These streets hadn’t changed, though housing
projects jutted up out of them now like rocks
in the middle of a boiling sea. Most of the
houses in which we had grown up had van-
ished, as had the stores from which we had sto-
len, the basements in which we had first tried
sex, the rooftops from which we had hurled
tin cans and bricks. But houses like the houses
of our past yet dominated the landscape, boys
exactly like the boys we once had been found
themselves smothering in these houses, came
down into the streets for light and air and
found themselves encircled by disaster. Some
escaped the trap, most didn’t. Those who get
out left something of themselves behind, as
some animals amputate a leg and leave it in
the trap.... Yet, as the cab moved uptown
through streets which seemed, with a rush,
to darken with dark people, and as I covertly
studied Sonny’s face, it came to me that what
we both were seeking through our separate
cab windows was that part of ourselves which
had been left behind. (112)Unlike before, however, by living together
and revisiting their past through a never before
broached conversation about their parents, par-
ticularly their father, Sonny’s brother, who admits
Sonny had disappointed him by choosing to be-
come a jazz musician like Charlie Parker rather
than a classical pianist, finds time not merely to
talk but also to listen to his younger brother. He
learns, above all, the degree to which music had
become a vehicle for Sonny, who had privately
suffered in silence as he attempted to deal with
his painful life. Sonny tells his brother, “It’s ter-
rible sometimes, inside... that’s what’s the trou-
ble. You walk these streets, black and funky and
cold, and there’s not really a living ass to talk to,
and there’s nothing shaking and there’s no way of
getting it out—that storm inside” (133). Suffer-
ing, Sonny tells his brother, is fundamental to life.
The brother asks Sonny, “But there’s no way not
to suffer—is there, Sonny?” Sonny replies, “No,
there’s no way not to suffer. But you try all kinds
of ways to keep from drowning in it, to keep on
top of it” (132).
At the end of the story, Sonny invites his
brother to go with him to a nightclub to hear
him play. While listening to Sonny, his brother
becomes aware of the transformative power of
music in Sonny’s life. Listening to Sonny play “Am
I Blue,” witnessing his catharsis and transforma-
tion, the narrator concludes, “Freedom lurked
around us and I understood, at last, that [Sonny]
could help us to be free if we would listen, that he
would never be free until we did” (140). By listen-
ing, Sonny’s brother gains unprecedented access
and insight into Sonny’s life, his own, and ulti-
mately, the human condition.
Although Baldwin explores issues of race and
racism, modernity’s destructive impact on the
human spirit, and African-American culture,
particularly music—BLUES and jazz—and its salu-
brious power in “Sonny’s Blues,” the overarching
theme is the centrality of suffering to the human
experience. Everyone must suffer, the narrator
concludes, yet everyone must simultaneously re-
spond responsibly to his personal experience—his
personal blues. Whereas heroin is, for Sonny, a de-
structive escape, music is a creative energy and life
force; through his music Sonny faces his Sisyph-
ean quest for freedom—face his blues, choose life,
re-create himself, and find freedom and whole-
ness, albeit for a brief moment.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Baldwin, James. “Sonny’s Blues.” In Going to Meet the
Man, 101–141. New York: The Dial Press, 1965.
Wilfred D. SamuelsSouljah, Sister (1964– )
Rapper, author, lecturer, and social activist Sister
Souljah was born Lisa Williamson in the Bronx,
New York, in 1964. Raised by a single mother who
was often forced to resort to the welfare system to
survive, Souljah committed herself to avoiding the
traps into which she felt her mother had fallen. In
high school the highly motivated Souljah won the
American Legion’s Constitutional Oratory Con-
test and was offered a scholarship to attend a sum-
mer program at Cornell University. Souljah then472 Souljah, Sister