The Liberator Magazine | Blog

Nijla Mu'min's "Deluge" / Magical Realism, post-BP oil spill New Orleans, and Black Mermaids

2012-05-21T05:03:00.000-04:00

{liberatormagazine.com exclusive feature}

Nijla Baseema Mu’min is a writer and filmmaker from the San Francisco Bay Area. A 2007 graduate of UC Berkeley, she is now pursuing a dual MFA degree in Film Directing and Writing at Calarts. I've been following Nijla’s work from quite some time, more specifically her recent work -- from her short film Two Bodies, which has screened at festivals across the country, including the 20th Annual Pan African Film Festival, the Fusion: LA LGBT People of Color Film Festival to her essay which is included in the The New York Times-featured book, Love InshAllah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women. Her newest film Deluge involves Drexciyan-like underwater worlds and archetypes. As Nijla describes:

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Deluge is a short film that explores African American’s relationships to water, informed by such traumas as The Middle Passage, the BP Oil spill, and Hurricane Katrina, through the lens of main character Tiana, and her introduction to an aquatic underworld. After witnessing the mass drowning of her friends and struggling with the decision not to jump in, 14-year old Tiana must decide if she will join the order of black mermaids that protect the oil-drenched waters of Lake Pontchartrain where her friends rest. This film is inspired by the 2010 mass drowning of six black teens in a Shreveport, Louisiana sinkhole. None of them could swim. The film blends coming of age drama, magical realism, and psychological suspense to explore traumatic memory in a post- BP oil spill New Orleans.
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A crowd-sourced fundraising effort currently underway ends Thursday, June 14. We reached out to Nijla to learn more about the inspiration behind Deluge.

LM: The premise of Deluge delicately integrates themes such as environmental racism, spiritual relationships with water, Yoruba mythology, and the vulgarities of slavery. When sitting down to write this film, what did your research process look like? And I know you traveled to New Orleans for location scouting. How did being in that space help you develop this story?

Since I was young, I’ve been fascinated with black history and people. My artistic practice is largely informed by continued research and exploration. I like to think this film is an extension of life passions that took root then. This film began as a poem I wrote in the wake of the BP Oil Spill. I was overcome with thoughts of water lineage and oil trauma, and what that meant for an order of black mermaids who I imagined as guardians of the ocean since the Middle Passage. Around this same time, I read M. Nourbese Philip’s book, Zong!, a poetic recapturing of the court decision regarding the Zong Slave ship where a captain decided to murder 150 Africans by drowning in order to collect insurance money. I also read Salt Water Slavery by Stephanie Smallwood, and was struck by a chapter detailing the many ways that captured Africans died on slave ships. There was a sense of agency in some of these deaths, be it throwing one’s self overboard, or the example of a man who purposely laid out on the top layer of a boat while it rained, and died there. And there were also murders- human beings used as bait for sharks and thrown into the water against their will, only to drown.

When I transitioned from the poem into the screenplay, the story was a complete underwater narrative, complete with black mermaids and ancestral sea cemeteries. As I began to think of the project as a potential thesis film, I knew I wouldn’t be able to capture the full extent of that world in the time and budget I had as a graduate student. I had to figure out how to marry the above-ground story with the aquatic presence of the original idea.

It may sound crazy, but the present structure for the film came to me in a dream. The dream revealed that there was a way to merge the story of the drowning and the black mermaids in a way that conveyed the depth and texture of both, and within a thesis film framework.

Filmmaker Haile Gerima always talks of one’s dreams being the language of cinema. In this case, it was. I woke up, went to my laptop, and wrote the treatment for what would become Deluge.

During my trip location scouting, I was further convinced that this film couldn’t come alive in any other location than Louisiana, and New Orleans specifically. This is a landmass that is so very dependent and linked to water, with areas below sea level. There’s water and moisture all around, the energy is wet, and I felt it all wash over me while there. The Gulf is also an important anchor for the mermaids in the film.

I also wanted to play with themes of oil and its presence in the lives of people- to fry food, to use in our hair, to fix cars, to wage wars. Oil takes on so many meanings and I wanted to explore subtle associations between oil, toxins, teen sexuality, and water. Water as a metaphor for youth and life and, what happens when relationships to water are compromised by oil, industrial residue, and pollution.

LM: This film was inspired by the mass drowning of six black teens in a Shreveport, Louisiana sinkhole. I vividly remember this story as it was linked to my fears of being unable to swim. I remember the story quickly disappearing from the public discourse. Can you talk a bit more why this story needs further exploration and deconstruction?

When I heard about the story of these teens, I kept thinking about what their day was like leading up to the drowning; what they ate for breakfast, what their parents told them that morning, what their conversations were on the way to the Red River. I wondered if they had crushes and if they’d spoken with them that day. I also thought about the surviving teen and how he’d navigate life after such trauma. What would be his relationship to water in the aftermath of this? How would it inform their life? These are all questions and thoughts that overwhelmed me. They wouldn’t let go of me. In that space, I began to build scenes, moments, and characters that would become part of the film.

I don’t consider myself to be the authority of black people’s relationships with water, or even the example of water literacy. I actually taught myself to swim as a kid and have encountered bouts of insecurities about my own competence as a swimmer. This film isn’t a PSA on learning to swim or even an advisory of what happens if you don’t. In so many ways, Deluge is my own personal investigation of water.

I believe the most powerful films start as personal dialogues between a filmmaker and their subject, and then expand into something larger and layered. That is my aim with Deluge.

There are no easy answers or solutions to statistics that black children are three times more likely to drown than white children. There have been, and there are systemic barriers to water access and training. There are toxins and pollutants in many natural bodies of water around urban neighborhoods and communities. There is fear of water, there are insecurities around our hair getting “messed up” after we swim. There is water that isn’t safe to drink or shower in. There was a city that went underwater before the government cared to respond.

Some pools were doused with bleach and acid when black people tried to swim in them. There are so many multi-layered conversations to be had around black Americans and water, and how we can start to collectively reclaim and embrace water. The Shreveport drowning initiated my own conversation with these issues, and I’m hoping that Deluge continues it.

LM: You wrote that the film blends elements from a poem you wrote about black mermaids born from the souls of Africans who jumped, or were thrown overboard slave ships during the Middle Passage. Can you share an excerpt of that poem with us? I am curious about this notion of the Black mermaid and how it reminds me of the story of the flying Igbo.

Yes, I’ve included two stanzas of the poem below. The full, signed, framed poem is available to contributors who donate $25 or more to our Indiegogo campaign.

We sing saline
prayers
with locs of sea weed
and kiss the bones of babies
once dropped
kiss the bones of black men
and women who jumped overboard,
screaming us into the waters-
sea creatures,
surviving unlike them

LM: I glanced at your tumblr, aptly titled “Water Notes” and noticed a few images -- particularly an animated gif of THEESatisfaction's video for "QueenS" tagged as "mermaids". What is a Black mermaid?

A large part of Deluge is the creation of the black mermaid ethos. I think there’s a common, accepted Western conception of mermaids that positions them as mostly sexual creatures that lure people, (mostly men) into questionable circumstances. In my imagining of the black mermaids, I referred to Yoruba mythology, which shifts that western idea of sea beings into a more holistic, universal existence. Black mermaids emerge here as descendants of enslaved Africans and specific types of fish- bettafish, neon tetra, just to name a few. They possess a command of their bodies and some of them are sensual, but not for the sole purpose of male consumption.

