MILWAUKEE — The entertainment at Saturday night's Freedom Ball is well-known in the community. Timothy Ricketts of "Cigarette Break" says his band is thrilled to be a part of the event.
"It means everything to be booked to play an event this prestigious in our community, it's amazing," said Ricketts.
Cigarette Break consists of five members.
"There's Tobias Canyon, he's a saxophone player, there's Darien Williams, he's guitar player, there's Olan Franklin, he's a drummer and then there's Eric Locke (the baby of the group, he plays the keyboard.) And then there's me, the bass player," said Ricketts.
The music is like poetry in motion and the name Cigarette Break ironically derived from poetry.
"Saul Willams had a poem called 'Her' and it said 'I wanna be the person you call on your cigarette break, but not the cause of it', so once again, it's a term of endearment - not a term of smoking," said Ricketts.
Everybody that's somebody will be at the Freedom Ball: dignitaries, elected officials, members of the community, and the spotlight will be on the sounds of Cigarette Break.
"You're making me nervous now. No honestly, it's a celebration. It's a celebration of freedom. You know Juneteenth in itself, now we can celebrate ourselves. We have freedom, so now like music is that thing that you actually have the freedom to express how you feel through instruments," said Ricketts.
Cigarette Break will definitely help get the party started!
"Most of these people we grew up with, they're our friends, they watched us grow as musicians, watched us grown as people. We feel honored," said Ricketts.
