You feel it in ya waist: A Weekend of Afro-Beat (Nov 15-17)

I was blessed by my UK WonderTwin, the phenomenal Caro, with the opportunity to attend two dope Afro-Beat concerts. If you're not hip to all the current diasporic musical happenings, Afro-Beat has grown a long way from the Yoruba influenced funk and Jazz of Fela Kuti.

In 2013, Afro-Beat is a genre of a new wave of pop/rap/African fusion. It is the music that supports global dance trends like Azonto and gives voice to a new African identity that has grown up within a broader cultural soundscape. Afro-Beat pulls from both tradition and modern conventions to forge a sound that hits you right in the lower back. Each tune encourages the kind of soul stirring movement that can only be attributed to blood of those who danced revolution and survival throughout the western coast of the mother continent.

I got my first taste of Afro-Beat while volunteering in Ghana the summer of 2012. I remember my first night at "Fish & Friends" a pub in Accra, eating Indomie and watching Serge and the boys dance. That summer my favorites were "Over Again" by Edem & "Chop My Money Remix" P.Square ft. Akon. Before leaving I was gifted a USB full of Afro-Beat hotness. Everything from WizKid to R2Bees to FuseODG. On campus, my Ghanaian brethren Vincent would indulge in random bouts of Azonto with me. We even recorded a video in the snow in an attempt to go viral.

I love an energized crowd. I love watching people give themselves to music, let it take them somewhere as real and as imagined as nostalgia. Afro-Beat does that, even in a relatively sedate London crowd. The GTBank sponsored Wande Coal concert started slow. The crowd was smaller (& younger) than expected but the music was good and I was in lovely company. While Caro had run to check on a friend, one of the girls standing next to us asked me a question about drinks at the venue. I answered her and watched her face light up (my words in red/thoughts in italics):

 "I love our accent" "Where are you from?" I reply, "The states" "Where about?" "Atlanta" "Are you Ghetto?!?!?" "Usually people who sound like you are ghetto," she says with a look of excited admiration. I am stunned. What does she mean? Is she asking If am poor? I say "I don't know...maybe" "Oh, well I had a friend who sounds like you, and she, she was like ghetto" "oh." She goes on to ask where am I from again, this time targeting my country of origin. I say "well...Ghana in theory" She's a bit confused but doesn't ask anymore questions. Her friend says she thought I was Nigerian "Could be" I smile and nod back into my bubble and wait for Caro to return.

The crowd grew as we got closer to the headliner, and by that point it didn't matter. I was attempting to mimic the moves of the two all female dance crews that had graced the stage. Training my body to the new movements, this was not your typical twerkfest. It was a less sex-centric high powered movement of hips, legs, feet and hands. It was the creative genius of a body in rapid harmony with the music. All the varied dances and their respective "theme songs" reminded me a bit of the Snap Music craze of the mid-00s.

Wande Coal is more classic than contemporary. His carrier kicked of in 2008 under the tutelage of industry Heavyweights Don Jazzy & D'banj. Regardless he is still a respected and enjoyed presence throughout the Afro-Beat soundscape. During his set he brought out current international Afro-Beat superstar FuseODG. WonderTwin and Fuse have a special relationship and his performance was a complete surprise. His performance was great, but I was more enthralled by the show of love and excitement Caro put on in the audience.

From L-R: DJ Mika, Gabrielle (Music Mangment), Caro/WonderTwin, Me

Two days later Caro was to event manage an Afro-Beat Showcase in Camden Town. My time in the audience was split between watching her run things and watching the performers. Same waist shaking energy this time in a more intimate setting. Caro graces every project she touches with excellence and professionalism. She has such a good spirit and it is well appreciated by her friends, artist, and clients. I am blessed to have connected with her. The concert ran smoother than smooth. The artist, some of them echoing performances they had given at the Wande Coal show, were energetic and the crowd responded beautifully.

That weekend foreshadowed the fieldwork I will be doing next term in Ghana. I am so inspired and entertained by this new cultural movement and I can't wait to merge my lived experience with it with all my anthropological insights. As Fuse say's "This.Is.New.Africa" and I am a grateful to bare witness.

Late Post RE: The Royal African Society's Film Africa Nov 1- Nov 10

Nov 1st marked the start of The Royal African Society's (RAS) 10-day film festival. My internship, Numbi Arts, has been a long time collaborator with RAS and was asked to run a free workshop during Film Africa Family Say on Saturday November 2nd. I had been anticipating the film festival since my first meeting with the Numbi family. The elaborate foldout pamphlets, composed of showtimes and stills from films, wall paper my campus. Films came from each edge of the continent, exploring the life, the love, the joy, and the anguish of African peoples from all angels. I had planned a trip to Rome,Italy for the end of the week so my participation in the festival was limited to the first 3 days. I was most excited about seeing Andrew Dosunmu's Mother of George, but I hesitated to book my tickets and they sold out. Instead I booked a ticket to a showing of 5 short films including Akosua Adoma Owusu's Kwaku Ananse. 