I began a surrealist text/companion piece that details the origins of the black mermaids and their present endangerment in the midst of the Oil spill. That text, in addition to the poem, and several drafts of the script, portray black mermaids as distinct characters with different personalities, lives, and conflicts. On my tumblr, I frequently tag images “black mermaids” that inform my idea of these characters. In that particular gif, I am excited and moved by a collective group of black women moving to their own beat but also preserving something together, in that case music. My mermaids preserve spirits and memory in the water, though they may swim in different directions.

LM: Your past work while non-traditional in theme, exist in a more realist genre. In Deluge you are pushing the boundaries of magical realism and Afrofuturism. Why must this story be told through this lens?

My films often address themes of duality in black women and girls, or a certain twoness of being in multiple worlds while in one body. I’m also interested in personal versus public perceptions of self. Whether it’s duality of identity, religion, culture, sexuality, or race, I find the textures of these struggles compelling in the film form.

I’m also interested in subverting people’s ideas of what a “political” film or medium is. While my films may be tagged political, they are actually very personal stories about people undergoing some type of conflict, and often universal in their themes.

Deluge, while venturing into a more magical realm, centers on a character who is also between two worlds- her New Orleans family, friends, and community pre-drowning, and one of water trauma and black mermaids post-drowning. She is a precocious, intelligent girl who comes of age during this experience.

LM: You will be working with Charles Burnett, the director of Killer of Sheep (1977) and To Sleep with Anger (1990). Why did you choose this director as your faculty adviser?

This semester, I took a class with Charles called Advanced Staging. Under his guidance, students stage scenes from their scripts or existing films in class. This was one of the most beneficial classes I’ve taken as a filmmaker and student. As reflected in his films, specifically Killer of Sheep and To Sleep With Anger, Charles is the “master” of the moving master shot. There is something innate and instinctual inside of him that makes it all seem so easy. In class, he offers insight into how the camera can move with characters, flowing in and out of space as fluid as the mood evoked in the scene itself. This type of instruction is invaluable and I’m grateful to have it as I conceive of the visual design for Deluge. This is a film about water, about fluidity, but also about the roaring tide of trauma, and above all else, this will be a film that moves. Burnett’s films get at the core of family, of loss, and of history in a way that makes me want to step into them and dance alongside them. His insight on our project is invaluable in more ways than one can imagine.

LM: One aspect of this film that immediately caught my attention was your collaboration with conceptual artist Kenyatta AC Hinkle. Why did you chose to work so closely with a conceptual artist?

Kenyatta is a visual artist and writer who also attends Calarts. Her work extends across mediums and borders into explorations of lineage, personal geography, the power of naming, and black hair. We’re honored to work with her. It was extremely important for me to capture the image of the black mermaid characters early on so we’d be able to communicate our vision to potential costumers, art department, and film personnel, as well as to brand ourselves with an image the represents this stage of the project. The mermaid logo for our campaign contains the image that Hinkle designed. That is the “Merma” character in the script, and that image will be part of the poster rewards that contributors receive.

LM: Creatives are constantly fundraising for their projects. What makes Deluge especially important to support? What sets this narrative apart from other narratives?

You know, I’m always careful about presenting my work as “the first film that...” or in a way that brings down others.

Ultimately, this is a story that won’t leave me alone. It’s a story and film that keeps me up way into the night obsessing and worrying about whether everything will come together in time to make it. It’s story that has enveloped my being and probably will until it’s picture-locked.

I hope that dedication, that passion, the dozens of script rewrites, and determination translates into the project that people are reading about and thinking about as they browse our Indiegogo campaign. I want people to want to become submerged in this narrative.

LM: With all the excitement around this film, what aspects of the film are your nervous about?

Filmmaking is the ultimate test of nervousness but that usually means you’re passionate and will put that nervousness to the test. At this stage, I really have to trust my nervousness as a sign that all the hard work we’ve put in thus far will result in a project that accomplishes what we set out to do. For the past six months, I’ve lived in this elevated state of emotion, frustration, and excitement. I don’t think it will soon end. The test is to preserve my mind and body as the countdown continues.

LM: As a filmmaker, whose work -- film, literature, music, etc. inspires your work?

Oh my, so many people.

Right now I’m thinking of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s work- Amores Perros and Biutiful. He has a compelling way of layering stories and emotion into a cohesive narrative and the impact is always so visceral and earned.

I’m also thinking a lot about Haile Gerima and my experience taking his Third World Cinema class at Howard University. I don’t think I’d be the storyteller I am now without his insight.

I’m also thinking about Martha Southgate’s most recent novel, The Taste of Salt. I finished it in one night and stayed up thinking about it for hours. It’s a cross-generational exploration of one black woman’s relationship with water and the ocean, reflected in her family’s alcoholism, and her career as a marine biologist. This book serves as one of the main reference texts for Deluge.

I could go on and on but I have to say that I’m really moved by people. The people moving through world daily, and trying to figure out which way to go. I make movies that reflect them. I make movies for them.

Groove De Lá {ep/mix}

2012-05-05T14:05:00.001-04:00

Info: "DJ, music researcher, and collector of vinyl, Ju Salty began her advances in sound at the end of 2006 and from then to now has spun alternative in the best houses of Sao Paulo. Black music of the world are her influences: From seeds collected from African musicality that spread to the rest of the world, from jazz to samba, funk to soul, Latin music to Candomblé, everything coalesces in the same pot in their sound..."

Groove De Lá (download)

01.Manu Dibango – New Bell (Camarões)
02.The S.A. Move – Skophom (Africa do Sul)
03.Albino – Jing Bong Wah (EUA)
04.Lafayette Afro Rock – The Gap (EUA e França)
05.Orlando Julius – Afro Instrumental (Nigéria)
06.Marijata - Bualc Through (Gana)
07.Fanga – Crache La Douleur (França)
08.Antibalas – Who Is This America Dem Speak Of Today? (EUA)
09.The Boogoos – Theme For Issac Kirya (Alemanha)
10.Mahotella Queens– Wozani Mahipi (Africa do Sul)
11.Ebo Taylor – Victory (Gana)
12.3rd Generation Band – Obiye Saa Wui (Togo)
13.The Daktaris – Musicawi Silt (EUA)
14.Rob – Read The Bible (Gana)
15.The Mebusas – Son Of Me Bull Dog (Nigéria)
16.Osibisa – Somaja (Inglaterra)
17.Tony Allen & Jimi Tenor – Against The Wall (Nigeria e Finlandia)
18.Mulatu Astatke & Heliocentrics – Cha Chá (Etiopia e Inglaterra)

Dr. Greg Carr on American History TV / Black Movements and Memory

2012-04-18T04:00:00.000-04:00

Slavery By Another Name {film}

2012-04-01T03:00:00.000-04:00

Slavery By Another Name (stream)

Info: "Douglas A. Blackmon shares how the project Slavery by Another Name evolved.

Slavery by Another Name “resets” our national clock with a singular astonishing fact: Slavery in America didn’t end 150 years ago, with Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. Based on Douglas A. Blackmon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, the film illuminates how in the years following the Civil War, insidious new forms of forced labor emerged in the American South, persisting until the onset of World War II.

“It is rare to have the opportunity to bring to television a story that, outside of academic circles, is virtually unknown,” says tpt National Productions’ Catherine Allan, executive producer of the 90 minute documentary for PBS. “In telling the story of what happened to African Americans over the 80 year period of “neo-slavery”, we hope to add a significant new facet to America’s ongoing discussion about race.”

While to most Americans this is entirely new history, for journalist Blackmon, the film explores a very familiar—and personal—topic.

“It feels like I have been writing about race and America's tortured struggles with it for all of my life,” said Blackmon. “I grew up in a little town in the Mississippi Delta in the 1960s and 1970s, a place where the country's racial turmoil was playing out very vividly and locally.”

