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+ intro |
Chinese President Hu Jintao has been a busy man of late. From Brasilia to Darfur, Jintao has been crossing the globe making new, and solidifying old, friendships. You would think he would be tired after simultaneously running through the dreams of developing countries and the nightmares of established world powers. But he’s not. In fact, he seems down right energized and he is not the only one. Host countries know that when Hu Jintao comes knocking he is bringing more than his passport, he is bringing cold hard cash, and this seems to be putting an extra spring in their step.
Ask Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, he will tell you the power of the Chinese Yuan and he is far from alone. Ask Olesugun Obasanjo of Nigeria where the China National Offshore Oil Corporation recently laid down upwards of two billion (in American dollars) to buy a 45% stake in a Nigerian oil block. Ask Brazil where, according to reports by Humphrey Hawksley of the BBC, Chinese influence is seeping into the fabric of the nation’s economic philosophy. With China’s appetite for oil and natural resources growing larger by the minute, nations around the world are looking for Hu Jintao, replete with his fat checkbook and the sharp feelings of empowerment that new money can bring, to ring their bell.
Of course nations that have been working hard to establish a hegemony in these developing countries since the iron curtain fell are not happy with all of the love Jintao has been doling out in his world tour, but there don’t appear to be any plans to hit the pause button for the Chinese leader. So it looks like both the dreams and the nightmares will continue. I know this is chess not checkers and summer is upon us, but isn’t it beginning to feel real cold out here? |
| welcome to nat creole. you are right on time. |
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+ profile. save darfur coalition |
 
+ questions. answers. marcia jones |
| The nature of the attacks on the Sudanese villages, i.e. Darfur sponsored military air raids and bombs followed by Janjaweed assaults, have caused destruction in three ways: (1) men and boys are killed en masse, (2) women and girls are raped or abducted, and (3) all means of agricultural production are destroyed. more |
"...making the "ugly" so beautiful. That's one of my goals when articulating my story...a lot of it has to do with pain and disappointment...but one of my goals is to present it so beautifully, that you don't even know you are witness to something so painful." more
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+ essay. inventing africa |
+ review. lou rawls |
| The Belgian Congo had experienced the most bloody and brutal history of European colonial rule and exploitation in Africa. During the rule of King Leopold II, an estimated 10 million or more Africans were exterminated and countless more permanently maimed or disfigured, all in the quest for wealth. more |
Lou Rawls possessed a captivating voice that swung from bass to tenor, an enormous empathy for the common man and the ability to convey this in song. more |
+ snapshot. black writers conference |
+ process. broken beat. dj subs |
| So I’m in Atlanta with him (Harry Belafonte), Sonja Sanchez and Farrakhan. FOI are doing security, and there is a Star Trek convention in the hotel as well. It looks really funny when you got Harry trying to get a bunch of Klingons to sing the banana song more |
I've watched broken beat over the past years turn from predictable drum patterns and basslines to the now very complex chord progressions and changes of a modern jazz assembly… it's truly the fusion of different sounds and cultures into one genre of music more |
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| And, as always, find where to see it all, hear it all, and watch it all with the nat creole. Events Calendar. Concerts. Art Openings. Book Signings. Festivals. Symposiums. Dance Performances. Museum Exhibitions and Programs. DJ Shows. Its all in there. Check it out and then bookmark it.. It'll be there every night of the week. |
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+ profile. save darfur coalition
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save darfur coalition
+alia jones
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
+ Pastor Martin Niemöller
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Has the time finally come for the global community to put a stop to the killing, looting, and burning in Darfur? 100+ US religious and humanitarian organizations formed the Save Darfur Coalition in 2004 to encourage just that. “Save Darfur” was formed on the premise that with awareness, human beings would not stand for senseless death and destruction. Spearheaded by groups such as the National Council of Churches and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Save Darfur” has grown to include organizations that stand for women’s rights, refugee support, and against prejudice. Their campaign for awareness has garnered the support of celebrity activists like George Clooney and politicians like Senator Barack Obama (D- IL). Both have signed on as spokespeople for the campaign.
The genocide in Darfur began developing in 2003 in an area of the Sudan that was facing desperate economic challenges and desertification. Several loosely allied black African groups, the Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement, took up arms in protest against the corruption and poor economic conditions habitually ignored by the Darfur government. The Arab-led government response was to outfit an opposing ragtag militia of Arab horsemen, the Janjaweed, with heavy artillery and supplies. According to the 1948 U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, the deliberate killing of members of a "national, ethnical, racial or religious group" and/or deliberate attempts to bring about the physical destruction of a group constitutes genocide. The nature of the attacks on the Sudanese villages, i.e. Darfur sponsored military air raids and bombs followed by Janjaweed assaults, have caused destruction in three ways: (1) men and boys are killed en masse, (2) women and girls are raped or abducted, and (3) all means of agricultural production are destroyed. By poisoning the water supply with dead bodies and slaughtered cattle, burning all of the shelters, ripping out the irrigation systems, and cutting down fruit trees, the Janjaweed have ensured that it will be extremely difficult for these villages to thrive again.
The reluctance to pick sides and widespread confusion over the terms of the peace agreement signed in 2005 to end tribal conflict in South Sudan on the part of the international community have been the primary obstacles this organization has had to overcome to spread the ugly facts of the current situation – 400,000 dead and 2,000,000 refugees. But increasingly, the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan has become more and more difficult to ignore as the staggering death tolls rise. Unlike the crisis in Rwanda 12 years ago, humanitarian organizations are on the ground supplying food and encampment to the 2,000,000 displaced Sudanese. In the U.S., the House of Representatives voted to condemn the genocide in Darfur early in the conflict and passed The Darfur Peace and Accountability Act (H.R. 3127) in April to authorize the President to impose sanctions on Sudan and provide aid to the African Union. Additionally over $300 million in aid has already been appropriated by the Senate. But even with all of the legislation passed and the aid provided, the United Nations reports that humanitarian groups will leave as the refugee camps become more dangerous and as funding for food runs out in next few months.
