Cilvia Demo Analysis

Over the last decade, the prejudices displayed by law enforcement towards African Americans have caused a great deal of pain and suffering towards people of this community. Earlier this week, Derek Chauvin was held accountable for killing George Floyd. For the first time in Minnesota history, a white police officer was charged for killing someone of color. It is a shame that the verdict left many surprised. This nefariousness played out by the police system has been mentioned frequently in music. For this assignment, I will be deconstructing one of my favorite albums, Cilvia Demo by Isaiah Rashad. Cilvia Demo is a loose concept album that, according to Rashad, sums up his emotional struggle from his teenage to adolescent years. The project is characterized by its personal themes such as substance abuse, fatherhood, coming of age, and police brutality. The foundation of the project revolves around the crookedness the system has constructed within the African American community, and the implications of being black in the 20^th century. The third song off the album, “R.I.P. Kevin Miller” mentions that the police are hunting people of color. Relations between the African American community and law enforcement are extremely tense, and the issue has become more publicized than ever before. By the time this song was released, the world had already witnessed the infamous deaths of Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, and other unarmed African Americans. The next track, “Ronnie Drake”, describes the dodging of ongoing policies that everyone in Rashad’s community is targeted by. Constant police surveillance makes it difficult to go about day-to-day life as a black individual judged from stereotypical perspectives and bias. As we wrap up the semester, a common theme that I gravitated towards is how systems of power are intertwined with individual identities and experiences. The purpose of Cilvia Demo is to paint the picture of young man struggling to find peace within a racially discriminated community. The idea of the underrepresented “Other” can be drawn as a theme throughout the album as well, as voicelessness is extremely apparent in communities that face discrimination. Cilvia Demo will go down as one of my favorite works of music throughout my lifetime due to the impact it has left on the music industry and society.