Quincy Jones turned art into joy, lightness, and resilience.
In Afro-Brazilian culture, especially in Candomblé, the Ibejis are celebrated as protectors of children and honored with festivities and offerings that include sweets and toys. This practice, so common on Children’s Day and the Feast of Saints Cosmas and Damian, brings a touch of joy and purity to the worship of the orixás. Amid the revelry and relaxation, these playful orixás are associated with joy and innovation.
Moreover, the Ibejis are known for their protective nature and are especially venerated by families seeking harmony, protection, and blessings for their children. Just as we perceive in the reflection stemming from each orixá, their essence is complex, symbolizing the balance between opposing and complementary forces.
They are twins and, as such, they personify both the individuality of each being and the unity that exists within pairs. In the wisdom of ancestral peoples, the birth of twins is seen as a sign of good fortune, a theme present in various mythologies. Examples include Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, and the Mayan deities Hunahpú and Ixbalanqué, who face the lords of the underworld and restore order and life.
In an itã (traditional tale) recorded in The Mythology of the Orixás by Reginaldo Prandi, it is told that the Ibejis approached life as one big game and decided to play a trick on Iku, death itself. Iku is known for never missing a date or address, but in ancient times, her voracity was beyond normal, and the twin orixás chose to intervene.
The two devised a plan. One would walk a perilous path filled with traps set by Iku, while the other would hide in the woods. The first would play a drum while the second stayed hidden, and after a while, they would switch roles, continuing to drum for long hours.
When the first twin began drumming on Iku’s path, death started dancing, enchanted by the lively rhythm. The plan highlighted the Ibejis’ cleverness, as Iku, unable to detect the twins’ swap, danced herself into exhaustion, begging them to stop those bewitching beats. She insisted so much that the twins proposed a pact: they would stop the music, but Iku would have to cease the traps that led humans to die before the time.
Death honored the pact, and the Ibejis, satisfied, returned to playing, which is what they truly love to do. It takes great talent and ancestral power to make death dance. As she danced, enraptured, death balanced her duties, bringing peace to the world, and stability became enduring when the pact with the children took effect.
Since then, death has kept dancing to the rhythm of the enchanted beats. The issue wasn’t the Ibejis’ music—on the contrary—but the fact that she was caught by the rhythm until she grew exhausted. But just as true as the statement that death must work—as brilliantly reflected by José Saramago in Death with Interruptions—is the association between dance and freedom, between joy and children.
Since then, artists from around the world have provided the stage for death to dance. One of them departed this week—Quincy Jones, iconic in the world of music and entertainment, with a career spanning over six decades and contributions that were fundamental to contemporary music. Renowned for his work as a producer, composer, arranger, and musician, he was one of the most successful multi-talented artists of all time.
Jones also transformed art into joy, lightness, and resistance. While having fun was indeed what he enjoyed, he, as he’s recounted in numerous interviews, didn’t live a life of mere amusement; quite the contrary. Over the course of his life, among the many adversities he faced, one that profoundly marked him was living with his mother’s mental health issues, a key factor that led him to develop philanthropic work for the Black community throughout his career.
One such effort was fostering careers that became eternal in the history of American and global music. Artists like Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Donna Summer, as well as Brazil’s greats Milton Nascimento and Djavan, were supported or produced by Jones. Giants who were able to set death to dance and, in doing so, helped to appease her voracity and inspired dreams across the world.
By being who he was, Jones entered the hall of those who made their own pact with death and, in his own way, became immortal. In every chord he left behind, in every seed planted that grew into immense forests, there he stands, grand, producing, playing, singing, while death dances joyfully.
*Originally published in Djamila Ribeiro’s column in Folha de S. Paulo