As a result, “Save Darfur” is encouraging people to pressure the government into becoming more active now. A Million Voices for Darfur is their present campaign to collect one million postcards or electronic signatures addressed to the President. The group has used a website, www.millionvoicesfordarfur.org, and a Myspace profile, www.myspace.com/savedarfurcoalition, to spread the message and gather electronic postcard signatures. The campaign to lobby members of Congress is gaining momentum as well. Senator Obama has encouraged each American to write personal notes to their representative and senators denouncing the atrocities in Darfur and calling for tougher action by the US. “Save Darfur” has organized a 27-city tour by a former Marine observer to the peacekeeping mission in Darfur in support of the Million Voices campaign. The savedarfur.org website monitors U.S. House and Senate action to date, creates curricula for teachers, and even lists activist groups for students to join. The Coalition also sells “Save Darfur” Awareness merchandise – t-shirts, hats, lawn signs, wristbands, posters, and magnets – on the website. “Save Darfur” announced a 500,000 postcard milestone in April.
The most visible A Million Voices for Darfur effort to date was the “Save Darfur: Rally to Stop Genocide” rally that took place on April 30th on the National Mall in DC. Genocide survivors, politicians, celebrities, religious leaders, and entertainers spoke out against the atrocities in Darfur and uniformally encouraged more action. Russell Simmons, Rev. Al Sharpton, and Governor Jon Corzine were among the long list of speakers that joined spokesmen Clooney and Senator Obama at the rally. “Save Darfur” also pulled together a diverse concert line-up for the event including country music group “Big & Rich”, hip-hop soul singer Maya Azucena, Ethiopian singer Wayna, and The Davey Yarborough Quintet featuring Esther Williams. More than 100,000 people were expected to attend.
As the “Save Darfur Coalition” picks up steam in the third year of the ethnic cleansing in Darfur, will the Coalition’s efforts be enough to stop the Sudanese government-sponsored Janjaweed from killing, raping, poisoning and burning? Will the humanitarian groups get enough funding to save the lives of the large and growing number of displaced refugees? Will Sudan and neighboring countries be rescued from the imminent destabilization of the region and its devolvement into fertile breeding ground for new terrorists? “Save Darfur” will continue to call for pressure on the western governments to do more in the hope that these questions will be answered and their efforts will be enough. |
| Alia Jones is the engine that makes the Nat Creole ride ride. And she has a conscious too. Nice. |
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+essay
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inventing africa
+milton allimadi |
When New York Times reporters such as Lloyd Garrison in the 1960s and Joseph Lelyveld in the 1980s filed news stories from Africa, editors at the Times routinely fabricated scenes and manufactured quotes for their articles. In some instances, the foreign editor colluded with the reporter to manufacture scenes that they believed would conform to the racist stereotypical biases that U.S. readers had come to expect in reports from Africa.
When I brought these examples of racist journalistic concoctions to the attention of New York Times editors more than 10 years ago, I was virtually ignored. That is why assertions by Times editors that reporter Jayson Blair's concoctions and fabrications reflected a "low point" in the newspaper's 152-year history (5/11/03) were disingenuous. A much lower point had been reached in the 1960s, when the newspaper began covering Africa consistently, as I discovered when I dug up documents from the Times' archives in 1992.
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At the time, I was a Columbia journalism grad student researching the evolution of the paper's African coverage. As nationalism swept across Africa in the early '60s, the New York Times sent Homer Bigart, the famous two-time Pulitzer-winning reporter, to cover the transition. In Ghana, Bigart wasn't impressed by independence hero Kwame Nkrumah, as a letter he sent to foreign editor Emanuel Freedman in January 1960 reveals:
"I'm afraid I cannot work up any enthusiasm for the emerging republics. The politicians are either crooks or mystics. Dr. Nkrumah is a Henry Wallace in burnt cork. I vastly prefer the primitive bush people. After all, cannibalism may be the logical antidote to this population explosion everyone talks about."
When I first discovered Bigart's letter, I assumed that--even with the prevalent racism of the time--it reflected the ranting of one racist reporter. Then as I read the reports that Bigart filed from Africa that purported to be straight news reporting, I found a near-perfect correlation between the language he used in his letters and the feelings he expressed in the purported "news" reports. Bigart's favorite terms in reference to Africans included "barbaric," "macabre," "grotesque" and "savage."
Typical of his prose was an article published in the Times on January 31, 1960, under the headline "Barbarian Cult Feared in Nigeria." Focusing on a reported incident of communal violence, Bigart assumed a jaunty and derogative tone, writing: "A pocket of barbarism still exists in eastern Nigeria despite some success by the regional government in extending a crust of civilization over the tribe of the pagan Izi." He went on:
"A momentary lapse into cannibalism marked the closing days of 1959, when two men killed in a tribal clash were partly consumed by enemies in the Cross River country below Obubra. Garroting was the society's favored method of execution. None of the victims was eaten, at least not by society members. Less lurid but equally effective ways were found to dispose of them. According to the police, about 26 were weighed with stones and timber and thrown into flooded rivers. No trace has been found of these bodies. A few were buried in ant heaps. But most became human fertilizer for the yam crops."
"Where else but the Times?"
Foreign editor Freedman shared Bigart's contempt for Africans and the assignment. In a letter to his African explorer, dated March 4, 1960, Freedman wrote:
"This is just a note to say hello and to tell you how much your peerless prose from the badlands is continuing to give us and your public. By now you must be American journalism's leading expert on sorcery, witchcraft, cannibalism and all the other exotic phenomena indigenous to darkest Africa. All this and nationalism too! Where else but in the New York Times can you get all this for a nickel?"