Saturday, I arrived at the venue to support Numbi with the set-up and running of a 1950s style African Photo Studio. We set the background positioned our props and waited for traffic to pick up. One of my classmates, a loving warm spirited woman of Congolese decent, was volunteering with the Royal African Society. She came over and we chatted while the photographer snapped a few test shots.

Between sips of mint tea and conversation on the artistic development of black youth, I circled the room in search of props and encouraging folks to capitalize on the free photos Numbi was offering. A group called "Open The Gate" had organized an African market. To my left was a woman selling hand crafted Ankara print children's clothing, to my right were hand made dolls that reminded me of the playmates my mother created for me while I was a toddler. Black baby-dolls with natural hair will forever be an item of cultural importance. If "playing house" is when we first come into awareness with our capacities for love and our maternal energies, being able to see, carry, and love a child that looks like you as you were fashioned by the Creator, surely lays the foundation for any conception of self-love.

Of the people who came through our photo-booth were children, bloggers, families, designers, and other enterprising creatives. I enjoyed watching them interact with the camera. 

The next day I took a bus to Hackney Picturehouse to participate in the less active side of the festival. I have never been decidedly "into" short films. Kwaku Anase has received a lot of black/african tumblr hype and I was excited about the reworking of one of the many Ananse The Spider stories that narrated my childhood. All the films were cogent and entertaining though some left me hanging on unfulfilled plot lines.

Kwaku Ananse, directed by one beautiful Ghanaian creative, starring another (JoJo Abot), re-birthed in me an impassioned longing to return to Ghana. It is a strange sort of homesickness that is not at all unfamiliar, having 'theorectical roots' in a place you are generations of violence and exploitation removed from gives way to a series of odd sentiments that I have been blessed with the opportunity to make sense of. 

I left the theater ready for the next chapter in this journey. My time in London is coming to an end (I will be boarding a plane literally some 30 days from tomorrow) and after a brief respite in the States I will be off again. There is so much stirring, in me/around me, that I know this time will be different...perhaps even more meaningful.I still have a lot to do to ensure I make the most of it.

*logs off blog to work on grant proposal*

Not Bad For A Muliagna: Roma, Italia 2013

from Mexican admirers, to stolen legacies- I came, I saw, I conquered.

The Yellow Youth Hostel: Conveniently located near Termini Metro station, this was home throughout my stay. There was bar and mini club for residents only. First time clubbing solo made memorable by a twerking Italian girl and a moderately creepy Mexican admirer.

 Ruins in the Roman Sun: It was so hot. I welcomed the sun and the sweat. I miss it dearly and I have been in london for less than 24 hours :/

 Posse Brethren D'andre Starring in "All Hail Ceaser's Home, Nigga": This boy has been such an important part of this term abroad. Just a little bit of home running around Europe with me. Didn't realize this until he walked me to the bus stop and the separation anxiety I thought I had grown out of reduced me to a bag of tears waiting to board my shuttle.

 Roma, Italia: Shot from the ruins. Just a sample of the beauty and history that surrounded us.

 Colosseum : like a postcard, innit?

 Trevi Fountain: So awe-inspiring. Really touristy and really romantic. I made a wish. Felt like a kid again. A really blessed kid with a family that never ceases to support my dreams. Much love to my mother for making this trip possible for me and to my Daddy for reminding me the value of experience over material "comforts."

 Pantheon: Sooooo Big


Brandeis in The Vatican Museum: Such a blessing to reunite with these lovely ladies. They are studying in Perugia and LIVING LIFE according to all the stories I heard. 

 AnkhsOnAnkhsonAnkhs

 "When Die Bury Me Some Sarcophagi" 

 Random Ceiling in the Vatican Museum

Barkley Hendrick's Family Jules (NNN: No Naked Niggahs)

negligence: October Re-cap Part 1

An entire month has past with nary a post. I could say that life has been happening to fast for me to report it, but I'd only be being half truthful and there's no sense in that. Life has been happening (fact). The month of October passed quickly (also, fact). But not too quickly for me to tweet, and tumbl, and roll around in bed and watch an ungodly amount of Breaking Bad. I'll be better this month. I don't have many left in London and as I wrote to myself in my journal a couple weeks ago "How will I recount this time in my life without written record? What will I make of it in my memoirs - a string of drunken memories and half dreamt realities??"