“The book in some respects began with an essay I wrote in the 6th grade about a farm labor strike on the outskirts of my town in the mid 1960s. I was intensely aware of what was happening, and the stakes involved, and began trying to understand how such a scrambled set of circumstances had come to pass. “

Blackmon’s lifelong quest for reasons behind America’s struggles led to his bestselling book. And as the book was translated into a documentary, Blackmon served as the film’s co-executive producer. “Making the film was a thrill,” said Blackmon. “In the book I tried so hard to treat the victims of enslavement as three-dimensional, real people, with complex, valuable lives that had been wrecked by these terrible injustices.”

“But there is only so much you can do with the printed word. Seeing those characters portrayed by actors and giving voice to their words from a century ago was really powerful.”

The film, shot on location in both Birmingham and Atlanta, is built on Blackmon’s extensive research, as well as interviews with scholars and experts about this historic period. It also incorporates interviews with people living today, including several African American “descendants” of victims of forced labor who discovered their connection to this history after reading Blackmon’s book.

“As I’ve traveled, discussing the book and meeting readers, a stream of African-Americans have related to me how the book made them reassess their own family histories,” said Blackmon. “So many people tell me they were uncertain about accounts passed down by forebears which seemed to suggest that families were still being held as neo-slaves in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Then they read the book and realized that in fact the old stories are very likely to be true–that thousands of people were living in a state of involuntary servitude well into the lives of millions of Americans who are still alive today.”

“Doug’s book really made this topic explode out into the open, so we could see how the subjugation of African-Americans was systematically accomplished, through the state governments and through the lack of federal involvement, after Reconstruction and up to the beginning of World War II,” said producer/director Samuel Pollard. “We’re in this wonderful unique opportunity with Slavery by Another Name to again go back and understand the African-American experience in the South from a perspective that hadn’t really been defined.”

In addition to descendants of forced laborers, Blackmon and the filmmakers also explored the “aftershocks” experienced by those whose family heritage features purveyors of the brutal practices. Cristina Comer, the great-great-granddaughter of Alabama governor B.B. Comer, learned that her family members were active participants in the brutal system. Comer described her reaction to this information, and her ongoing emotional struggle: “Everything that I looked at had a connection to the privilege that I had experienced, which came at the cost of many black people’s lives. And the sorrow and the deep grief that I felt over that– I can still feel today.”

The film was written by Sheila Curran Bernard, engaged from preproduction through editing to help transform the 400-page book into a powerful, 90-minute movie. ”The book’s overall argument and the depth and scope of its research, obviously, gave me a tremendous head start,” said Bernard. “You play to the strengths of the medium and trust that the film is part of an overall project, which in this case includes not only a best-selling book but also a range of newly-created, web-based resources.”

“In total, the documentary took three years from first optioning the book to broadcast on PBS,” said executive producer Catherine Allan. “It has been an enormous—and very worthwhile—experience.”" (source)

Outsider-Outsider Music: Willis Earl Beal and the Real Blues / "The faith is made devout by his life narrative"

2012-03-17T03:00:00.000-04:00

{liberatormagazine.com exclusive feature}

by Brian Kupillas

Willis Earl Beal was found lying on a sidewalk in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was not actually the singer/songwriter himself, but one of his now infamous fliers that held his self-portrait and a plea for “a nice, pretty girl” to call him. To have seen the flier, the lone figure dressed as if for a date he might have been stood up for, and to have read the logical argument for why he is “a good person” written along the bottom edge, one might have taken the time to call the number he listed beside his portrait and be entertained with a song—after all, Beal is also notoriously forthcoming with his phone number, stating on his fliers that he will sing you a song if you call, or draw you a picture if you write to him. Davy Rothbart, editor and co-creator of FOUND Magazine—a publication interested in bringing the discarded remnants of strangers’ strange lives into the public eye—found Willis Earl Beal, put his flier on the cover of FOUND’s #7 issue, and in doing so sparked an interest in the unheard-of musician. But before Rothbart discovered the artist, Beal had a long, fascinating history.

Predating his desire to be a poet or musician, Beal tried his hand at writing screenplays and even tried out an acting career under the pseudonym “Jack Fate” (referring to Bob Dylan’s character from the film “Masked and Anonymous”). He was even cast in a low-budget indie film which he told me during a phone interview was called “The Eloquence of Gabriel” and was a mock, snuff film. “I’ve always been a big film buff” he said “film is a great inspiration to my writing. Without the images you can’t come out with the words.” When preparing for a role, Beal would use his karaoke machine to record himself “babeling”. “I would just babel all day and all night onto a tape and write down the best of my babeling, memorize it as a monologue and use it to try out for plays in Chicago.” Willis told me however that “most of the actors and actresses [he] encountered were all too pretentious and took themselves all too seriously” and so he tried out a new form of expression. In Albuquerque, New Mexico where he lived on the streets, Beal tried song. He met up with musicians John Mulhouse and Emily Nelson to form a band that would play Beal’s original music, with the primary goal being to get it out into the world. The band was to be called “A Simple Twist of Fate” though Beal mentioned that he thought a funny name would be more suitable, something like “The Retail Dealers” or “Macho Men from the Flea Market”. Whatever the name, the music is what mattered, and by talking with John Mulhouse, it was clear that the music couldn’t have come about more organically. “Willis rarely told us what to do and he never would tell us anything in musical terms” he said, “It was never: ‘Play a ‘C’’ chord here and switch to 4/4.’ It was always like: ‘I want this to sound like sunshine on the grass’ or ‘Let’s play a funeral march.’” The naturalness of the finished product is very much a testament to what Mulhouse says are Beal’s influences; “He’s influenced more by attitude and approach than actual musical style, I think.” John Mulhouse’s hunch could very well be true. When listening to Willis Earl Beal’s material, one experiences an attitude more than a song. Unfortunately, “A Simple Twist of Fate” never found their way to an audience, because the day Beal and his girlfriend broke up, he was gone for Chicago and the band never had the chance to perform. It’s there in Chicago he began playing with the Ghostones and where his fliers became more well-known (probably due to the fact that Found Magazine had published their #7 issue). And there, on that flier, is where Willis Earl Beal became the story everyone wanted to hear.

Beal has been on the rise lately, and although he’s still quite unnoticed, he’s grown enormously popular from where he was on that sidewalk in Albuquerque. Just a few months ago, the man was working for $150 a week at a UPS store and living with his Grandmother in Southside Chicago. Now, Beal is signed to London based record label XL (other artists include The xx, Tyler, the Creator, M.I.A, Jack White and Radiohead), with his album Acousmatic Sorcery to be released April 2nd, and plans to tour Europe at the end of February. Now Beal is simply awaiting his second advance check so he can begin helping out his grandmother monetarily, and of course, find his own place to live. “It’s very surreal to have started alone” he said “I didn’t feel I had any talent…and now to be on this trajectory…”—he had no more words.