When the savages were nowhere to be found, Bigart and Freedman took matters into their own hands. As independence neared for what was then Belgian Congo, Bigart complained to Freedman in a May 29, 1960 letter from Leopoldville, which is now Kinshasa: "I had hoped to find pygmies voting and interview them on the meaning of independence but they were all in the woods. I did see several lions, however, and from Usumbura I sent a long mailer about the Watutsi giants." (Usumbura is a Burundi city now known as Bujumbura.)
The Belgian Congo had experienced the most bloody and brutal history of European colonial rule and exploitation in Africa. During the rule of King Leopold II, an estimated 10 million or more Africans were exterminated and countless more permanently maimed or disfigured, all in the quest for wealth. African slave laborers who did not deliver their designated quota of ivory and rubber had their hands severed, to motivate other slackers. Yet Bigart and Freedman's utmost concern was to find pygmies to malign.
When he failed to find pygmies, Bigart did the next best thing: He concocted them, as indicated by his article published in the Times on June 5, 1960 under the derisive headline, "Magic of Freedom Enchants Congolese." The article began: "As the hour of freedom from Belgian rule nears, 'In-de-pen-dence' is being chanted by Congolese all over this immense land, even by pygmies in the forest."
"Independence is an abstraction not easily grasped by Congolese and they are seeking concrete interpretations," Bigart added, before continuing to denigrate the pygmies. "To the forest pygmy independence means a little more salt, a little more beer."
Continued concoctions
Was this some aberrant episode between Bigart and Freedman? Hardly. The Times tolerated concoctions so long as the newspaper could get away with it. Even when Times reporters complained, editors continued to insert concocted scenes and quotes into their articles.
Consider the case of Lloyd M. Garrison, a descendant of the great American abolitionist, who was the Times' first West African correspondent during the 1960s. Garrison covered the Nigerian civil war, but was expelled by the military regime for alleged bias in favor of the Biafran secessionists.
In a letter from Nigeria dated June 5, 1967, Garrison complained bitterly that "tribal" scenarios had been inserted into the edited version of his story, which had been published on May 31, 1967 in the newspaper: "The reference to 'small pagan tribes dressed in leaves' is slightly misleading and could, because of its startling quality, give the reader the impression there are a lot of tribes running around half naked," Garrison wrote to the foreign desk. He protested the numerous uses of the derogative term "tribes" in his story, and added: "Tribesmen connote the grass-leaves image. Plus tribes equals primitive, which in a country like Nigeria just doesn't fit, and is offensive to African readers who know damn well what unwashed American and European readers think when they stumble on the word." Garrison noted that the insertion "invites the image of savages dancing around the fire."
Editorial insertions of stereotypes and fabrications into a Times reporter's copy extended at least into the 1980s. Consider the case of Lelyveld, who completed two tours as a correspondent in South Africa. In the '60s he was expelled by Pretoria for suspected socialist leanings; he returned as the Times' correspondent during the 1980s.
In December 1982 (12/19/82, 12/26/82), Lelyveld wrote a pair of articles about South Africa's segregated education system and its denial of adequate funding to black schools. Editors watered down his reporting, prompting Lelyveld to fire off an angry complaint to foreign editor Craig Whitney. In one letter, dated January 6, 1983, Lelyveld complained that "virtually all the original reporting" conducted over a one-month period had been omitted. In one story, the subject of white control and racial hierarchy in the education system was completely deleted, he complained. The printed version of the article was like "a salami sandwich without the salami, just slabs of stale bread"--or, "if you prefer a baseball image, the wind up without the pitch, in other words a balk."
When fictitious "officials" were inserted into another one of his stories, Lelyveld was livid, as indicated in a letter dated April 18, 1983, which he sent to Whitney:
"I wrote the following sentence: 'The idea of a referendum among blacks was never considered for the obvious reason that it would be overwhelmingly defeated.' That became: 'Officials made it clear that the idea of a referendum among blacks . . . etc.' To what officials did the rewrite person talk? How does he or she know they made it clear? This exact phrase has been written in my copy before. Officials make damn little clear here."
Lelyveld later wrote Move Your Shadow, a sensitive book outlining the corrosiveness of apartheid, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. He later became managing editor and retired as executive editor in 2001, before coming back to serve as a transitional editor in the wake of the Blair fiasco.
"Occasionally distinguished"
While one can understand why Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. and the newspaper's top editors would prefer the public to believe that Blair's transgressions are uniquely aberrant, the evidence indicates otherwise. Moreover, Sulzberger and Lelyveld certainly can't pretend they are unaware of this research.
In January 1992, the Columbia Journalism Review agreed to publish excerpts of my master's paper about the Times' African coverage. After CJR backed out, I obtained a copy of the edited version of my paper. To my astonishment, this is what CJR editors had inserted on my behalf before rejecting the article:
"Recently, the Times granted me access to its archives, including correspondences from the 1950s, when the paper sent Bigart to Africa on a temporary assignment. After studying the archival material, I interviewed several present and former Times reporters. The following excerpts from that material and from lengthy interviews are not intended as an indictment of the Times--whose African coverage has occasionally been distinguished-but as a means of highlighting a problem that all news organizations need to address."
Presumably some CJR editors feared how the Times would react; after all, CJR was a possible beneficiary of largesse from the Times' foundation, and many editors and reporters hope to end up at the Times. So I did the CJR editors a favor and sent a copy of my paper to Sulzberger. Eventually I received a letter from Joseph Lelyveld, then the managing editor, on behalf of Sulzberger. He conceded that my research had unearthed articles with "crude and ugly" language. Yet there was no offer to publish corrections. Later, when I proposed to publish an op-ed article in the Times to shed light on its ugly past with respect to Africa coverage, the op-ed editor--Howell Raines--didn't respond.
