Helado Negro’s “It’s My Brown Skin” Is an Act of Radical Self-Love
Audre Lorde once wrote that caring for yourself “is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” In other words, one of the most effective ways to fight oppression on a personal level is to commit to loving your body and mind, to maintaining your well-being. Songs that celebrate the beauty of brown skin, the strength of the body marginalized by society at large, are numerous. But in “It’s My Brown Skin,” Roberto Carlos Lange (aka Helado Negro) poses an astonishing question: What if skin isn’t just a part of your identity and body, but a companion that requires a nourishing and adoring relationship?
“It’s My Brown Skin,” like many of the songs on Private Energy, gives a light dadaist touch to political questions that are not only vital, but inescapably personal. “It’s the color that holds me tight/My brown me is the shade that’s just for me,” Lange sings in the song’s opening seconds. It’s a clear statement of purpose: The song is a celebration of and ode to brownness. But he treats brownness like a subject rather than an object. And, in a surprising maneuver, he gives his skin agency: “I love you… You’re stuck on me/And all this time I’m inside you.”
As Lange tells it, one’s relationship to their skin is the most important friendship one will have in their life. (“Our time together we grow/We stretch and show/It’s tough as it goes and it won’t rub off of you.”) He couches the political gestures and revolutionary aspects of this song in calming drum lines, soft clouds of synths, and soporific singing. At times, it almost feels like he’s casting a spell on you, urging you to stop listening and love your body with all your might.
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