Willis Earl Beal’s back story certainly helps his songs work, though in the end, they still have the strength to stand on their own. That strength comes from Beal being true to himself. It’s this strength of the individual journey that calls to mind Gospel, secular Soul and Blues music at their most basic values: struggle and hope. The relationship between Beal and these sects of sound can be hard to hear at first because he brings his own personality through their channels, widening them, even distorting them a bit. But the discordant and muffled grumbling of the backing tracks on songs like “Take Me Away”, and the minimalism of his music on songs like “Evening’s Kiss” only serve as the atmospheric condition for his songs. It’s the singing which translates nearly everything Gospel, Soul and Blues are about. The base values of these genres in the modern era can feel lost on many younger listeners because they tend not to believe the struggle of most contemporary performers. Blues is almost always a few older men at a biker rally playing Blues Rock songs about things that don’t necessarily pertain to them. Gospel simply fell away, and it has not yet had a strong resurgence of interest in it, like Blues did in the 1960’s. The easiest religious music one can find today is Christian Rock which does not truly get across the emotion old time Gospel like Blind Willie Johnson could. The power is simply spoken and not felt. Soul was overtaken by Funk in the seventies as the most important form of Black music, and though it still exists today as R&B, it is not nearly as soulful as it once was when acts like Solomon Burke and Sam Cooke were performing. Perhaps why Beal is being categorized within these categories is due to the fact that he represents their core. “Growing up, I listened to a lot of New Gospel” he said, stating that Kirk Franklin and the Family was a favorite of his mothers, though he didn’t particularly like it. Instead, Beal says “I sought out Gospel Music in my own way. I found negro spirituals and chain gang songs are songs I related to.” This return to the roots is definitely sensed in his music. But Beal isn’t just another flat act clinging to an old form. He’s reintroducing these mediums to the public with a voice that they believe, accompanied by a style of music that only emboldens the faith. The faith is made devout by his life narrative.

Much like older performers like Blind Willie McTell or Robert Johnson, Beal has been shrouded in myth and legacy because his tale is so intriguing. Not to say that his story is untrue, but when told who he is, and where he’s come from, he registers in a part of the brain meant for long-ago and far away heroes of folk-lore. Blind Willie McTell is said to have known Georgia like the back of his hand, learned from his wandering the state with only a guitar, playing songs for those who would listen. Robert Johnson supposedly sold his soul to the Devil at the Crossroads to be able to play guitar as well as he could. It’s with this sort of legend Beal comes to us. “Already my story has been embellished, and I didn’t do it” he claims. It is his story which really makes us want him. He shares this trait with the likes of more contemporary artists too, i.e., Tom Waits and Bob Dylan; two of Beal’s favorites. Waits has always felt like a vagabond who got off some boxcar and found out it was fifty years later and now he’s got to make himself at home with us. Dylan, on the other hand, was so many different things it’s hard to talk about him in such a general way. Nonetheless, he’s “otherworldly” as Beal would put it, and Beal has a hint of that aesthetic too. What truly unites the three is how well they connect that aesthetic to the contemporary audience and create a sense of nostalgia with new, innovative music. You never hear recordings from the 20’s and 30’s utilizing distorted, detuned guitars played like percussion with a man growling over it. But for some reason, when we hear it now, we understand how it associates with those time periods and files so easily within our mental catalog of music. So naturally, as listeners we canonize Beal a certain way, somewhere in the Freak Folk, Blues/Soul category. But Beal would himself deny most claims that he is a Blues singer, or a Soul singer. In fact he finds it “a little frustrating” when he is constantly compared to those styles of music. “It’s not necessarily bad, but I shy away from that a little bit because it’s a characterization because I’m black.” However, Beal does admit that “there’s definitely a connection. I am a blues singer” he said, “but not necessarily because of my voice. I’m a blues singer because I sing about what’s going on in my life on a very personal level. That’s what blues singers did.”

That much is true. Willis Earl Beal makes what many call “outsider” music. That is, music that comes from the fringe, music that does not follow trends and has no stake in being widely accepted or popular. One common thread between these “outsider” musicians is their inherent need to express themselves. Beal may sound like a man worked to the bone in some small South Eastern town, but his idiosyncrasies are what makes him stand out. He’s managed to connect with our cultural obsession for what is old and his generation’s infatuation with music that praises personality over polished presentation (which is what makes them outsiders in the first place). And that’s really what the blues are—unpolished personality. Old bluesmen like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Abner Jay, Mississippi John Hurt, and Leadbelly can all be believed by their audience because their suffering can be felt through their music. What outsider artists like Daniel Johnston, Jandek, Sharkula and now Willis Earl Beal bring to the public is a personality trying to shine through to the world, through the barriers of their own lives, just like the old blues singers used to do. That’s what soul is, rising up over oppression, and it certainly is what Gospel’s all about; getting to the glory beyond this mortal toil. When a man like Daniel Johnston sings “True Love Will Find You In The End”, one wants to believe him, partly because the sentiment is beautiful, and partly because his story—one of lost love, and never ending optimism even through mental disturbance—also resides in a sort of folk-lore where the romanticized values of an older time still reign supreme. Just as when Leadbelly sings “Leaving Blues” you somehow are made to understand his pain and confusion for having to leave home because the woman he’s been living with for the past twenty years doesn’t love him anymore. The same goes when Willis Earl Beal sings “Take Me Away” with lyrics like “My head is heavy but my body is light / Ain’t got enough strength much left to fight / Right now, if you believe.” The outsider has been stripped down and has nothing to offer the world but their most bare, naked self, all flawed and beaten and yet unashamed. Blues music is very similar, and has always been a desperate man’s expression, and outsiders are known to be desperate. One only needs to read a Beal flier to know that. It’s the desperation that makes these artists authentic and real to us as listeners. It is more than just a few songs. It is a story trying to be told.

Miriam Makeba: Ode to Mama Africa in the hour of the wolf {film}

2012-03-16T04:30:00.000-04:00

Info: "Miriam Makeba was born in a South African township, broke through as a jazz singer and grew under the wing of Harry Belafonte into a musical and political legend. Makeba was an impressive sight and took public never mince words: "I do not talk politics, I say the truth." In 1963 she spoke to the United Nations and became a figurehead of the anti-apartheid struggle in her country. It earned her the nickname Mama Africa and led to thirty years in exile. Makeba married five times, lost her only daughter and lived in the U.S., Guinea and Belgium. She was in high cultural and political circles and was itself surrounded by people like Ella Fitzgerald, Marlon Brando and John F Kennedy. Her most famous hit Pata wasPata. The light made her sad that the very apolitical dance song was so successful, but they are not complaining about "the audience chooses what it wants." In 1990 Nelson Mandela asked her personally 'come home' and return to South Africa. She died in 2008 of a heart attack. This richly documented ode celebrates her unforgettable voice, her charisma and her highly paid idealism."

via Africa Is A Country

Dr. K. Kia Bunseki Fu-Kiau / "The Ancestors and Our Connection to Them: The Real Power of Being"

2012-03-16T04:00:00.001-04:00

Info: "Dr. Fu-Kiau Bunseki was Born in Minianga, Democratic Republic of Congo, and is one of the most distinguished scholars of African culture. He was educated in both Western and African systems of thought. His degrees are in the areas of Cultural Anthropology (B.A.), School Administration (M.Ed.), Library Science (M.S.), and in Education & Community Development (Ph.D.). He has been initiated into three major African education systems (Lemba, Kimkimba and Kimpasi) and founded one of the first indigenous research centers in Africa, Luyalungunu Lwa Kumba-Nsi Institute, which was dedicated to exploring and documenting traditionally accumulated Kongo teachings for the post-independent society and its institutions. Dr. Bunseki is considered the Father of Bantu-Kongo modern school of thought. He has published numerous books and articles on African culture. A leading lecturer at universities and cultural institutions in the United States of America where he travels extensively sharing his knowledge and wisdom, Dr. Fu-Kiau lives in Boston. His work has taken him to many parts of the world, to Brazil (Brasilian Federal University of Bahia), Germany (Museum Kunst Palast, Dusseldorf) and Israel (Hafia University). He has more recently and in different locations, run a wonderful full four day empowering program An Unusual Deep Insight Retreat for Self & Community Healing Power based on Bantu-Kongo Cosmology."