This February, I published The Hearts of Darkness: How White Writers Created the Racist Image of Africa, a book that details Western newspapers' history of demonizing Africans, including the Times' racist fabrications. I sent copies to Sulzberger and to other Times editors before Jayson Blair's lies burst into the limelight. I still await a response from the Times and an offer to acknowledge the wrongs perpetrated against Africa.
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Milton Allimadi, a former New York Times stringer, publishes The Black Star News, a weekly newspaper in New York City. The author of The Hearts of Darkness: How White Writers Created the Racist Image of Africa (Black Star Books, 2003), his email address is miltonallimadi@hotmail.com. A version of this article appeared in the Black Commentator.
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.:: art |
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| +questions. answers |
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+ click image to enlarge |
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marcia jones.
artist.
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Marcia Jones seems to always be at the center of things. From her global travels as a performing artist with cultural avatars such as Mos Def and Sara Jones to her ongoing collaborative relationship with poet/ artist/ musician/ giant Saul Williams to her shows at the New Museum of Contemporary Art (NYC) and the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago) Marcia is an art lifer. And I use that term carefully and respectfully because- quite simply- She is an crucial figure in the progression of creative thought, both for what she produces and for what she inspires others to produce. Then on top of all that, she layers beautiful things upon beautiful things like a Marvin Gaye vocal track. What else is there?
Nat Creole: Tell us a little about your background. What events led you to become an artist?
Marcia Jones: I was born in Chicago IL in 1972...my grandmother, who was my primary care giver, was a seamstress...so on the daily we would go to her dress shop on 79th and Halsted...sitting with her all day… watching her cut patterns, pick fabrics, sketch design, and interact with her clients...I'm pretty sure it was this process that influenced me the most...as well as my mother who would travel to the Northside on the weekends with me, coloring book and crayons in tote, to visit her "artist" friends...as a child I could sit for hours just coloring. I grew up in a house with 5 children, my mother being second to the youngest….so there was always alot of commotion...I would hide under beds, in closets...and, my favorite…under the kitchen sink with a flashlight and color for hours.
It's when I got to Clark that I realized that in the spectrum of young black America...I was a "creative" person. My major in journalism didn't go too well...got kicked out of the department...my major in Business landed me out of school for a semester…so when it was time to return, Fashion Merchandising and Design was the only place I felt I could fit in. It was there that I finally felt like I was "college" material. After graduation I worked as a Freelance stylist in NYC, had a grunt job as a personal assistant for an editor of a major women's fashion mag....and met a lot of amazing people. The lifestyle was great but I felt as if a part of myself wasn't being fulfilled…it was an extremely shallow world.
The painting came out of that void. Once I got pregnant with my daughter Saturn, I knew that my life in Fashion was short lived...and sure enough it was...3 months in I was as good as invisible. Painting became my primary gig.
NC: So there wasn't an eureka moment. That space where it occurred to you that you not only have an urge to create, but a voice as well?
MJ: Yeah...my first paintings were very much about exploring that discovery about myself. Being pregnant allowed me, for the first time really, to examine myself as a vessel, tune into the very pure and true essence of creating. So I utilized the pregnancy and the birthing experience as a catalyst to question the very concept of creation.
NC: Speaking of drawing from your experience. You’ve have had an impressive range of experiences that seem to have grown directly or indirectly from your relationship with your art- a student, a teacher, art in movement, art in reflection- do you have a sense of having lived a life so intertwined with creativity and personal (and group) expression?
MJ: I often try to look at my life objectively...and yes, my life is creative. Every aspect of my life is lived as a "work in progress." Constantly in movement, exploration, production, and change. Even my person...I try to look the same for more than a week so I can be recognized…but the first thing a person will say is "I didn't even recognize you…you look so different from the last time I saw you.” I find that comforting and disturbing at the same time...but the muse demands it.
NC: You know my first thought is to talk about the personal nature of your work. But really it is layered with themes that mix past, present and future in a very profound way. Do you agree with this assessment? Is it your purpose to collapse time?
MJ: You know I was a phone physic for a while and very damn good at it. So yes I think I have a very keen ability to look at past, present, and future from a visual standpoint and I know it plays a role in how I create. There are times when I'm working on a piece and things will just flow out of me, that are of my past experiences...that's usually what starts me off. Then the next layer is very current, articulating where I am currently in the process, its about what I've learned or discovered about the past experience...but then there's that moment when I'll be dreaming of the finished product...the images usually come in my sleep...I'll jump up and paint till the sun comes up…and bam!...the future.
I look back at some of my pieces and say "Wow I didn't even know"...but by this point I will have lived through what it was that I produced from that dream.
NC: You have solidified your reputation in the performing arts as well as the visual arts. How, if at all, is your approach to performance art different from your approach to visual art?
MJ: Performance Art is immediate. You have no time to conjour. You have to show up connected, and ready to create. You don't have time to "think" it's all very in the moment. I'll try to cheat and say "ahhh I'm gonna do this.." but once you in front of that blank canvas in front of an audience...it never works out that way. I feel like I'd be cheating my audience to show up with a sketched canvas… that's all too easy. They want to see, and I want to give them, that urgency. It's very much like making love. You don't contrive making love to someone...who enjoys that?
The process in the studio is very different. You have time, no expectations. You can plan. Rework it over time. Pine over it as long as you want...no one is watching...or participating. You have almost too much time for self examination and critique… No urgency… which is why I have a harder time creating in the studio. Performance Art is demanding… and I like to be ordered around from time to time… the rewards are more bountiful.
