mosadi music

And When You Become Abbey

noreply@blogger.com (mosadi music) — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 18:03:00 +0000

And When You Become Abbey

(on Abbey Sings Abbey, by Abbey Lincoln)

And when you become

a stylist of Triptych scream

the black moan in jim crow’s craw

when you take the Anne out

your name and blame the

absent system, not the song

when your lyric swings low

out-belting the everyday firing range

when the double barrel and

driva’man be damned

you, fortified by your own catalogue,

brassier the second time you sing yourself

when you benedict in blue notes

and your birthstone is a work song,

triple daring and straight -ahead,

when your broad brim leaps

like seventy-seven sleek leopards

and your broach lines a golden throat

pinned to your own breasts headed

South and Southside

when your spine rises out of a meow

growling a gritty scat

and your hand holds a fifty-two card deck of

spades and mangled face cards

and your wrinkles holster a discourse

for drumsticks

when your grandkids are jazz bastards

and you hug them with your whole mouth

and collect scratched vinyl for them to play

like piano keys

OK Radio: Erykah Badu & The Popular History of Groupthink (or The Catch 22 of the Double-Edged Sword)

noreply@blogger.com (mosadi music) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 00:08:00 +0000

Folks are talking bout Erykah Badu’s video for her new single Window Seat. Gotta say, I’m feelin both the song and the video as they both reek of ‘classic Badu’—definitive, affecting, engaging, idiosyncratic ambiguous messaging. To that end, I must say, I didn’t really get the whole relationship to JFK’s assassination, and, upon reading her explanation of it, still find it a stretch:

[At the close of the video]..."As Badu's body lies on the ground, she speaks in a narrative voice to explain the message. ‘They play it safe. Are quick to assassinate what they do not understand….This is what we have become. Afraid to respect the individual."

Most interesting to me, though, is the statement Badu says she's making about "groupthink." Here's what she said to the Wall Street Journal:

"Groupthink that's like a form of thinking that causes you to bury what you really feel inside to please the group so you won't be ostracized by the group….It's a comfort zone that we create for ourselves, and I go outside of that comfort zone."

As I contemplated blogging my thoughts on Window Seat, I said to my partner, “I’m almost not wanting to contribute to the bounty of folks blogging about this now.” She noted the irony of Badu’s diatribe against groupthink and all of the groupla (group + hoopla) that has been generated by her public disrobing. I wouldn’t dare try to guesstimate as to what Badu’s motives for the video (beyond her explanation) are/were but, in some way, Badu is perpetuating the groupthink mentality she’s waging against by whispering the above explanation at the end of the video. In my opinion, the preachy finale serves to flatline what could have otherwise been a moment where the blue-blooded message of ‘groupthink’ left oozing from Badu’s temple onto the concrete could have been the ‘nuf said that allows an already captive audience to hash out its own interpretations. By fighting the urge to encapsulate, sermonize, and offer a neatly-wound conclusion to the trail of textile she left in the streets of Dallas , maybe, just maybe Badu could have assisted in pushing the dialogue out of the realm of ethics and decency requiring Fox News, Facebook updaters, and otherwise haters to actually deal with and dissect the idea of groupthink aroused (pun intended) by Window Seat.

But, ain’t it like black folk to draw some sort of sacred, parabolic conclusion with our art--a desire that is strongly tied to our own intracultural 'groupthink' in relationship to Christianity. I mean, Badu can’t not command and preach (“Y’all know what an ankh is?...Sistas put your hands on your womb…”) Ah, that whole sermonic fixation black folks can’t or choose not to leave at the door as we construct our worlds and works of art…it’s historical. It’s rich. It’s blues. It’s Christian. It’s a whole nother blog post. Amen.

THE POWER OF THE P
Watching Window Seat, I thought of the hundreds of women in Nigeria who stripped naked as a form of protest against Texaco back in 2003. "Setshwetla" as these naked protests are called in South Africa, have long been used by African women to make statements against systemic oppression, which is groupthink at its most authoritative. I see Badu's unveiling in a similar light--as she metaphorically claims her 'chance to fly' by shedding the weighty bag lady persona, she stirs both sexual arousal and shame (no different than a Lil Kim frankly) while asserting a spirit of rebellion.

OK RADIO
I'm reading a really cool book right now called, AMERICAN SKIN: POP CULTURE, BIG BUSINESS, AND THE END OF WHITE AMERICA by Leon E. Wynter which seems to be about among other things (I’m only on page 55), how American identity is rooted in black identity, particularly as identified and expressed in pop culture. Wynter quotes Susan Douglas’ LISTENING IN: RADIO AND THE AMERICAN IMAGINATION where she says:

Radio has supplied white people that private place, that trapdoor into a culture many whites imagine to be more authentic, more vibrant, and richer than their own. Through radio, whites could partake of the spirit of black culture without being forced to witness or experience its deprivations and injustices.