I am going to try and make these snapshots into the past month as cogent and captivating as my memory allows. Here goes it:

Classes at SOAS:  I get my schedule sorted on the second. Ethnomusicology is a necessary brain drain. My classmates are all musicians, mostly white, who have fallen in infatuation with "world music." I've dropped Ethnography of West Africa for the sake of Prespectives on African Experience and picked up an anthropology course on New Religious Movements. This is my second time taking an Anthro course focused on religion for some reason this course work always seems to find me at times of spiritual need. I have problems with folks in my class who take this cold scientific approach to the study of culture. To try an belittle all the color of someones life into a little box to better dissect seems intellectually cruel. I completely disregarded my requirements (which ended up as predicted) to take Perspectives on African Experience because of an experience that can only be referred to a "love at first lecture." Dr. Kwadwo Osei-Nyame speaks with fire in his eyes and carries that same familiar omniscient nature present in all my favorite teachers in the history of ever. He rambles through the text - mixing the words of Garvey & Dubois & Achebe with that of Bob Marley and other lesser known reggae purveyors. He sings, and curses Babylon. He is so spirited and black and lovely that the alienation and discomfort I feel in my other lectures melt away. I am taking a history course on slavery with a re-occurring theme of "well it was really all in the hands of the Africans." My professor is a white French woman who studies internal slavery in Mali, my TA is a Black woman with shoulder length locs and a smile that apologizes after each lecture.

Adventure #1 The Tate Modern: I tag along with a group of IFSA students to South Bank for some art. One girl and I get separated from the group because of low funds on our bus passes. We have to top-up then catch a later bus. She's a planner, we've strayed from the plan. I adopt the mantra "trust the city" walking with purpose from directional sign to directional sign. I have no idea where I'm going but have lost the will to freak out about it. She's nervous. We get there. It's windy near the water but there's a big wooden structure calling for us to explore it. We wander about this freestanding staircase contraption take some pictures and make our way inside. In an exhibit titled "Poetry & Dreams." I walked through the galleries completely giving myself to the images and text on the walls. In a room with a focus on contemporary realism as a means to discuss unconventional realities, I was visually confronted by a naked black body. A male, one knee bent the other extended to the end of the frame leaning on the arm of an exquisite white couch. He holds a pipe with his headed tilted skyward against a geo-floral pattern. Shoulders hunched, shaft exposed, eyes averted, everything about this figure said "I am here to exist, not for you to see, I am here to exist as I am". The piece was entitled "Family Jules: NNN (No Naked Niggahs)" After reading the title I exhaled a giggle of gratitude, of praise for the celebrated freedom and comfort of this black man (painter & muse). The description accompanying the piece was about confronting white fears and stereotypes of black male sexuality. Simply put, this nigga gave me life. And It wasn't just that it was a bold artistic effort, or that I was shocked to see it in the same space as numerous Picasso's & Polluck's. I looked at this "naked niggah," arrogantly comfortable on these white walls, under this immense white gaze, and saw myself (5 feet of black/woman with a tower of hair and a southern/American accent) walking through London smiling at strangers.

Visit #1: Aliya arrives from Spain on Wednesday. I pick her up. We drop her bags and head to an area of East London called Shoreditch for a meeting with my Internship Family. I am late, and again have no idea where i'm going. Mantra still steady "Trust the city" as I walk in search of a sign or map that may point me in the right direction. I find one, I follow it. We arrive. At RichMix, a cinema/performance space, I meet the Numbi Arts Team for teas and a chat in the cafe. I am given a run down of what my duties are and we talk about everything from art to Baldwin to Rihanna's new "Pour it up" visuals. After the meeting we walk down Brick Lane to get food at this wonderful Indian place tucked off past the street art and vintage shops. More conversation over naan bread. My belly is full. The walk back is cold but I'm so entranced by the energy of the area that I can't speed through it. We get home via the Overground and I'm already planning my return. That night is chill. The next is not. We get go out to "Southern Hospitality's" Hip-Hop Karaoke in central London. It's poppin. Friday there's a not  so poppin' party at the bar across from my dorm. We go. I'm drunk. I dance. I don't care that the room is almost bare or that i'm the object of full on white male gaze. By the time we leave I've decided I'm crushing on the DJ. The next night is chill, partially because of my inability to dress myself. We make a run to the store, eat ice-cream, and watch British TV shows. Sunday morning we get up and head back to Shoreditch. The plan was to grab lunch then get Aliya back for her flight, but the truth about girls in markets is that they tend to lose grip of time. Aliya leaves me at Paddington tube stop around 3 and ultimately misses her flight. I wait up for her searching plane tickets. She returns, It's all sorted. She wakes me in the morning to let her out of the building. She's gone before I pick the crud from my eyes. Such a lovely visit. Almost felt like a dream.

To Be Continueeeeeed