"Eyes On The Rainbow" / The Assata Shakur Documentary {film}

2012-03-16T04:00:00.000-04:00

Info: "Eyes on the Rainbow" deals with the life of Assata Shakur, the Black Panther and Black Liberation Army leader who escaped from prison and was given political asylum in Cuba, where she has lived for close to 15 years. In it we visit with Assata in Havana and she tells us about her history and her life in Cuba. This film is also about Assata's AfroCuban context, including the Yoruba Orisha Oya, goddess of the ancestors, of war, of the cemetery and of the rainbow. Gloria Rolando on "Eyes of the Rainbow": "In the struggle of the African American people, many women's voices in the past and the present have always called for social justice, women who throughout the years have shown integrity and firmness in their principles. For this reason, "The Eyes of the Rainbow" is dedicated to all women who struggle for a better world. One of those voices that already forms a part of the history of the African American people is that of Assata Shakur. In the documentary "The Eyes of the Rainbow," she recounts aspects of her path as relentless warrior. We are able to create a meeting with Assata Shakur through the symbols of AfroCuban culture, which offer us beautiful songs evoking the ancestors. Representations of the Yoruba warrior orishas such as Oya and Ochosi support the discourse of this story, which also has its moments of poetry and tenderness as in the dance of Oshun, through which is illustrated Assata's decision to become mother while still in prison. The blues interpreted by Junius Williams and his "Magic Harp," the songs of Sweet Honey in the Rocks, and the Cuban group "Vocal Baobab" give a special stamp to this valiant testimony which defines the spirit of struggle in the African American woman."

The Chinese Are Coming! [film]

2012-02-27T05:00:00.000-05:00

"We're looking to foreign markets, and the West is looking to China."

Info: BBC's Justin Rowlatt investigates the spread of Chinese influence around the planet and asks what the world will be like if China overtakes America as the world's economic superpower. Here, he embarks on a journey across Southern Africa to chart the extraordinary phenomenon of Chinese migration to Africa, and the huge influence of China on the development of the continent. While many in the West view Africa as a land of poverty, to the Chinese it is seen as an almost limitless business opportunity. From Angola to Tanzania, Justin meets the fearless Chinese entrepreneurs who have travelled thousands of miles to set up businesses.

Love on Three Legs

2012-02-24T04:30:00.000-05:00

{liberatormagazine.com exclusive feature}

Love on Three Legs
by Mohamed Ibrahim

Better than my last, and if this lasts it’s for the better. Yesterday was my past, and my present is my forever. Felt the hurt before. Felt ignored before. Felt the feeling of not having any feeling and the trap of being trapped, flying in a room that has a short ceiling. But my present has presented me with the presence of escape. The gift of life in love, to live without the fear of being me. Lessens the fear losing me. The hope to love with the hope of you completing me… completely. Love is like a dial tone. Hoping that the ringing lasts so that I could hear your voice before the sound of the beep. Or waking up to your voice as we fell asleep on the phone, as we spoke from dust to dawn. The silence between us, never felt so orchestrated. This love is not inflated, infatuated nor still, but it moves. Began to crawl on all fours and now it stands tall on two. Hoping we both grow old as we both walk on three. As I maybe someday can continue to be your 3rd leg and you can be my 3rd leg.

Mohamed Ibrahim is the son of Somali immigrants to the U.S. Born in Sana, Yemen, he attends Augsburg College in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Crowned / A Portrait Series

2012-02-15T05:00:00.001-05:00

Crowned is an immersive portrait series from the fashion and lifestyle site Street Etiquette, shot by Andre Wagner (who we've featured here before.)

The twelve people featured may come from many different walks of life but they have one thing in common: distinctive, inimitable hairstyles. These free-form locs, tiny twists, and kinky, coily, curly masses of hair serve as organic versions of Basquiat's ever-present crowns.

"African Astronomy prior to European colonization" / Dr. Thebe Medupe

2012-02-10T05:00:00.000-05:00

Info: "Dr. Thebe Medupe, South African Astronomical Observatory. In a journey that has stretched from the coastline of Namibia to the steamy jungles of Ghana, across crocodile infested lakes and the deserts of Northern Kenya, the cliff-side dwellings of the Dogon in Mali and onto the mysterious archaeological sites of the Egyptian Sahara, this lecture (and the film Cosmic Africa / purchase here) explores Africa's ancient astronomical history. By shedding new light on traditional African astronomy, and in turn global understanding of the world's oldest science, acclaimed African astronomer, Dr Thebe Medupe of the South African Astronomical Observatory, will look at celestial beliefs from different parts of the African continent and how some of these ancient African perceptions link with current scientific knowledge." (source)

Is the African intellectual lazy?

2012-02-08T05:00:00.000-05:00

This letter recently sparked a buzz in the continental African blogosphere. It resembles the William Lynch Letter in its sensationalism. But, the response it has provoked is telling.

You Lazy (Intellectual) African Scum!
by Field Ruwe

They call the Third World the lazy man’s purview; the sluggishly slothful and languorous prefecture. In this realm people are sleepy, dreamy, torpid, lethargic, and therefore indigent—totally penniless, needy, destitute, poverty-stricken, disfavored, and impoverished. In this demesne, as they call it, there are hardly any discoveries, inventions, and innovations. Africa is the trailblazer. Some still call it “the dark continent” for the light that flickers under the tunnel is not that of hope, but an approaching train. And because countless keep waiting in the way of the train, millions die and many more remain decapitated by the day.

“It’s amazing how you all sit there and watch yourselves die,” the man next to me said. “Get up and do something about it.”

Brawny, fully bald-headed, with intense, steely eyes, he was as cold as they come. When I first discovered I was going to spend my New Year’s Eve next to him on a non-stop JetBlue flight from Los Angeles to Boston I was angst-ridden. I associate marble-shaven Caucasians with iconoclastic skin-heads, most of who are racist.

“My name is Walter,” he extended his hand as soon as I settled in my seat.

I told him mine with a precautious smile.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

“Zambia.”

“Zambia!” he exclaimed, “Kaunda’s country.”

“Yes,” I said, “Now Sata’s.”

“But of course,” he responded. “You just elected King Cobra as your president.”

My face lit up at the mention of Sata’s moniker. Walter smiled, and in those cold eyes I saw an amenable fellow, one of those American highbrows who shuttle between Africa and the U.S.

“I spent three years in Zambia in the 1980s,” he continued. “I wined and dined with Luke Mwananshiku, Willa Mungomba, Dr. Siteke Mwale, and many other highly intelligent Zambians.” He lowered his voice. “I was part of the IMF group that came to rip you guys off.” He smirked. “Your government put me in a million dollar mansion overlooking a shanty called Kalingalinga. From my patio I saw it all—the rich and the poor, the ailing, the dead, and the healthy.”

“Are you still with the IMF?” I asked.

“I have since moved to yet another group with similar intentions. In the next few months my colleagues and I will be in Lusaka to hypnotize the cobra. I work for the broker that has acquired a chunk of your debt. Your government owes not the World Bank, but us millions of dollars. We’ll be in Lusaka to offer your president a couple of millions and fly back with a check twenty times greater.”

“No, you won’t,” I said. “King Cobra is incorruptible. He is …”

He was laughing. “Says who? Give me an African president, just one, who has not fallen for the carrot and stick.”

Quett Masire’s name popped up.

“Oh, him, well, we never got to him because he turned down the IMF and the World Bank. It was perhaps the smartest thing for him to do.”

