The Skin You’re In Original Soundtrack

The music of The Skin You’re In is not accompaniment. It is part of the argument.

The score extends the film’s central claim: health inequities are not accidents of biology. They are the result of policy, power, and place. Where the film presents data and testimony, the music engages what those cannot fully capture—memory, contradiction, endurance.

I was trained in classical music, but I have always been drawn to jazz and R&B. My home as a child was filled with music from my mother’s Dominican roots and my father’s roots in St. Martin. I composed every piece in this score, drawing from that range of influences. The music reflects an eclectic foundation shaped by those traditions.

The blues language in the title track reflects lineage, not nostalgia. Survival without sentimentality. Call and response mirrors a civic rhythm: institutions act, communities answer, communities endure. The music does not resolve easily because the conditions it reflects remain unresolved. It also reflects my own path—from Brooklyn to my life in New Orleans.

The disco-inflected piece comes from another register. House parties. Rec rooms. Roller rinks. Parks. Places where joy existed alongside constraint. In neighborhoods shaped by disinvestment, music was infrastructure. DJs tapped power from streetlights to run turntables. Rhythm became agency.

Some pieces reflect. Others affirm.

Together they ask:
What does chronic stress sound like?
What does dignity sound like?
What does neglect sound like?
What might repair sound like?

This project is about decisions—who makes them, who benefits, who bears the cost.

The music carries the weight of those decisions.

Tracks

The Skin You’re In

A 12-bar blues, written and performed as a nod to my current home in New Orleans.

The form cycles back on itself, echoing barriers that persist across generations. The blues holds sorrow and defiance at the same time. It does not surrender.

This track marks my first time singing on a recording.

Legendary New Orleans musician James Rivers brings the harmonica voice that completes the piece.

A Walker in the City

Named for Alfred Kazin’s memoir of growing up in Brownsville.

In his book, Kazin describes his walk through Brownsville as a way of understanding how place shaped him. That walk frames his narrative.

In the film, I begin from the same Rockaway Avenue subway station. He never mapped his route, but I imagine him walking north on Rockaway, east on Pitkin Avenue, south on what is now Mother Gaston Boulevard, and ending at the Tilden Houses, where I lived as a child.

Different eras. Same streets.

His walk was literary.
Mine is musical.

Worlds Apart

This project was motivated by a New York Times article reporting on a study of life expectancy in New York City.

The article showed that Brownsville had the lowest life expectancy, while Lower Manhattan, near Wall Street, had the highest. The communities are connected by a single train line. The distance is short. The difference in years of life is profound.

Two communities, so close together—yet worlds apart.

The arrangement is spare. A single piano line creates space. Bass adds depth.

The piece does not dramatize the divide.
It holds it.

Rockaway Avenue Groove

This is not the Studio 54 version of the disco era.

This is Brownsville.

House parties. Parks. Rec rooms. DJs tapping power from streetlights. Speakers stacked wherever they could be placed.

The bass drives. The groove locks.

Joy was not spectacle.
It was authorship.

Chromatic Release

Built on a chromatic bass line, the music moves through tension without settling.

The tension holds, steady and present.

It resolves into a sustained major chord.

Release.

Pitkin Avenue

Written after an early morning walk along Brownsville’s commercial spine.

The stores were just opening. The streets were quiet. Still.

The music captures that moment.

Peace before the day begins.

Fight or Flight

Built on sustained tension.

Inspired by conversations in Brownsville about how quickly everyday interactions can escalate—how something as small as a stare can lead to confrontation.

A low drone holds. The bass rises.

Pressure.
Movement.
Release.

Betsy Head

Named for Betsy Head Park and its iconic pool.

Baseball games. Long afternoons. Summer heat.

The park offered structure—fields, lanes, and gathering.

The music carries that energy.

Recreation.
Formation.

You Can Go Home Again

Returning to Brownsville raised a question: would I still belong?

What I found was openness.

People shared stories. Extended trust.

The idea that you cannot go home again, drawn from Thomas Wolfe’s book You Can’t Go Home Again, does not always hold.

You can.
Not because nothing changed.
But because connection remains.

Long Way from Home

Written after returning to New Orleans following a visit to Brownsville.

This solo bass piece reflects on home—not just as place, but as feeling.

Brownsville felt like home.
New Orleans feels like home.

The music moves between those spaces.

Brownsville Be Dyin

This piece began in a Brownsville apartment.

Tey Mack (Tevon Tobinson) and TyRaq (Scheron Bryant, Jr.) began freestyling while the camera was rolling. No rehearsal. No staging.

The original track they were freestyling over was removed. I created a new composition to frame their voices.

The lyrics are the picture.
The music is the frame.

I Went Numb at 16

Written after Scheron Bryant, Jr. described witnessing his friend being shot and killed.

He said he “went numb at 16.”

The piece begins with a sustained low register—repetitive, anchored. Above it, chords move and search.

In the second half, the harmony takes divergent paths, exploring different directions before resolving.

The foundation holds while everything else shifts.

It does not narrate the event.
It reflects what remains after.

Quiet Sunday

Written on a quiet Sunday morning after shooting street scenes the night before.

The night had been chaotic. The morning was still.

I sat on a bench and watched families walking to church.

The bass carries the melody, capturing that calm. Brian Toval’s B3 organ rises to reflect the churchgoers.

Stillness.
Then spirit.

Mother G

A solo bass composition inspired by Mother Gaston Boulevard.

Early morning. Before movement begins.

Each note stands alone.

The piece does not announce itself.
It simply exists.

Hope, Anyway

Originally written to close the film.

The song reflects optimism and hope.

Hope fuels the Brownsville spirit.

Not as denial.
As decision.

Hope, anyway.