The power of Ms. Badu’s peeling off of clothes and revealing her bodacious black woman body is that she is forcing mainstream (i.e. white culture) to ‘partake of the spirit of black culture’ via the black body, via the black woman’s body, in all of its historical sexualization, victimization, shaming, and re-claiming. Much like the radio in its technological heyday , Badu uses the tools of mass media (a snippet of the video for Window Seat has been aired on Fox News, folks have embedded it on their Facebook pages, websites, youtube, not to mention the manya blog posts, etc…) to penetrate the system of whiteness with a bountiful black ass and all that comes with it including Badu’s message of individuality being stifled by ‘groupthink.’ What Susan Douglas says in relationship to the influence of radio is therefore magnified tenfold by all the various mediums through which we can summons Badu’s sauntering striptease to raise our blood pressure:

As early as the 1920’s…people understood that concentrated music listening—memorizing lyrics, putting dance steps to certain songs, trying to copy chords or harmonies on one’s own instrument at home---shaped individual and group identity as never before….This emotional identification with African American culture, however partial and complicated by racism, spawned fears of psychic miscegenation and informed the reactions against white youth’s using radio to tap into black music.

As mainstream conversations about the video stop just short of assessing the artistic merit of Badu’s expression and conventional dialogues get snagged at the point of morality, I listen closer to the lyrics to Window Seat and feel myself shedding... something, exhaling deeper, which, speaks to the liberation Badu exudes as she melts her black panties and bra down to black skin. At the same time, I recognize that in a matter of cyber-seconds, this whole conversation will dissipate into a public scolding of Kanye West, or a smiting of Lady Gaga’s wardrobe choices. But right now today, I applaud Badu in all her naked finery for stilling an international pop audience in a differently common moment of groupthink. Whether appalled and aghast, illicitly kindled, or unabashedly affirmed we all felt that adrenaline rush as we watched another article of clothing clear Badu’s shoulder and land somewhere back there in our collective, complicated past.

Kwiza: To Come

noreply@blogger.com (mosadi music) — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 14:59:00 +0000

I'm proudly supporting my partner, Kai Lumumba Barrow, as she re-emerges as a visual artist with her first exhibition in... a hot minute:0 Below is the artist statement about the show and one of my favorite photos by Sedrick Miles who came to by the crib (to kai's in-home studio)and took some candid flicks. (yes. she paints in heels:)

Kai's contribution is a 7-piece Hottentot series (it was 6-pieces til bout 3 days ago:). Check out a brief version of Sarah Baartman's story as Venus Hottentot here. It's something else...oh, the many ways and conditions we survive.

a little about the work and the forthcoming exhibit at Brecht Forum in NYC:

Kwiza: To Come, Prodigal Art by Odinga, Barrow, and Goff

Brecht Forum, 451 West St., NY

Opening Reception, April 30th, 7pm-10pm

www.brechtforum.org

"Kwiza is an inquiry of migration and alienation. Collectively, the artists achieve a volatility that inundates the viewer with blood-rich images & textures. Plunging into the reservior of marginality that binds oppressed people, these works are unapologetically political and courageously personal."

I Googled Me

noreply@blogger.com (mosadi music) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:41:00 +0000

So,

I was rummaging through old emails on a rampant search for one particular line in one particular old email, date unknown. As expected, the search was futile as my recollection of the line was a vague scramble of letters dating back to atleast 2000. Anyways, i got sidetracked by an email I'd sent to myself with blog posts and articles about Mosadi Music over the years. And since I'm yet to figure out what blogging is really all about, I thought I'd share some of them here:

From Glide Magazine:

http://www.glidemagazine/hiddentrack/blips-time-to-breal-out-the-freshies/

Mosadi on NPR's 'The State of Things' with Frank Stasio (January 2007):

http://wunc.org/tsot/archive/sot0105c.mp3/view

(that's the handsome Frank Stasio to the right)

Mosadi on OkayGreat.com:

http://www.okaygreat.com/p=343

Mosadi opening for Urban Sophisticate's CD Release as blogged by Jake And Not Jake radio station, WXYC (scroll down to Oct. 8th, 2008 post):

http://www.wxyc.org/blog/2008_10_01_archive.html

Mosadi at Love Production Blog:

http://loveproduction.wordpress.com/soul-sound-feature

Ok. That's it. Lunch is over and I just dropped tuna in my lap.

And a friendly reminder: This Friday, Feb. 26th. The Pinhook. Durham. 10p. Do it.

Details about 2.26

noreply@blogger.com (mosadi music) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 19:12:00 +0000

Hey all,

Mosadi is excited about our upcoming gig at The Pinhook on Friday, February 26th. We will have special guests Mitch Rothrock (The Dynamite Brothers: www.myspace.com/dynamitebrothers) sitting in on a couple tunes (both of which he wrote with his Dyno Bros.). One of the two tunes features lyrics I wrote over music written by the Dyno Bros. These boys are soulful. I love the music they make and we'll be covering (one of ) my favorite Dyno Bros song on 2.26! It's off their first album:

We'll also have special guest, Tamisha Waydens sitting in with us. If you have a copy of Mosadi's debut album, The Window, Tamisha is featured on a song called "Beautiful Tragedy." She also tore the rough off the space formerly known as Blaylocks at my book release party when she sat in on "Jon Anonymous." I look forward to any opportunity to hear Tamisha's powerful, soul-filled voice.

On the bill also are long-time friends, The Proclivities and a Durham-based unit called Shipwrecker. The Proclivities open the evening at 10p and Shipwrecker closes at midnight. Mosadi is sandwiched in between with a set that begins at 11p.

Again, we're looking forward to sharing new tunes. Matt McCaughan is back with us on drums which means great things:) And it's my birthday weekend so come hang with us!

shirlette.

www.myspace.com/mosadilive

MOSADI MUSIC

noreply@blogger.com (mosadi music) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:28:00 +0000

hello world!

mosadi is now officially on the web. and will be updating shows and events and whatever is on mosadi's mind.