At midnight we were airborne. The captain wished us a happy 2012 and urged us to watch the fireworks across Los Angeles.

“Isn’t that beautiful,” Walter said looking down.

From my middle seat, I took a glance and nodded admirably.

“That’s white man’s country,” he said. “We came here on Mayflower and turned Indian land into a paradise and now the most powerful nation on earth. We discovered the bulb, and built this aircraft to fly us to pleasure resorts like Lake Zambia.”

I grinned. “There is no Lake Zambia.”

He curled his lips into a smug smile. “That’s what we call your country. You guys are as stagnant as the water in the lake. We come in with our large boats and fish your minerals and your wildlife and leave morsels—crumbs. That’s your staple food, crumbs. That corn-meal you eat, that’s crumbs, the small Tilapia fish you call Kapenta is crumbs. We the Bwanas (whites) take the cat fish. I am the Bwana and you are the Muntu. I get what I want and you get what you deserve, crumbs. That’s what lazy people get—Zambians, Africans, the entire Third World.”

The smile vanished from my face.

“I see you are getting pissed off,” Walter said and lowered his voice. “You are thinking this Bwana is a racist. That’s how most Zambians respond when I tell them the truth. They go ballistic. Okay. Let’s for a moment put our skin pigmentations, this black and white crap, aside. Tell me, my friend, what is the difference between you and me?”

“There’s no difference.”

“Absolutely none,” he exclaimed. “Scientists in the Human Genome Project have proved that. It took them thirteen years to determine the complete sequence of the three billion DNA subunits. After they

were all done it was clear that 99.9% nucleotide bases were exactly the same in you and me. We are the same people. All white, Asian, Latino, and black people on this aircraft are the same.”

I gladly nodded.

“And yet I feel superior,” he smiled fatalistically. “Every white person on this plane feels superior to a black person. The white guy who picks up garbage, the homeless white trash on drugs, feels superior to you no matter his status or education. I can pick up a nincompoop from the New York streets, clean him up, and take him to Lusaka and you all be crowding around him chanting muzungu, muzungu and yet he’s a riffraff. Tell me why my angry friend.”

For a moment I was wordless.

“Please don’t blame it on slavery like the African Americans do, or colonialism, or some psychological impact or some kind of stigmatization. And don’t give me the brainwash poppycock. Give me a better answer.”

I was thinking.

He continued. “Excuse what I am about to say. Please do not take offense.”

I felt a slap of blood rush to my head and prepared for the worst.

“You my friend flying with me and all your kind are lazy,” he said. “When you rest your head on the pillow you don’t dream big. You and other so-called African intellectuals are damn lazy, each one of you. It is you, and not those poor starving people, who is the reason Africa is in such a deplorable state.”

“That’s not a nice thing to say,” I protested.

He was implacable. “Oh yes it is and I will say it again, you are lazy. Poor and uneducated Africans are the most hardworking people on earth. I saw them in the Lusaka markets and on the street selling merchandise. I saw them in villages toiling away. I saw women on Kafue Road crushing stones for sell and I wept. I said to myself where are the Zambian intellectuals? Are the Zambian engineers so imperceptive they cannot invent a simple stone crusher, or a simple water filter to purify well water for those poor villagers? Are you telling me that after thirty-seven years of independence your university school of engineering has not produced a scientist or an engineer who can make simple small machines for mass use? What is the school there for?”

I held my breath.

“Do you know where I found your intellectuals? They were in bars quaffing. They were at the Lusaka Golf Club, Lusaka Central Club, Lusaka Playhouse, and Lusaka Flying Club. I saw with my own eyes a bunch of alcoholic graduates. Zambian intellectuals work from eight to five and spend the evening drinking. We don’t. We reserve the evening for brainstorming.”

He looked me in the eye.

“And you flying to Boston and all of you Zambians in the Diaspora are just as lazy and apathetic to your country. You don’t care about your country and yet your very own parents, brothers and sisters are in Mtendere, Chawama, and in villages, all of them living in squalor. Many have died or are dying of neglect by you. They are dying of AIDS because you cannot come up with your own cure. You are here calling yourselves graduates, researchers and scientists and are fast at articulating your credentials once asked—oh, I have a PhD in this and that—PhD my foot!”

I was deflated.

“Wake up you all!” he exclaimed, attracting the attention of nearby passengers. “You should be busy lifting ideas, formulae, recipes, and diagrams from American manufacturing factories and sending them to your own factories. All those research findings and dissertation papers you compile should be your country’s treasure. Why do you think the Asians are a force to reckon with? They stole our ideas and turned them into their own. Look at Japan, China, India, just look at them.”

He paused. “The Bwana has spoken,” he said and grinned. “As long as you are dependent on my plane, I shall feel superior and you my friend shall remain inferior, how about that? The Chinese, Japanese, Indians, even Latinos are a notch better. You Africans are at the bottom of the totem pole.”

He tempered his voice. “Get over this white skin syndrome and begin to feel confident. Become innovative and make your own stuff for god’s sake.”

At 8 a.m. the plane touched down at Boston’s Logan International Airport. Walter reached for my hand.

“I know I was too strong, but I don’t give it a damn. I have been to Zambia and have seen too much poverty.” He pulled out a piece of paper and scribbled something. “Here, read this. It was written by a friend.”

He had written only the title: “Lords of Poverty.”

Thunderstruck, I had a sinking feeling. I watched Walter walk through the airport doors to a waiting car. He had left a huge dust devil twirling in my mind, stirring up sad memories of home. I could see Zambia’s literati—the cognoscente, intelligentsia, academics, highbrows, and scholars in the places he had mentioned guzzling and talking irrelevancies. I remembered some who have since passed—how they got the highest grades in mathematics and the sciences and attained the highest education on the planet. They had been to Harvard, Oxford, Yale, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), only to leave us with not a single invention or discovery. I knew some by name and drunk with them at the Lusaka Playhouse and Central Sports.

Walter is right. It is true that since independence we have failed to nurture creativity and collective orientations. We as a nation lack a workhorse mentality and behave like 13 million civil servants dependent on a government pay cheque. We believe that development is generated 8-to-5 behind a desk wearing a tie with our degrees hanging on the wall. Such a working environment does not offer the opportunity for fellowship, the excitement of competition, and the spectacle of innovative rituals.

But the intelligentsia is not solely, or even mainly, to blame. The larger failure is due to political circumstances over which they have had little control. The past governments failed to create an environment of possibility that fosters camaraderie, rewards innovative ideas and encourages resilience. KK, Chiluba, Mwanawasa, and Banda embraced orthodox ideas and therefore failed to offer many opportunities for drawing outside the line.

I believe King Cobra’s reset has been cast in the same faculties as those of his predecessors. If today I told him that we can build our own car, he would throw me out.

“Naupena? Fuma apa.” (Are you mad? Get out of here)

Knowing well that King Cobra will not embody innovation at Walter’s level let’s begin to look for a technologically active-positive leader who can succeed him after a term or two. That way we can make our own stone crushers, water filters, water pumps, razor blades, and harvesters. Let’s dream big and make tractors, cars, and planes, or, like Walter said, forever remain inferior.

A fundamental transformation of our country from what is essentially non-innovative to a strategic superior African country requires a bold risk-taking educated leader with a triumphalist attitude and we have one in YOU. Don’t be highly strung and feel insulted by Walter. Take a moment and think about our country. Our journey from 1964 has been marked by tears. It has been an emotionally overwhelming experience. Each one of us has lost a loved one to poverty, hunger, and disease. The number of graves is catching up with the population. It’s time to change our political culture. It’s time for Zambian intellectuals to cultivate an active-positive progressive movement that will change our lives forever. Don’t be afraid or dispirited, rise to the challenge and salvage the remaining few of your beloved ones.

