s forthcoming surprise album; something old, something new from Lana Del Rey; a new track ahead of a new album from the Pretenders; a biting breakup track from Australia’s Alex Lahey; a Minnesota-flavored song from Remi Wolf; and a cover of revered Minnesota band Low by North Carolina’s Sylvan Esso.  

Damon Albarn seems to have been prolific during the pandemic — not only did he release his own solo record, but he reunited Gorillaz and released one of their best albums to date, and (somehow) he also found time to reunite Blur. The ‘90s band will be releasing their first album in eight years, 

. Albarn calls it “an aftershock record, reflection and comment on where we find ourselves now.”

The new Lana Del Rey song is apparently an old Lana Del Rey song. Going back to 2012 and her 

 sessions comes “Say Yes to Heaven.” The meditation-like song gained attention recently after it was leaked online, so Del Rey went with it and released the song officially.

It seems like Remi Wolf has purified herself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka, because there are some serious Minneapolis sounds going on in her new song, “Prescription.” The slow jam shows off Wolf’s vocals in a fast and loose fashion that she hasn’t put down on a record previously. 

Alex Lahey, “You’ll Never Get Your Money Back”

Aussie artist Alex Lahey has a killer breakup song in “You’ll Never Get Your Money Back.” It’s a freeing garage rocker about the joy of leaving someone in the dust and escaping from a stuck situation. 

Alex Lahey - You'll Never Get Your Money Back

The Pretenders, “Let the Sun Come In”

A new album is due out from The Pretenders in September called 

. The band’s 12th album is “a snapshot of where the band are in 2023.” Frontwoman Chrissie Hynde described the album title as, “the life of the artist. You never retire. You become relentless.” The song “Let The Sun Come In” explores that idea further with lines that say, “You don’t have to fade to black.”

Sylvan Esso, “Will The Night” (Low cover)

A cover song of Duluth, Minnesota, band Low is on the list this week. Married duo Sylvan Esso traveled to New York to record five songs with a group of friends, including a string quartet, at Jimi Hendrix’s famed Electric Lady studio. Included in that session was a cover of Low’s “Will The Night.” The slow waltz is heavy with emotion from a band who “are huge fans of Low and were so sad to hear about Mimi passing” and called the song “beautiful and simple and timeless, a light in the darkness.”

Music Director, Host

Jade

This week’s new music includes a cut off Blur’s forthcoming album; something old, something new from Lana Del Rey; a new track from the Pretenders; a new song from Australia’s Alex Lahey; and Minnesota-flavored releases from Remi Wolf and from Sylvan Esso.


Ki Price; MPR graphic

Hear new songs by Blur, Lana Del Rey, Remi Wolf, Alex Lahey, the Pretenders, and Sylvan Esso

died Wednesday at the age of 83 in her home in Switzerland

 after a long period of illness, according to a statement from her publicist. As noted in an obituary, she was “a soul and rock powerhouse known for her octave-defying voice and mesmerizing stage moves.”

There are many eras and styles from Tina Turner’s catalog worth revisiting. To remember one of the founding voices of popular music, let’s play songs that were simply the best, and maybe dig out a few hidden gems.

For today’s 9:30 Coffee Break, which songs by Tina Turner should we play?

Respond with your song ideas in the comments below.

Host

Mac Wilson

For today’s 9:30 Coffee Break, which songs by Tina Turner should we play?






MONICA M. DAVEY/AFP via Getty Images

Coffee Break: Songs to remember Tina Turner

News of Tina Turner's death reverberated throughout social media, with various celebrities and the White House

reacting to the news by sending their condolences. The rock and roll trailblazer's death at her home in Switzerland was 

Actress Angela Bassett, who was nominated for an Oscar for her role as Turner in her biopic

"How do we say farewell to a woman who owned her pain and trauma and used it as a means to help change the world? Through her courage in telling her story, her commitment to stay the course in her life, no matter the sacrifice, and her determination to carve out a space in rock and roll for herself and for others who look like her, Tina Turner showed others who lived in fear what a beautiful future filled with love, compassion, and freedom should look like."

Singer Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, who has been vocal about Turner's influence on her, previously paid tribute to the icon in a performance at the 2005 Kennedy Center Honors. The pair performed together at the 2008 Grammys. 

 "My beloved queen. I love you endlessly. I'm so grateful for your inspiration, and all the ways you have paved the way. You are strength and resilience. You are the epitome of power and passion. We are all so fortunate to have witnessed your kindness and beautiful spirit that will forever remain. Thank you for all you have done."

Mick Jagger, a member of The Rolling Stones who frequently toured with Turner, said, "I'm so saddened by the passing of my wonderful friend Tina Turner. She was truly an enormously talented performer and singer. She was inspiring, warm, funny and generous. She helped me so much when I was young and I will never forget her."

President Biden released a statement where he and his wife praised Turner's accomplishments despite the adversities she faced. "Jill and I send our love and prayers to her husband Erwin, the rest of the Turner family, and fans around the world who are mourning today for the woman they agree was 'simply the best.'"

Former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama also paid tribute to Turner. Obama said:

Tina Turner was raw. She was powerful. She was unstoppable. And she was unapologetically herself—speaking and singing her truth through joy and pain; triumph and tragedy. Today we join fans around the world in honoring the Queen of Rock and Roll, and a star whose light will never fade." 

Clinton said, "I loved Tina Turner and will never forget meeting her when she came to Little Rock for a concert after releasing Private Dancer in 1984. We met again on her 67th birthday in St. Petersburg, where she and Elton John sang for a charity event. She still had it — talent, style, energy, and authenticity — a priceless gift to music lovers everywhere. May she rest in peace."

Singer Mariah Carey said, "The words legendary, iconic, diva, and superstar are often overused and yet Tina Turner embodies them all and so many more - an incredible performer, musician and trailblazer. To me, she will always be a survivor and an inspiration to women everywhere. Her music will continue to inspire generations to come. Rest in Peace, Queen."

"I started out as a fan of Tina Turner, then a full-on groupie, following her from show to show around the country, and then, eventually, we became real friends," media mogul 

 "She is our forever goddess of rock 'n' roll who contained a magnitude of inner strength that grew throughout her life. She was a role model not only for me but for the world."

Turner, known for her raspy voice and vigorous dance moves, initially found fame as a rhythm and blues singer, then overcame years of abuse and found a second wind as an internationally beloved rock star.

She had hit songs, such as "Proud Mary," "Private Dancer," "The Best" and "What's Love Got to Do With It?", which she released at age 44. That song peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. 


She has additionally won eight Grammys, received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice — in 1991, for the duo she starred in with her ex-husband Ike Turner, and in 2021 as a solo act.


Ayana Archie

President Joe Biden joined celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, Mick Jagger and Angela Bassett, who was nominated for an Oscar for her role playing Turner in her biopic, in honoring the late singer. 


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