Marsha Music grew up with fire in her blood and a bassline on her tongue.

Much like her father before her, record store owner and producer Joe Von Battle (one of the first Black men to own a record label and record store in Detroit) Marsha was brought up at the right place at the right time.

She did not merely inherit music… she translated it into literature, memoir, and myth.

If Detroit is a song, Marsha knows all the lyrics… even the ones time has tried to erase.

Marsha Music was born and raised on the west side of Detroit, right at the intersection of sound and struggle.

Her father’s store, Joe’s Record Shop, stood on Hastings Street before it was devoured by the Chrysler Freeway project.

There, Joe Von Battle recorded everyone from Aretha Franklin’s father, Rev. C.L. Franklin, to John Lee Hooker and Little Willie John, capturing sermons and secular sounds with equal reverence.

Marsha grew up between the pew and the juke joint, learning early that rhythm and blues were modes of survival – not mere genres.

She then watched Detroit change before her very eyes, standing back in quiet shock as Black Bottom was erased, Motown rose, the 1967 rebellion found its feet, white flight occurred in droves, redlining became the norm, and the city she so loved devolved into wreckage.

Yet, Marsha did not run.

Instead, she picked up a pen.

Marsha worked in law and healthcare, but her soul called her to storytelling, and she began taking writing seriously in the 1990s through the 2000s, crafting essays, poems, and speeches that were one-part memoir, one-part musicology, and one-part urban history, telling stories of race and resilience.

The sound of her voice is a lyrical yet grounded sensory experience – unapologetically Black and deeply Detroit – with her essays appearing in the Detroit Free Press, Riverwise, and Belt Publishing’s Detroit Anthology.

She is also a regular at readings, lectures, and community events – often calling herself a “self-described Griot of Detroit.”

Not an academic. 

Not an outsider.

Someone who lived it, loved it, and refused to let it go.

Marsha works outside the box. 

You’ll find her:

Writing odes to her father’s shop (her spiritual sanctuary).

Supporting black womanhood and city survival efforts.

Chronicling the displacement of Black Detroiters through gentrification and freeway expansion.

Charting the emotional geography of neighborhoods like 12th Street, Highland Park, and Conant Gardens.

She is best known for her essay “The Kidnapped Children of Detroit,” which reframes white flight as a spiritual rupture – a mass abandonment that separated children from the integrated possibilities of the city.

That said, Marsha never preachs. 

She testifies.

Marsha has continued to be a counter-voice to the mainstream in a time when Detroit is slowly rebranding itself with rooftop bars and real estate hashtags, speaking out against the cultural amnesia caused by gentrification.

She’s spoken at the Detroit Institute of Arts, MOCAD, Pewabic Pottery, and at numerous neighborhood events.

She carries truth within her like a prized relic and is considered by many to be the literary godmother of a new generation of Detroit artists, writers, and thinkers.

In short: Marsha Music writes as she speaks: with rhythm, rage, love, and lilt.

She’s the needle dropped on an old song.

The memory you didn’t know you had until someone put words to it.

She doesn’t just preserve Detroit history.

She makes you feel – in prose and presence – that Black Detroit is Detroit’s most importance history.

For that, she will always be considered a beloved daughter of the 313.

Victoria Jackson (Editor In Chief)

Victoria Jackson is a lifelong student and sharp-eyed documentarian of all things Detroit, from its rich musical roots and cultural icons to its shifting neighborhoods, storied architecture, and underground legends. With her finger firmly on the pulse of both the city’s vibrant past and its rapidly unfolding future, she brings a deeply personal, historically grounded lens to every piece she writes.

Published on: June 26, 2025