Field Ruwe is a US-based Zambian author

Africa's oldest liberation movement turns 100 / Does ANC fight for same values?

2012-02-07T04:30:00.000-05:00

Our friend Sean Jacobs from The New School and Africa Is A Country was featured this past week on Al Jazeera to help answer the question, "does South Africa's ruling ANC still fight for the same values it championed 100 years ago?" One Youtube user called this the network's worst show so be patient, but there's some good dialogue in here, especially from Sean and Karima Brown, who called South Africa's democracy incredibly vibrant. She also makes a point to differentiate between lack of democracy and protest over the speed of development, calling South Africa and the ANC dominated government a developing country dealing with what it means to govern. Towards the end she begins to give her best remedy. Leaders must increase their intellectual capacity and focus not just on developing policy but also on actually influencing it.

Selarón's Stairs / "I have more than 4,000 stories I could tell you"

2012-02-06T05:00:00.002-05:00

{liberatormagazine.com exclusive feature}

by Rafaela Stalbalk

In addition to Copacabana Beach, the Christ Statue and the Sugarloaf Mountain, Rio de Janeiro has a heap of other beautiful and undiscovered places. In the bohemian neighborhood of Lapa in central Rio, hides Escadaria Selarón – one of the most fascinating and original staircases in the world. Its vibrant green, yellow and blue colors, which are colors of the Brazilian flag, is the artist Jorge Selarón’s personal tribute to the Brazilian people.

Escadaria Selarón, which translates to Selarón’s Stairs, was in the ‘90s just a set of dirty stairs by the artist's home (where he, by the way, still resides). In order to make his surroundings pleasant, Selarón frequently cleaned the stairs and planted flowers in a bathtub that he located by them. Soon, he started decorating the stairs with recycled tiles, ceramics and mirrors that he had found from construction sites throughout the city. And this is how his masterpiece was born 22 years ago.

“I became so obsessed with these stairs that there was a time in my life when I bought tiles for $2,000; but I barely had anything to eat,” Selarón says.

After Brazil won the World Cup in 1994, Selarón, 55, decided to celebrate the victory by further develop the stairway adding more elements to it. Although Selarón believes that the Brazilian flag, due to its lack of red color, is one of the ugliest flags in the world, he is proud of his artwork, and has recreated it by giving it "life” and adding red tiles. Since then, Escadaria Selarón has been a never-ending project, constantly upgraded with new tiles.

“To me, the stairs are like a woman who is never satisfied,” Selarón says. “Once it gets a new tile, it wants a new one, and a new one. It has become spoiled, always wanting new tiles; more attention and admiration.”

And just as Brazilian women are admired around the world, so is Escadaria Selarón. It has become a trendy tourist destination, attracting nearly 250 visitors daily from around the world. Furthermore, it has appeared in many famous media such as travel programs, documentaries and commercials. Snoop Dogg and Pharell Williams recorded the music video to the song Beautiful there. Since then U2, Flo Rida and ”the Incredible Hulk” to mention a few, have included the stairways in their music videos, movies and magazines.

The 215 steps that measure the 410-foot-long stairway are covered with more than 2,000 ceramic mosaics tiles from more than 60 countries. Of these, Selarón says that 25 U.S. cities are represented, including Atlanta, Philly, DC and Chicago. He points at a tile showing the Chicago skyline and explains that it, like many of his tiles, was a gift from a visitor. The exceptional images portrayed on the tiles make for a unique total vision. Some tiles represent a country's traditional symbols, religious icons and famous scripts; while others symbolize images and rectification of well-known paintings. However, there is one recurring theme found in Selarón’s work: that of pregnant black women – these are seen in more than 300 of his tiles.

The recurring theme that all are hand painted by Selarón is, different from his other colorful tiles, painted in black and yellow illustrating a dark and gloomy story. The pregnant women, painted in caricature, appear to belong to the underprivileged and socially excluded individuals living in the favelas of Rio. BBC’s recently reported that a 2010 census report made by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed that non-White Brazilians are now the majority of Brazil’s population; yet, these are primarily the ones living in extreme conditions of poverty. Analyzing some segments correlated to this issue, it is fair to say that racial discrimination and economic disadvantages have haltered the evolvement for this group. Women and children are the ones at most risk of marginalization seeing that issues of education, unemployment, health, various forms of violence and unwanted pregnancies are the major problems. The conditions perpetuate an ongoing cycle of poverty. To address some of the issues related to this, the government invented in 2006 the anti-poverty scheme Bolsa Familia, which is a social welfare program that provides financial aid to poor Brazilian families who have children.

Whether Selarón’s tiles of black, pregnant women is to address the social issue, or if they depict women with whom he may has had a past can be speculated. He claims that the theme is tied to a personal story that he does not wish to discuss. Regardless reason, the provocative images spark debates among visitors. Some find the tiles to be offensive while others find them intriguing. Nevertheless, the mystery has transformed into one of the artist’s bestselling items.

Since 1997, Selarón has sold an estimated 25,000 paintings. From his atelier, which is attached to his home, he sells everything ranging from $1-postcards to more expensive and complex tile paintings. Although he does not make a fortune on his artwork, he makes enough money to “get by” and to financially support his ongoing work.

“Everyone recognizes the image of the stairs, but very few people know its history,” he says. “Behind every tile is a story. I have had more than 4,000 tiles placed on these stairs since I started, therefore I have more than 4,000 stories I could tell you.” Like a magician pulling out a rabbit from his hat, Selarón starts telling the story of when Transformer-actor Anthony Anderson visited the stairs a few years ago. At the time, Selarón had no idea that Anderson, who was there with his wife, was famous. Anderson bought six paintings before other visitors recognized the actor. Instead of shying away like many celebrities would, Anderson put on an improvised show for his fans and started dancing and even getting the crowd to sing “Beautiful” with him.

“Things like that can happen here because these stairs have soul,” Selarón says. ”The most gratifying moments here is when I feel the positive energy from my visitors. Knowing that my work is appreciated keeps me going.”

Selarón’s laid-back personality matches his gray ponytail, worn-out jeans and red t-shirt. He is frequently seen among his visitors talking, joking and striking comical poses in photographs. Selarón, who was born in Chile, visited and lived in more than 50 countries before settling in Brazil in 1983. In May 2005, Selarón was awarded the Pedro Ernesto medal – the highest commendation granted by state of Rio. He was also named Honorary Citizen of the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro for his great and committed work. He cares for his stairs with much concern, and treats it almost as if it was an extension to his home.

“This crazy and unique dream will only end on the day of my death.”

