Written By: P / P Editors

Apparently, many people feel like 2016 was the worst year ever. I beg to differ. I would think 1968 when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated was a pretty tough year.  I believe our country has been through numerous turbulent and violent years. Nonetheless, I do not forget Alton Sterling and the string of televised assassinations that inundated our news feeds and television screens this year. I do not forget Prince, David Bowie, Sharon Jones, Phife Dawg, Leonard Cohen and others who have passed away this year. I will never forget that this is the last year we get to experience one of the classiest First Families in history. It’s been heavy. One thing I did learn though, was the power of prayer. The Standing Rock protests showed us how peaceful protests should be done, which revealed itself to me as a reminder of Martin Luther King Jr’s immense strength and capacity for love when it came to his and this country’s style of peaceful protests. All in all, I traveled this year, loved, lost, danced, sang and cried. I know this will happen every year until it’s time for me to leave this great Earth, so I am just going to simply bid 2016 ado and let go.

Publik / Private senior editor, Michael Martino and I put together a short list of our personal Best Of 2016 experiences. Hope you enjoy it. -je

Jordannah: Amiri Baraka’s “Black Music”

Michael: Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet”

Jordannah: MIA – AIM

Michael: The Avalanches – Wildflower

Jordannah: I don’t find death to be a sad thing. But I think all the losses were impactful this year.

Michael: Bowie and Phife Dawg.

Jordannah: Obama’s Sexual Assault Bill of Rights, Obama working to create stricter gun laws and Trump.

Michael: Trump’s election. Interesting is definitely a good word for it.

Michael: The successes of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests give hope to my stone cold cynical heart.

Jordannah: Leaving home for tour. It gets harder every year.

Michael: The day every month when I had to pay my school loans. smh.

Jordannah: I didn’t watch any new films this year.

Michael: Rogue One. It was the only film I saw in a theater this year and it was the first films I’ve ever seen in Baltimore’s Senator Theatre, which was a great experience.