Detroit is bleeding. Our streets, once filled with the rhythm of Motown and the pulse of resilience, now echo with the staccato of gunfire. Children are killing children. Fully automatic weapons are being fired in broad daylight. Innocent lives—men, women, and babies—are being stolen before they even have a chance to dream. The graveyards are filling with our youth. Detroit’s future is being buried one funeral at a time.
This is not just a crisis. It is a tragedy. And it is out of hand.
We cannot arrest our way out of this. We cannot ignore it, hoping it will fade. There is only one solution powerful enough to reach the hearts of those lost in the chaos: music.
Music is Detroit’s soul. It’s what built this city’s legacy. It’s what gave us hope when the factories closed and the lights dimmed. Music is therapy, it’s expression, it’s connection. It’s the one language that speaks to every corner of our community—especially the ones most at risk.
We need investment in music programs. In studios. In mentorship. In safe spaces where young people can turn pain into poetry, rage into rhythm, and violence into verses. Give them microphones instead of guns. Give them beats instead of bullets. Let them tell their stories before they become statistics.
Mayor, I urge you—please listen. Not just to me, but to the silence left behind by those who’ve died. Let their absence be the reason we act. Let Detroit be the city that chose healing over hatred, creativity over chaos, and music over murder.
The time is now. The solution is here. Let’s make noise for peace.
With urgency and hope, Cecil Cosey