NC: How does the fact that college offered you such an important time of discovery and growth affect how you interact with your students?
MJ: On the first day of class I pull out my Clark Atlanta University ID…which they call my throw back!! (laughter) And I tell em' you can't play a player! I've been there and done it…right here in this very department...I'm actually really hard on my students. I have very strict standards, only because I know what it's like, and what will be required of them, as well as, what has been provided to those who they'll be competing against…CAU requires you to be as creative as you can possibly be, and meeting that requirement will help you survive in the world, that's all you have to compete with! We don't have the state of the art anything so your shine has to come from within, it's mandatory and if you can't muster that up and out…go somewhere that will pacify you and provide you with all the perks…but realize you'll all look the same in the very end. Polished and produced...and the only thing that will allow you to stand out in that arena is the creativity in the work...the work always speaks for itself...
NC: Who or what are some of the people, events or ideas that have influenced your work? Does the greater impact come from other artists or from other places in your life?
MJ: I can't lie. My experiences are my influence. The people involved with those experiences...my muses (laughter) so to speak. I build on those experiences by interjecting critical thought…but for the most part...it's the experience...I love Nan Goldin! She has an amazing way of making the "ugly" so beautiful. That's my one of my goals when articulating my story...a lot of it has to do with pain and disappointment...but one of my goals is to present it so beautifully, that you don't even know you are witness to something so painful....I started a series of work during my fellowship in South Africa titled A Beautiful Suffering I'm gonna build more on it this summer...Its about my relationship with Saul Williams...as a response to the book SHE, which is about the demise of our relationship. A Beautiful Suffering will basically tell my side of the story...
NC: Where are you now? What ideas, themes or projects are you dealing with at this moment?
MJ: I am currently examining Love...I am working on a series of "love notes" structured like the kind you use to write in school.... but the content is very adult...I am thinking about how we "love" as young adults and as adults. How we censor ourselves after a certain age to deem ourselves more refined and sophisticated. When really all you want to say is “I really like you…you wanna be my...the love notes also touch on how we absorb pain, and allow that pain to dictate how we interact with others. How we hold someone else accountable for someone else’s "wrong doing." I'm also introducing the "no victims" concept into the work…that at some point we have to become accountable for our actions and realize that there is always a moment of choice. I should also say that I am not just examining pain...I am exploring all aspects of love…pleasure, idealism, fantasy, lust, condition, aloneness, desire, altruism.... Hopefully it'll be cathartic enough for me to actually fall in love...and then the real magic starts...it's almost a test...so a testimony can happen. |
| Marica currently resides in the ATL where she designs on behalf of Jessica Care Moore's More Black Press publishing company; teaches on the behalf of Clark Atlanta University; curates on the behalf of her fellow artists and creates for the common good. Visit her at www.myspace.com/untitled1972, she is good company to keep. |
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| +profile. the state russian museum |
Academic Hall of the Mikhailovsky Palace
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times of change. exhibition
st. petersburg, russia
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Grand and majestic, the State Russian Museum is a sprawling complex of palaces and gardens with over 400 current exhibits. The museum was Russia’s first state museum and now houses over 400,000 pieces of art. The Mikhailovsky Palace housed the entire collection early in the museum’s history and now houses the permanent collection which features oil paintings, sculptures, and graphics. The Stroganov Palace, Marble Palace and St. Michael’s Castle were acquired by the museum in the 1990s and now house exhibits as well.
The museum strives to include every genre of art. Along with the “Times of Change” exhibit, some other current exhibits are “Russian Art in the Context of World Art Process”, an exploration of international contemporary art, and “The Avant-Garde in Russia”. |
The Marble Hall of the Marble Palace |
Exhibit Press Release:
The Times They Are A-Changing
On April 27, the State Russian Museum opened the Times of Change exhibition in the Benois Wing of the Mikhailovsky Palace.
The large collection of the art of the 20th century stored in the Russian Museum helps to "reconstruct" the atmosphere of the artistic life of the 1960-80s within the frame of the Times of Change exhibition. On the one hand - the official art, in which the artists of the "harsh style," along with representatives of the generation of the 1970s, rank first - Korzhev, Andronov, Nikonov, Moiseyenko, Zagonek and others. On the other hand - there are apartment exhibitions of the "underground" represented in works by Arefiev, Weisberg, Rabine, Yankilevsky, Tselkov and others.
Shots from photo and cinema chronicles, music, poetry and feature films from the 1960-80s help to reconstruct the "image of the epoch" (an analogy taken from such exhibitions as the Art of Stalin's Epoch and the Agitation for Happiness).
The exposition will include more than 200 works from the Russian Museum collection, the Ludwig Museum in Aachen (Germany) and several private collections. The exhibition became possible with the contribution of the Ekaterina Cultural Foundation. |
For more information on the exhibit, please visit The State Russian Museum at http://www.rusmuseum.ru/eng/ |
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.:: music | dance |
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dj subs. brooklyn. ny
dj. producer |
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The act of creating can be the most enthralling, frustrating, soothing, panic-inducing, ponderous, perplexing, mitigating, motivating, fixating, suffocating, titillating, castrating endeavor a person could fall into. But the truth of the matter is there is nothing like bringing what henceforth was only a shifting idea into being.
We’re hip to that feeling here at Nat Creole. We like to create things too. In fact, we like the idea of bringing things into this world so much that we decided to start a new column based purely on this notion. We call it Process, as in the method by which one brings ideas to life. Like GE. No, check that, not like GE. Like you and me. Like DJ Subs, a Brooklyn based DJ that spins and produces Broken Beat, among other musical forms, and likes to spend copious amounts of time in the lab making things. Nat Creole decided to ask Subs to break down how he breaks it down. This is what he said… |
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On Broken Beat
+ What element of the music is at the heart of Broken Beat and where does the form fit in the lineage of Black music?
