Ah, to control our own culture………. 🙂

Tell me this link (it kills me that I can’t embed it here! RATS!) doesn’t make you think, just a little bit, of Michael Jackson’s “Remember The Time”? 🙂

In fact, let’s put them “Side By Side” on this post. (If you’re an Elements-of-the-Universe fanatic like I am, you know I just made a REAL good pun :))

If Parody Is The Sincerest Form Of Flattery…….

Posted on July 30, 2007 by drumsintheglobalvillage

……then Cornel West should be very happy with these two tributes. LOL! 🙂

Here’s more, if you want it.

Three Cheers For "The Negro Bibles" :)

Posted on July 28, 2007 by drumsintheglobalvillage

Ebony and Jet are online. No, a real site. Really. With punchy, well-written, original content on it. More proof we’re in the 21st century. 😉

Asante Sana, New Ancestor Sekou Sundiata

Posted on July 23, 2007 by drumsintheglobalvillage

The Realm of the Ancestors has gained another serious artist.

Check these two samples out.

Liked this description of him and his work.

And thanks to Akila Worksongs for the obit below. It says it all.

AUGUST 27TH UPDATE: Here is Baraka’s eulogy.

———————-

Obituary:

Gifted Poet Sekou Sundiata
(August 22, 1948 — July 18, 2007)

by Louis Reyes Rivera

On Wednesday, July 18, 2007, at 5:47a.m. (ET), poet Sekou Sundiata passed away. A highly esteemed performing poet, Mr. Sundiata wrote for print, performance, music and theater. Born Robert Franklin Feaster in Harlem, on August 22, 1948, Sundiata came of age as an artist during the Black Arts/Black Aesthetic movements of the 1960s and 1970s.

While attending the City College of New York (CCNY), where he began reciting poetry publicly, Sundiata converged with several other student activists, including once-mayoral candidate of Pittsburgh and longtime friend, Leroy Hodge, to form the basis for what soon became known as the Black and Puerto Rican Student Community of City College (BPRSC). This phalanx of 400 students soon made their own history, closing the 21,000-student campus during the Spring of 1969, to demand, among other things, that CCNY be renamed Harlem University. The net effect of the student takeover culminated in both an Open Admissions Policy that took effect in September 1970, the full legitimization of ethnic studies departments throughout the nation, as well as the requirement that all education majors within the City University take courses in African American History and to have Spanish as a Second Language.

Among his acknowledged mentors at City were Toni Cade Bambara, June Jordan, and fellow student Louis Reyes Rivera, with whom Sundiata helped to establish the first Black student newspaper in the City University, CCNY’s The Paper Their association would span close to forty years of mutual respect and admiration.

Upon completing his Bachelor’s Degree (circa 1974), Sundiata enrolled and completed his Master’s in Creative Writing while regularly producing community-based poetry readings that were known to draw SRO crowds. In 1976, his creative sensibilities, his innate organizing skills, and his associations with a convergent generation of excellent poets, musicians and dancers immediately led to a collaborative project he directed that would commemorate 100 years of Black struggle for freedom and Human Rights. Titled The Sounds of the Memory of Many Living People (1863-1876/ 1963-1976), this production, which included upcoming novelist Arthur Flowers and such poets as Safiya Henderson-Holmes, BJ Ashanti, Tom Mitchelson, Louis Reyes Rivera, et al, was staged in Harlem over a period of two days, signaling much of what was to come from Sekou’s sense of vision, steadily breaking ground for what was then a new literary genre, Performance Poetry, fully anticipating elements of both Hip Hop Culture and Spoken Word Art.

In 1977, the aforementioned poets, along with Zizwe Ngafua, Rashidah Ismaili, Fatisha (Hutson), Sandra Maria Esteves, Akua Lezli Hope, Mervyn Taylor, and Sekou, among others, formed the Calabash Poets Workshop, which group signaled the arrival of a new literary heat in New York, regularly producing soirees and fori (1977-1983) that included all of the arts and culminated in a three-year attempt (1979-1982) to establish an independent Black Writers Union.

Upon the release of his first vinyl album (circa 1980), Are & Be, Sekou Sundiata was dubbed by Amiri Baraka as “the State of the Art.”Since then, Mr. Sundiata established a longtime relationship with CCNY’s Aaron Davis Performing Arts Center, through which venue he intermittently produced new material for the stage, consistently collaborating with musicians, dancers and actors. He was eventually selected for a number of earned fellowships, including a Sundance Institute Screenwriting Fellow, a Columbia University Revson Fellow, a Master Artist-in-Residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts (Florida), and as the first Writer-in-Residence at the New School University in New York, in which university’s Eugene Lang College he remained a professor.

