One of my fondest Adodi memories occurred on the bus heading to my first national retreat – the 25th anniversary in 2011. I was sitting next to an Adodi member and he was talking… well actually he was painting a picture of the Adodi experience for me. I had been to the one day Spring Retreat in Detroit and loved it, but this was 4 days…

I don’t remember his exact words, but I will always remember the picture those words painted – a village of beautiful brothers loving each other – speaking words that usually go unspoken… expressing affection that we have learned to bury. During those 4 days, that picture came to life with the most amazing clarity and detail for me.

After getting back to NYC, I remember walking through a Harlem subway station holding hands with another Adodi brother – holding hands felt so natural… after only 4 days at Adodi, it was like we’d been to the mountain top and not only seen the promised land, but experienced it as well.

Registration forms for this year’s National Adodi retreat are available, so check out the details and I hope to see you there – Adodi National Retreat from July 17 – 21 at the Pere Marquette State Park in Grafton, Illinois.

Adodi: Celebrating 25+ years of Black SGL men loving and uplifing Black SGL men

Last year the theme of Adodi Detroit‘s one day Spring Retreat was “Vessels of Praise: Loving The Black Male Body”. I was invited to do a short concert at the welcome reception and I wrote “Loving Your Male Body” for the occasion.

One of the brothers in attendance that evening was an artist – Duane Vaughn, and after the concert he introduced himself and over the weekend showed me some of his artwork… I loved it!!! So after the retreat I shared my song with him and he created the cover art for it.

This year Adodi Detroit’s one day Spring Retreat is April 5 – 7 and the theme is “Vision & Visibility: Living Passionately in the Light“. You can read about my first experience at Adodi Detroit. I will be there, so join us if you are in the area, you can find more info on Facebook and you can register on their website.

About Adodi Detroit: Adodi Detroit is dedicated to the mutual acknowledgement, acceptance, appreciation and affirmation of same-gender-loving men of African descent in the metropolitan Detroit area. Our purpose is to foster and encourage the self-discovery, validation, empowerment and liberation of all members of our diverse community. Our events are to all SGL men of African descent 18 years of age or older. Adodi events are drug and alcohol free.

I recently read a comment on one of my YouTube videos… “Whenever I hear your music, it reminds me that I’m not the only gay person out there (even though I’m lesbian). Thank you for your beautiful music…” I’ve been replaying these words over and over again, and now other words from other comments have surfaced and they have all condensed into one crystal clear thought – what I do makes a difference… as small as it may seem – writing these songs, recording these albums, sharing my truth makes a difference. But her 2 sentences also made me realize something else – what we all do makes a difference and sometimes the smallest things matter the most, so I hope today, when the opportunities present themselves, you choose to share… you never know who is listening!

**OUTMusic Award Winning songs
*OUTMusic Nominated songs

sshh… don’t tell everyone!

Of course this also provided an opportunity to tweak some songs (good ideas sometimes come after performing a song live). And after working with Tim’m West on his project Snapshots, I realized that releasing music doesn’t have to require a lot of time (we recorded, mixed and mastered 3 songs in one evening).

So between watching the 3rd season of Archer on Netflix and reading Nalo Hopkinson’s Midnight Robber (have to give the ears a rest… love Nalo!!!), I re-mixed Adam & Steve and Finding Me Lovemaking, and re-mastered Gay Warrior Song. This brought me to a grand total of 8 songs. But then I thought – wouldn’t 10 songs be better… yes I thought, 10 songs would be better… so I went into the vault, remembering 2 new songs I’d worked on last year, just sitting there waiting to be released… Voila!

So new music on Wednesday, I’ll tell you more tomorrow…