I've watched broken beat over the past years turn from predictable drum patterns and basslines to the now very complex chord progressions and changes of a modern jazz assembly… it's truly the fusion of different sounds and cultures into one genre of music... you have the techno element...the dancehall element…samba styles...with traditional African and jazz styles fused together..
On Musical Development
+ You've moved into playing the keys more and more. Can you trace your musical development from where you started to where you are now?
I’m playing the keys because I want to really understand the fundamentals of music... broken beat is basically derived from jazz so with that your gonna have to know how to play some sort of instrument while working on production… my musical development basically started with djjng in the mid nineties...but before that, when I was about 9-11 years old… I had an old synthesizer...a boombox and I used to fuck up my mothers turntables trying to scratch on those joints back in 83-84… from djing its a natural progression to want to learn about production…production can get real deep.. and I’m real mental so it gives me a lot to think on... synth programming....drum programming… it's enough to go crazy... but in time I will have it even more figured out than I do now..
On the Daily
+ What is your daily schedule like? How do you spend the majority of your time?
I try to wake up early in the morning... play piano... then record shop online… right now I’m working on my next mixtape so getting the latest records is kind of a priority right now…might finish a track, throw one away...turn on the turntables and just mix... whatever... the only thing thats very scheduled in my life right now is school... and I’m learning a shitload of stuff on the piano... its beautiful...
On Process and Patterns
+ Tell us about your process for creating music. Is there a pattern? How do you come up with an idea and then bring it into existence?
Yeah maybe... soul...sounds...sequence...if I stress out I might just hop on my bike and ride deep into Brooklyn or sit on the Manhattan bridge and just watch the city.. I’m trying to get out of creative patterns... everything I do I’d like for it to be a bit different...sometimes I can be playing piano and hear a nice chord and try to build something off of that...or maybe make some new sounds on my keyboard and see if they fit well within a specific drum track...
On Future Forms
+ What musical forms are you looking to explore more in the future?
Probably broken beat... dancehall... drumNbass...Baile Funk ...house...and hip hop... basically everything... |
DJ Subs does get out and if you wander into brooklyn you may just see him riding out. Or you can visit him at www.myspace.com/djsubs and listen to some of his tracks. Your choice. |
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+review |
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lou rawls
the best of lou rawls:
the capital jazz & blues sessions
blue note records
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Lou Rawls may be best known to my generation as the spokesperson for the United Negro College Fund and Parade of the Stars but for me, Rawls was the singer that worked with David Axlerod, an A & R that helped shape the sound of the jazz artist Cannonball Adderley. The Cannonball Adderley records I know, namely Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, would not have been if it were not for the sonic format Axlerod followed in making Lou Rawls Live. As one of the albums my parents grooved to Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, in an indirect way, influenced my childhood. And given the impact Axlerod and Rawls had on that album they too, in an indirect way, influenced my childhood.
So when Blue Note Records recently released The Best of Lou Rawls, a compilation of seventeen songs from 8 of Rawl’s Capitol Records albums plus 3 previously unreleased tracks, I had to give it a listen.
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Ironically, his career was almost over before it began. He was in an auto accident with his friend, and fellow soul man, Sam Cooke that left him in a coma for five days. Shakened by his near death experience, Rawls refocused his energy on a solo career. If he hadn’t, we may have never known him or been able to appreciate the works he achieved in his lifetime.
Born on the south side of Chicago in 1933 Rawls started out, as most musicians do, in gospel but he didn’t stay there. He would go on to become a cross genre artist as the liner notes say – blues, jazz, doo-wop, standard or soul. But regardless of the format, when Lou Rawls does a song he takes it to a place all his own and pulls you with him. Fortunately, The Best of Lou Rawls captures this. In this collection are gems like “Motherless Child” a beautiful blues tune from his first album The Soul Stirring Gospel Sound of the Pilgrim Travelers Featuring Lou Rawls, “Blues for the Weeper” a song arranged by Benny Carter that lets you know that life isn’t always roses and “Street of Dreams” arranged by H.B. Barnum. But what this collection truly notes about Rawls is his connection with the common man’s struggles, loves, losses and dreams. Rawls can grab an audience with a monologue like “Southside Blues/ Tobacco Road Medley” off Lou Rawls Live or tell a beautiful jazz-inflected story like “Street of Dreams.” Lou Rawls Live is the album that put him on the map and listening to it today, it still does. A quartet never sounded so good with Rawls in front. I mean really, this cat could rip a song up, down and side-to-side. If you doubt his ability to make a song his, listen to his renditions of “Georgia on my Mind”and “God Bless the Child.” They are all classic Lou Rawls renditions of the human condition. And as hard as it is to bring the rawness of life to a song, Lou Rawls does it. It is no ordinary thing to bring that much empathy to songs. It just isn’t.
If The Best of Lou Rawls is the beginning of knowing him, well, get the albums that these songs are from and enjoy the work of an artist that you can truly feel and does what an artist should do – put you in a specific mood, space and place. The power of a signature voice and energy like his is unmistakable and will be sorely missed.
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Brook Stephenson is the literary editor. But he likes music too. Rest in Peace Mr. Rawls.