He was, as well, among those featured in the Bill Moyers’ PBS series on poetry, The Language of Life, and in Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry Jam on HBO.

Among several highly acclaimed performance theater works in which he served as both author and performer are: The Circle Unbroken is a Hard Bop, which toured nationally and received three AUDELCO Awards and a BESSIE Award; The Mystery of Love, commissioned and produced by New Voices/ New Visions at Aaron Davis Hall in New York City and the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia; and Udu, a music theater work produced by 651 ARTS in Brooklyn and presented by the International Festival of Arts and Ideas in New Haven, the Walker Art Center and Penumbra Theater in Minneapolis, Flynn Center in Burlington, VT, the Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, and Miami-Dade Community College in Florida. Throughout this period and since 1985, he developed a close association with co-collaborator and legendary trombonist Craig S. Harris.

blessing the boats, Sundiata’s first solo theater piece, an exploration into his own personal battles with kidney failure, opened in November 2002 at Aaron Davis Hall, NYC. It has since been presented in more than 30 cities and continued to tour nationally. In March 2005, Sundiata produced The Gift of Life Concert, an organ donation public awareness event at the Apollo Theater that kicked off a three-week run of blessing the boats at the Apollo’s SoundStage. in partnership with the Apollo Theater Foundation, the National Kidney Foundation and the New York Organ Donor Network with support from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Since 2006, his the 51st (dream) state has been presented throughout the U.S. and in Australia. Both blessing the boats and the 51st (dream) state were produced in collaboration with MultiArts Projects and Productions (MAPP). In addition to working within community engagement activities at Harlem Stages/Aaron Davis Hall, the University of Michigan and University Musical Society (Ann Arbor, MI), the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill, NC), the University of Texas Austin (Austin, TX), in Miami Dade College (Miami, FL), and the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis, Sundiata has appeared as a featured speaker and artist at the Imagining America Conference (Ann Arbor, MI), at the Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston, MA), and at the Pedagogy and Theater of the Oppressed Conference (Minneapolis, MN), among others. Prior to his demise, he was engaged in producing a DVD documenting the America Project for use by universities and presenters as a model for art and civic engagement.

In addition to the 1979 Are & Be album, Sundiata’s other releases include a second album, The Sounds of the Memory of Many Living People, and two CDs, The Blue Oneness of Dreams, nominated for a Grammy Award, and longstoryshort. Each of these works are rich with the sounds of blues, funk, jazz and African and Afro-Caribbean percussion, with the latter two featuring Craig Harris.

He is survived by beloved family members, including his mother, Virginia Myrle Feaster, his wife, Maurine Knighton, daughter Myisha, stepdaughters Dina Gomez and Aida Riddle, grandson Aman, brothers William Walter Feaster, and Ronald Eugene Feaster, sister Devona, sister-in-law Nitah, a niece, Tisha Taylor, nephews William, Keith Omar and Glenn and their respective wives, Aloma, Irene and Marie, as well as a host of other relatives, admirers, students and friends.

# # #

—————

An official statement from the family of Sekou Sundiata…

The memorial service for
SEKOU SUNDIATA
will take place
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
New School University
Tischman Auditorium
64 W. 12th Street • 1st Floor
New York, NY 10011
7:00 pm

AUGUST 18 UPDATE:

Have You Read…………

Posted on July 16, 2007 by drumsintheglobalvillage

………. Mark Anthony Neal’s interesting explanation (I won’t call it a defense, but I could 🙂 ) of Michael Eric Dyson?

An Anniversary Worth Noting

Posted on June 20, 2007 by drumsintheglobalvillage

It’s been 21 years since this song and this artist took over my mind, body and soul.

I remember telling people at the time that my goal was to bear HER child! LOL!

What made me think about her today? I was joking with a friend of mine about Spike Lee’s cameo in this video:

While watching it, I see today how well Spike blended social and cultural history, parody and even time travel.

Wow. The Power of Black Art. Food for thought.

Independent Audio/Video You Should Check Out (Eleventh In A Long-Running Series)

Posted on May 19, 2007 by drumsintheglobalvillage

But first, a little text.