We'll never find another... |
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.::literature | travel |
ride or die. marcia jones |
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| +booklist |
Fresh Sliced Fruit
by brook stephenson
If rigorous academic readings bear fruit in knowledge,
then reading for interest or pleasure must bear similar fruit in imagination |
Black Girl Lost
Donald Goines
ISBN: 087067949X
Genre: Popular/street fiction
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Total Chaos
Jean-Claude Izzo
ISBN: 1-933372-04-4
Genre: Fiction/French Authors, int'l
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Tsotsi
Athol Fugard
ISBN: 0802142680
Genre: Fiction/African authors, int'l
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A Detroit writer who was as addicted to drugs as the characters and stories he told. Black Girl Lost is one of many street fiction works that captures and grips and at the end... |
A French translation that has been made into films overseas, Total Chaos is the first in a crime trilogy centered around three youth, two indulged their lives in crime and the third in escape from it, until the other two are murdered within days of each other twenty years later and he returns home to investigate. |
This book turned multiple film festival award winner was outlined in 1960 but was not published until 1980 by well-established South Afrikan playwright Athol Fugad. He illustrates mood and setting like an impressionist painter. |
You Must Set Forth at Dawn
Wolye Soyinke
ISBN: 037550365X
Genre: Memoir/Biography
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Blink
Malcom Gladwell
ISBN: 0316172324
Genre: Business/culture
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Burnt Bread and Chutney:A Memoir of an Indian Jewish Childhood
Carmit Delman
ISBN: 0345445945
Genre: Memoir
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Do not look for the tell all dirty personal secrets here. Soyinke doesn’t agree with making personal life public. Look more for the details of run ins with world citizens, inprisonment and Nigerian political parties, people and revolutions and Soyinke’s part in them. We have many issues in post-colonial Africa as Fraznen studied it. Many are frightening real. Let Wole Soyinke tell it. |
"The Power of Thinking Without Thinking." It's about the heart of prejudice and its cure. Read it. |
The book begins with her telling the tale of three Indian Jewish sects, one of which is very obscure and that is the one she is from. A minority within a minority is nothing to laugh at. It is something many of us can relate too. |
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+snapshot. 8th national black writers conference
overview and perspectives
+brook stephenson
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The Eighth National Black Writers Conference (NBWC) convened at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, New York March 30 – April 2, 2006. The NBWC’s purpose is to be a forum for reading, discussing, and analyzing the literature created by black writers. In addition, the conference addresses the issues, challenges and triumphs of black writers within their own communities and the broader American community. This particular conference was dedicated to the memory of two of our creative landmarks, Octavia Butler and August Wilson. NBWC was humbly grateful to have as honorary committee chair Medgar Evers’ widow, Myrlie Evers Williams. In the Letter from the President, Medger Evers College President Edison O. Jackson noted “we know ourselves through the stories we create. It is our writers and artists who speak to us and for us…” And we do. As Dr. Brenda Greene, Director of the National Black Writers Conference noted with this year’s theme, Expanding Conversations on Race, Identity, History and Genre. But you missed everything, if you missed the first three panels on Day Two. Day Two brought everything into perspective.
The conference actually started Thursday evening with a reception but it was day one panel three that began it for me. I Missed panel two, Hip-Hop in the Classroom, but heard it brought some serious energy and dope emcees, notwithstanding panelists Abioyodune Oyewele, of the Last Poets, and Toni Blackman, U.S. Department of State appointed Hip-Hop Ambassador. Funny thing was, this day was a Friday and it just so happened that New York Public High School students had the day off. It was a nice sunny sixty-something degree day too. The youth gathered into a nice sized crowd and filled the Medgar Evers College auditorium off Bedford Avenue. They even stayed for the next and last panel of the day, Young Adult Authors: Readings and Discussions. Moderated by Dale Allender, the Associate Executive Director of the National Council of English, this panel was an open mike where students were encouraged to ask questions. They did, and the energy from hip-hop panel didn’t wane. It seems that this year’s conference was blessed by beginning with panels geared for the youth and having the youth come out.
Day Two’s theme mirrored the conference’s own, Black Writers Expand Conversations on Race, Identity, History and Genre. Panel one was History as Narrative in the Literature by Black Writers. Its panelists were Herb Boyd, Valerie Boyd, Christopher John Farley and Jewel Parker-Rhodes and was moderated by Adam McKible. After everyone introduced themselves, they opened up for questions from the audience. The main query at the start involved trying to decide how folklore that is considered fact but might really be fiction should be used in a memoir or biography. “It may be more interesting,” Christopher John Farley of the New York Times volleyed, “What does it tell you about the people?”
After this point, the question moved to research and sources. Herb Boyd cautioned everyone about Internet information being authentic factual sources noting that it is “a realm where fact and fiction are confused.” As always, primary sources are the best sources and when offering accounts of our lives and times, documentation usually validates the oral traditions we hold as truth. Just tell our stories right. Not to ignore historical fiction, some questions were put out about how to write that as well. But regardless of all the obstacles, we still should push the envelope on this. Why? They are stories we should be telling even if we weave facts in and out of them. We have always weaved fact and fiction. Edward P. Jones’ book The Known World is 100% fiction but you can’t say it couldn’t or didn’t happen because of the plausibility of it. Some blacks did buy their way out of slavery and some blacks did own slaves.
Panel two, The Paradox of Race and Identity in Literature by Black Writers. Excellently moderated by Linda S. Jackson, the panelists were Mohammed N. Ali, NBWC Co-founder Elizabeth Nunez, Emily Rabateau, and Ishmael Reed. It got kind of ugly in this one for a minute. One panelist didn’t feel her book was getting the proper exposure in African-American literature sections because of the large number of multi-ethnic characters she had in the book. Her perspective sparked comments from the crowd and the panel about writing fiction with multi-ethnic characters and having publishers say that the books are not “black” enough or aren’t interesting enough too be mainstreamed because the author is black. It got pretty heated but Ms. Nunez quickly brought things home saying the black/colored/minority experience is not just about us but about everyone we ever come in contact with (see Blink by Malcom Gladwell for more details). One writer in the crowd tried to deny she wrote about black people or considered herself a black author. Nunez wouldn’t let that fly but the way she didn’t let it fly was everything.
Nunez: “Do you have people of color in your book?”
Black woman who doesn’t write black stories: “Yes but…”
Caribbean writer who writes about black people: “Stop. Do you have people of color in your book?”
Student: “Yes, but I have so many people…”
Teacher: “Stop! DO YOU HAVE PEOPLE OF COLOR IN YOUR BOOK? I’m trying to change how you think. If you have people of color in your book you are talking about black people. It doesn’t matter who else is in there, you are black and whatever your experience is, it is a black experience.”
This is the paradox. Whereas Nunez noted that she saw herself in classic European works, so should Europeans be able to see themselves in works by black writers as well. Our writings are most often placed in a box, when you go outside that box it’s sort of hard for others to cope. As writers of color, we have stories, perspectives and interactions with all races and creeds and to assume that we cannot tell a story that includes credible three- dimensional characters of other races is wrong. What, integration didn’t happen to us? People of color do not travel or have international friends? Integration did happen. People of color do travel globally. We write about everyone as well or as poorly as others write about us. So what’s the problem? It’s just not something that is published regularly or often. I guess we need to take Nunez’s approach and change the way publishers think too. |
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The Speculative Fiction panel dedicated to the memory of Octavia Butler was next. The panelists were Samuel R. Delany, Tannarive Due, Sheree Thomas and Walter Mosley. Their directive was to explore what the rise in this genre reveals about society, search for a meaning in Black speculative fiction and consider the future of the genre. Well, Samuel R. Delany went first. As one of the pre-eminent writers of our generation he should have. He brought it all into perspective when he said, “My grandfather was a slave. Not my great-grandfather, but my grandfather.” He spoke about Butler as one of her instructors and friends, he related his first impressions of her and those of the last time he saw her alive. He moved from that into his own tale and interaction with the nomenclature of Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Fantasy and everything else in the genre. Tannarive Due stepped up next and began to relate her background and life in writing as well as her own interaction with Butler. Sheree Thomas went next. And just when I was thinking, “I sho nuff wouldn’t want to go after Tannarive Due,” she had me wrapped up in her own tale of success with her Dark Matter Science Fiction collections and conversation on how Butler was one of her first active supporters.
After her, Walter Mosley sidled up to the mike and started into a story that had everyone hooked. It went something like…
“So Harry Belafonte called me up one day and said my presence was needed at a meeting of the elders. I didn’t want to go because, well, I’m not that old but when Harry Belafonte calls, you don’t say no.”
Then.
and FOI walking around. But hey, these types of meetings have always been going on. Martin Luther King Jr. used to be at them all the time.”
Somewhere after that.
“Harry related a story to me one time. He says ‘Martin leaned over to me one time and said, Harry, I’m afraid.’
Pause.
“Afraid of what?”
Pause.
‘I’m afraid, we are integrating into a burning house.’
Pause. Pause.
“It was real quiet”
Pause.
“Then someone in the room with King said, ‘why don’t we let it burn to the ground?’
Pin drop quiet pause.
“That’s speculative fiction –taking away what you know and dealing with what’s left. If all the white people disappeared and there was nothing but black people… what, all black people would all of a sudden get along? If there were no more men in the world just women, what would happen then? Women wouldn’t have wars?”
And there it is. The most mind blowing thought is that when you erase everything you know and deal with what’s left, you have our own post colonial, post slavery African history. Who could have imagined that? In this light, everything we write is speculative fiction like Toni Morrison, Colson Whitehead, Caryl Phillips, Matt Johnson and Walter P. Jones to name a few. Each in his and her own right has bent what we know to be true to what could be true and let their imagination and talent run with it. We imagine and create our lives from what we are given. We are speculative by nature. Fiction is what we do at times to make sense of fact and circumstance.
There were three other panels this day and a film screening of “The Gilded Six Bits” which was adapted from Zora Neal Hurston’s short story with the same title. The evening wrapped with a VIP dinner program and a reception with light live jazz musical accompaniment. Tannarive Due and her husband danced, authors laughed among themselves, the new Masters of Fine Arts program for Medgar Evers College was revealed and a city councilman announced his bid for Congress. The next day was filled with workshops on poetry, fiction and reviewing black books; a panel on black publishing and the closing of the conference itself. All in all, everyone who participated walked away with more than they bargained for. Writers buoyed other writers. Everyone made new contacts and the conference definitely expanded conversations on race, identity, history and genre.
For more information about the National Black Writers Conference or any of the panelists mentioned, go to http://www.mec.cuny.edu/nbwc |
Brook Stephenson is the literary editor of Nat Creole. |
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| nat creole. |
Founder/ Editor:
Phillip Harvey
Managing Editor:
Kathi
Davis
Literary Editor:
Brook Stephenson
Business Development:
Alia Jones
Creative Counsel:
Al Burton
Akintola Hanif
Arthur Alleyne
A. Van Jordan
Benjamin Austen
CD
DJ Center
DJ Silverboombox
Ed Myers
Ellia Bisker
Ethan Pines
Gordon Manning
Howard Martin
James Adolphus
Janee' Bolden
Jerry A. Rodriguez
John Ballon
Jon Lowenstein
Julian Conway Wilson Jr
Kenji Jasper
Kijua Sanders-Mcmurtry
Kurokobushi
Larry Scott
Latasha N. Nevada Diggs
Laylah Amatullah Barrayn
Marcia Jones
Michael Romanos
Mike Quain
Miles Marshall Lewis
Milton Allimadi
N. Corren Conway
Nia Woods Haydel
Nicole Thompson
Nyala Wright
One9
Ray Llanos
Renaldo Davidson
Robert Nolan
Sekou Aka Ducarmel
Shannon Cook
Sunni Knight
Tiago Molinos
Wang Shanshan
Yang Yingshi
Yazmine Parrish |
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