Hip-Hop and the Corporate Function of Colonization

Jared A. Ball, Ph.D.

Green Institute Communications Fellow

Having elsewhere looked at the function of mass media as primary mechanisms of the maintenance of colony, recent events have again emerged requiring further investigation into the function of corporate control over the cultural expression of colonized populations. Though not specific to hip-hop the example as explored through that most popular of cultural expressions may help to make more clear the imperative of organization and political struggle in 2007. Within the last few weeks alone we have seen recent decisions and trends evolve demonstrating the intent and need among those in power to further ensure that mass media will perform its primary (only?) function of manipulating popular consciousness for the purpose of manipulating behavior of the audience (victims). These developments can only be understood in the context of a continuing process of subjugation in which media play a primary role in suppressing dissent.

Click here for the entire article

————————

VOXUNION MEDIA
voxunion.com
FreeMix Radio
May 28, 2007

A special statement and call to action regarding the Copyright Royalty Board, copyright law and intellectual property rights as they relate to a lock down of our cultural expression and thought. The recent ruling of the Copyright Royalty Board threatens to further limit our ability to communicate freely. The decision has already caused VOXUNION MEDIA to cease our online archive of our Pacifica Network radio show here in Washington, DC, threatens to force into bankruptcy roughly 85% of all internet radio stations and continues to demonstrate the importance and necessity of FreeMix Radio: The Original Mixtape Radio Show. ClickÂ here to listen to our special report/announcement regarding this concern. Stream options and more available at voxunion.com.

VOXUNION MEDIA
voxunion.com
FreeMix Radio
May 10, 2007

We sat down with Dedrick Muhammad of the Institute for Policy Studies to talk about the Black/White Wealth Divide. Click here for this first of an on-going series where we look at the actual economic condition of African America and how this relates, is essential to, the political economy of the United States. Stream options and more available at voxunion.com.

—————————–

VOXUNION MEDIA
Jazz & Justice
WPFW 89.3 FM wpfw.org (live stream)

April 16, 2007

Today we discussed DC Emancipation Day and its international implications with our guests Rick and Michelle Tingling-Clemens. We also heard music from Gil Scott Heron, Jayne Cortez, DJ EuRok, NYOIL, Head-Roc, Eddie Kane, Freddie Hubbard and more. We also heard clips from Dr. James Turner of the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell University. Here’s the first part, and here’sÂ the second. Visit voxunion.comÂ for the stream/download options and much more.

Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â —————

VOXUNION MEDIA
Jazz & Justice
WPFW 89.3 FM Washington, DC
wpfw.org
Mondays 1-3p EST

This week was part 2 of our tribute to Malcolm X and part 1 of ourÂ two-week pledge drive.Â We were joined in studio by Dr. ToddÂ Burroughs as we paid homage to Malcolm and Mumia Abu-Jamal all theÂ while spinning music from Wu-Tang Clan, Archie Shepp, Mos Def, VijayÂ Iyer, Nex Millen and more.Â We also aired rarely heard audio from theÂ documentary “Brother Minister” and speeches on Malcolm X and his imageÂ by Amiri Baraka and Dhoruba Bin-Wahad.Â Download the show by clickingÂ the links hereÂ and/or visit voxunion.com for stream options and muchÂ more.Â

Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â ——————

VOXUNION MEDIA
Jazz & Justice
WPFW 89.3 FM Mondays 1-3p EST
wpfw.org

This week we conclude our portion of the pledge drive. Thank you all for your support. But we did this in style. Head-Roc joined the show to donate his Negrophobia album as a thank you gift and we chopped it up with his music and that of Archie Shepp, Killer Mike, Charles Mingus, Asheru, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane and much more. We talked about the Black Power movement and mass media, Black “leadership,” DC’s underrepresented views of war protest, the music industry and more. Click to download parts 1 and 2and visit voxunion.com for stream/download options, show archives and much more.

Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â —————–

VOXUNION MEDIA
FreeMix Radio
March 21, 2007

The Hip-Hop Caucus Launches its Make Hip-Hop Not War Tour

Reverend Lennox Yearwood and the Hip-Hop Caucus was in DC this weekÂ to launch their “Make Hip-Hop Not War” tour.Â Â FreeMix Radio was thereÂ and caught upÂ with some of the artists involved, including Head-Roc,Â Hasan Salaam, DJ Chela, A Alikes, ReadNex Poetry Squad and Akir.Â ForÂ more, visit hiphopcaucus.org.Â

———————

VOXUNION MEDIA
Jazz & Justice
WPFW 89.3 FM Mondays 1-3p (EST)
wpfw.org

This week we completed our winter pledge drive by having aÂ discussion of political organizing with Bill Fletcher.Â We alsoÂ played portions of an interview with Soffiyah Elijah and ClaudeÂ Marks of the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights who are currently working to free the eightÂ former Black Panthers arrested in January on 35 year-old charges.Â Â We also heard music from Head-Roc, Charles Mingus, Pharaoh Sanders,Â Amina and Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Mos Def and more.Â ToÂ download the show, click here and hereÂ and visit voxunion.com for much more, including the latest from Roots Revolution.Â That showÂ paid tribute toÂ Burning Spear and honored Woman’s History Month by airing wordsÂ from Angela Davis.

Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â ———————-

VOXUNION MEDIA
FreeMix Radio: The Original Mixtape Radio Show (FM9)

FM9 is here!Â The mixtape as emancipatory journalism is hitting the streets but we do make an online version available for download here and at www.voxunion.com, where you can get both the stream and download options.

Track List/Liner Notes
1. Cartman declares a race war
2. Kidnap the President’s Wife – Shout to DJ Jaheye and Hello… My Name is Capitalism (the mixtape).
3. Wack Media Takeover – a mix from the Borough to Borough mixtape by DJs Al Dente and Cut Chemist
4. NIGGERS! and X-Clan’s Black Boot Stompin’ followed by part one of our East of the River interviews on the Iraq war and war protest in DC
5. That’s Life – Killer Mike
6. Claude Marks and Soffiyah Elijah of Center for the Defense of Human Rights (cdhrsupport.org) talk about the San Francisco 8 and the re-arrest of Black Panthers to suppress political dissent and rebellion
7. Classic – KRS-One and Rakim
8. Part two of the East of the River interviews and specifically the treatment of young Black people by the police in DC
9. Public Service Announcement remix – Omekongo and D’Mite
This is a dope go-go influenced remix of Jay-Z’s classic but with a very different content
10. V is for Vendetta – Everyone should see this film a nd understand the context of this track
11. Black Power and Media – Head-Roc and The Funkinest Journalist explain the historical relationship between mass media and Black struggle. This is a clip from “Jazz and Justice,” which airs on WPFW 89.3 FM every Monday from 1-3p and is archived at voxunion.com
12. L.A. – Murs – Murs is just nice.
13. Media “Reform” – comments from the National Conference on Media Reform and why Black and Latino people need to be more involved in the production of media and in media criticism. Voices include Oriana Bolden and Rosa Clemente.
14. I’m Him – NEW! – Wise Intelligent
15. Black World Imagery – more from Jazz and Justice this time with Michelle Stephens and Suzette Gardner during our tribute to Bob Marley talk about the construction of Black image.
16. Jesse Jackson is not the emperor of Black people! – Napolean’s Dynamite – Mos Def
17. Class and Black Women – part of an old FreeMix interview with Elaine Brown former head of the Black Panther Party.
18. Payola – Paul Porter of IndustryEars.com talks about the latest in payola
19. Mind is Free – NEW! – Hasan Salaam. More great music from this unheralded emcee.
20. Martha’s Table Teen Program – an interview with Tim Jones and his work with DC youth.
21. Who Shot Rudy? – Screwball gets in trouble for making a song that talks about a dream that Rudy Giuliani gets shot. You can shoot Black people, smack women, pimp, sell dope and all that but don’t get it twisted into thinking we are free. It was all a dream…
22. Modern Day Slavery – Joell Ortiz and Immortal Technique – We’re Young Lords!
23. Outro and contact information
24. Whites Win!

Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â ———————-

Amos Wilson

James Turner

VOXUNION MEDIA
Jazz and Justice
March 26, 2007
WPFW 89.3 FM Mondays 1-3p EST

This week we heard from Drs. Amos Wilson and James Turner andÂ
community thoughts on yet another “nigger!” incident.Â This plusÂ music from legendary DC poet Face, Naima Jamal, new KRS-One, GilÂ Scott-Heron, The Coup and more.Â Download the showÂ here and hereÂ or visitÂ voxunion.com for stream/download options and much more.

Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â ——————–

Jazz and Justice
April 2, 2007
WPFW 89.3 FM Mondays 1-3p EST
wpfw.org

This week we were joined by Obi Egbuna of the Pan-African Liberation Organization and Head-Roc for a discussion of Zimbabwe and pan-Africanism. We also heard from Kwame Ture plus music from John Coltrane, Dead-Prez, Roy Ayers, Sonny Fortune, Bob Marley, The Coup and more. To download clickÂ here and hereÂ and visit voxunion.com for stream/download options and more.

Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â ——————–

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT! Words, Beats and Life/Global Journal of Hip-Hop Culture has launched its new website. Educators in need of a great hip-hop-based teaching tool and those looking to expand their own horizons will find this, the original hip-hop academic journal, to be a powerful resource.

Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â ———————-

Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â

VOXUNION MEDIA
Jazz and Justice
WPFW 89.3 FM Washington, DC
Mondays 1-3p EST
Live Online wpfw.org

This week we celebrated the Spring Equinox (some call it “passover”Â or “easter”) and the birthday of Paul Robeson.Â We heard music fromÂ John Coltrane, The Els featuring Asheru, Julius Hemphill, OscarÂ Peterson, KRS-One, Charles Earland, Common and Alice Coltrane.Â TheÂ celebration included a look at the African origins of major WesternÂ religion by Charles Finch and Brother Tehuti.Â All this plus the world premier of “Heru Walks,” a remix of Kanye’s original, by Kasba.Â Â Download the show here and hereÂ and visit voxunion.com for the stream/download options and much more.

Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â ——————

VOXUNION MEDIA
Jazz & Justice
WPFW 89.3 FM wpfw.org (live stream)
April 16, 2007

Today we discussed DC Emancipation Day and its internationalÂ implications with our guests Rick and Michelle Tingling-Clemens.Â Â We also heard music from Gil Scott Heron, Jayne Cortez, DJ EuRok,Â NYOIL, Head-Roc, Eddie Kane, Freddie Hubbard and more.Â We alsoÂ heard clips from Dr. James Turner of the Africana Studies andÂ Research Center at Cornell University.Â Download the clips here and hereÂ and visit voxunion.com for the stream/download options and much more.

Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â ————————

VOXUNION MEDIA
Jazz and Justice
WPFW 89.3FM Pacifica Radio Washington, DC
Mondays 1-3p EST (wpfw.org live stream)

This week Lisa Fager of Industry Ears and students from theÂ University of Maryland joined the show to talk about their researchÂ monitoring commercial hip-hop radio.Â We heard music from The WelfareÂ Poets, Hugh Masekela, Abbey Lincoln, ReadNex, Fertile Ground,Â Immortal Technique, A Tribe Called Quest, Eric Dolphy and much more.Â

We also heard from Dr. Greg Kimanthi Carr and portions of his remarksÂ at this week’s conference of the Association for the Study ofÂ Classical African Civilization (ASCAC).Â Download the show here and hereÂ and visit voxunion.com for stream/download options plus much more.

R.I.P., "Yoki" King

Posted on May 16, 2007 by drumsintheglobalvillage

With Yolanda King, two things immediately come to mind. Funtown, and her work with Attallah Shabazz.

Yoki did get to go to Funtown with her father eventually, by the way. Now she’s with back with him, performing in the Realm of the Ancestors.

Asante Sana, Yolanda King.

5:51 P.M. UPDATE: Just got this from Rev. Forrest Pritchett, a great friend and mentor of mine. He isÂ the advisorÂ of the Martin Luther King Scholarship Association—the group of select undergraduates of my alma mater, Seton Hall University, who are the recipients of a full, four-year renewable scholarship there in MLK’s name.

I am sad to notify all of my associates of the passing of the oldest child of Coretta Scott King and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Yolanda King.

Yolanda and I were personal friends and she was a powerful spokesperson for issues pertaining to her father’s legacy and other issues of civil rights.

In 1983, we presented a dramatic production created by Yolanda and Attallah Shabazz, the oldest daughter of Malcolm X, at Seton Hall University’s Theatre in the Round. Yolanda was also the keynote speaker for one of our MLK birthday commemorations at Seton Hall. We were recently discussing the possibility of her coming to New Jersey next February.

May she find peace in the presence of the saviour.

II Corinthians 1:3 – 4

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles,
so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.