In no particular order, the mirror in three-part discord

2012-01-27T05:00:00.000-05:00

{liberatormagazine.com exclusive feature}

In no particular order, the mirror in three-part discord
by Ruby Amanze

a. so you think you’re better than me, because of longitude and latitude, and the way your tongue does those bending, clicking tricks?
and surely you think, i must think, i’m better than you because of a colder longitude and latitude, and the way my tongue bounces of ‘t’s’ and drags out syllables?
you’re superior because you can stomach the taste of garden eggs, rock hard fish and don’t require bottled water because you can stomach the taste of the earth?
you laugh because mosquito repellent and sun-block are for the thin skinned ‘darkies’ who have lost the sun and therefore all strength in their outer layer. isn’t that how you see me? weak?
you think i have no right to this land? that i’m a foreigner. an alien even? that you can question my intentions when i say ‘home’ or ‘we’ or claim ‘Biafran’, ‘cause in your opinion we’re far from the same:

you’re african and i’m negro and we all know which one came first.

b. nah. not today. how many African girls you know with a scattering of concentrated melanin gems all over their face? they’re fucking awesome actually. and mostly i do understand you, especially when you’re talking about how little you perceive i understand. i hear. i know. and my british tongue will retaliate in a philly meets brooklyn dialect. my blood is deep red with allegiance. but it’s not for you to know or measure. an allegiance to nigeria. to Africa. to the diaspora. to a pan African identity. this negro african brit likes being a brit african negro. it’s everything i know and am. and finally, finally it has become okay.

c. i’m sorry i can’t understand what it is that you’re saying. even when it’s english sometimes, but you’re speaking so fast and throwing in pidgin and i just get lost because my ears don’t hear those sounds well. i’m sorry i only have three nigerian outfits (and only one is wedding appropriate) and i’m sorry i hate all the ones you try to give me and cut them up to wear with jeans instead. i’m sorry for my yellow pepper skin that isn’t dark enough to blend in with the masses, and i’m sorry for my tongue that shames me every time. and the way i walk. and the way i carry my arms or move my neck. and my freckles. lord only knows, i’m so sorry for my being.

Black tea + half and half

2012-01-26T05:00:00.000-05:00

{liberatormagazine.com exclusive feature}

Black tea + half and half
by Ruby Amanze

my grandmother is me, just not diluted.
so i know what i’m talking about when i order the ogbono soup with special, yet ignorable instructions to make sure the goat is british-appropriate tender (my teeth are not as carnivorous as they used to be).

we’re the same you know…me and her, and everyone prior. brown ish black complexion. slightly receding hairline. a tendency to neuroses, somewhat bony. with that hereditary Sika trademark that makes our lower central incisors crooked when the molars come in:

‘dear Ma, against societal standards of beauty i refused reformative procedures just to be closer to you and our kind. i even returned my hair back to its natural state. i did it for you.

i’m very sorry about the freckles.
they came from outer space.
they are nothing like you at all.

The great African Land Rush has begun / Legal Lease or Stolen Soil?

2012-01-25T05:00:00.001-05:00

Property developer Tim Ogwang says "The private sector has proved useful in boosting GDP. Years of depending on agriculture has been Africa's undoing. Consequently, more African countries are now diversifying their economies by creating an enabling environment for the private sector to thrive. Already, telecommunications is one of the main sectors driving Uganda's economy."
-"Africa: Continent Begins to Rise Above Aid"

"Africa is up for sale by the acre to the highest bidder. But how can rice exports from Ethiopia to Saudi Arabia be justified?"
-"How land grabs in Africa could herald a new dystopian age of hunger"

Ethiopia: Landgrabbing / Legal Lease or Stolen Soil?
(SOURCE: AllAfrica)

Addis Ababa — Kneeling in the middle of a sugar cane field in blistering 40 degree heat, a young boy is digging up weeds while an Indian worker stands over him to make sure he does not miss any. Red is eight years old and earns 73 pence for one day's work - less than the cost of using pesticides.

By exporting food produced by child labour in Ethiopia, an Indian farm manager hopes to earn millions within three years. "It's still total wilderness here, but we will soon start growing sugar cane and palm oil and everything will look tidy," explains Karmjeet Singh Sekhon as he drives in a Toyota 4Ã-4 through the burning bushland on his farm.

The 68-year-old Indian is the manager of a huge farm, which covers an area of 100,000 hectares in Western Ethiopia. Soon he wants to farm 300,000 hectares, an area bigger than Luxembourg.

Since 2008 there has been an unprecedented rush to secure farmland in Africa, South America and Asia. This is a result of the rise and fluctuation in food prices on world markets, which has seen food riots in a number of countries. Countries such as India, China and the Gulf states want to feed their growing populations, but are also looking to position themselves in the race to produce bio-fuels.

The World Bank says 45 million hectares of farmland were leased in 2009 - up from only four million a year between 2006 and 2008. It is estimated that by 2030 another six million hectares will be leased annually in developing countries, two-thirds in sub-Saharan Africa and South America.

Maize, rice, wheat, soy, sorghum, sesame, sugar cane and oil seeds are the main commodities. The World Bank sees both opportunities and risks.

"These large land acquisitions can come at a high cost. The veil of secrecy that often surrounds these land deals must be lifted so poor people don't ultimately pay the heavy price of losing their land," said former World Bank managing director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

In the world's thirteenth poorest country, the race for the country's most productive agricultural land has only just begun and the social and environmental consequences are unforeseeable. According to the U.N., 4.5 million people in Ethiopia are currently in need of aid as a result of a devastating drought. The majority of the food aid is imported from abroad.

"No problem," says farm manager Sekhon. "Some parts of our production remain in the country, and through the export Ethiopia gains hard currency to buy at the world market."

There is no law in Ethiopia to ensure that a certain percentage remains in the country. Karuturi marketing and logistics boss Birinder Singh makes no secret of the fact that his company is commercially orientated. They will sell to those who pay most, whoever that may be.

Eighty-five per cent of Ethiopia's population of 80 million live off the land, and little has changed over the past 100 years: most of the tiny fields are still worked using ox-drawn ploughs and the yields are low.

The government hopes that leasing farmland to foreign investors will lead to a wave of modernisation. According to the Food and Agricultural Organisation, food production needs a 70 per cent boost between 2010 and 2050 to meet global needs.

All Ethiopian land - 111.5 million hectares - belongs to the state. According to the government, three-quarters of it are suitable for agriculture, but so far only 15 million hectares are cultivated.

The government has now assigned 3.6 million hectares to foreign and domestic investors. One hectare of land costs between six and 231 dollars a year to rent, and the contract periods are between 20 and 45 years. Critics say the developing world is being sold off.

But Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi rejects the attacks as "ill-informed" or even "ill-intentioned." "We want to develop our land to feed ourselves rather than admire the beauty of fallow fields while we starve," Zenawi said.

It is not surprising that the Ethiopian government has become the darling of international agribusiness investors. "There is plenty of good land, enough water, a cheap labour force, and a stable government that ensures law and order", says Karuturi's Singh.

According to Esayas Kebede, head of the state agency which is responsible for the land leases, Ethiopia benefits in many ways from the deals. "By exporting food, we will receive dollars, the farms provide jobs, they import know how, they will help us to boost productivity and therefore to improve food security," says Kebede.

But many local farmers are not convinced. Ojwato is one of them. It only takes him a few minutes to cross his two acre field on foot, while Sekhon takes several hours to cover his by jeep.

The idea that his neighbour's harvests are being exported while he and his country regularly receive food aid makes Ojwato angry. "The foreigners promised to bring electricity, water and hospitals. But in the end only a few of us have worked in their fields and the pay was poor," the farmer says.

"We always pay the national minimum wage," Singh claims.

"Nobody is forced to work on the farm," Kebede says. However, many children labour on the fields.

Though his family could use some extra money from child labour, Ojwato forbids his children to work on the Indian farm. One day they shall become doctors, teachers or engineers, he says. But therefore they need to go to school, instead of working on the fields.

Not all parents are as far-sighted as Ojwato: "Sometimes only five out of 60 students are attending class. The others are working at the fields," says Tigaba Tekle, deputy headmaster of a school near the Karuturi farm.

Officially, only uninhabited land is used for the giant farms, but human rights groups fear that people are forced to leave their land. As a matter of fact, a state-run relocation programme is currently taking place in Western Ethiopia.

According to the government, there is no link between the relocation and the farm projects; everybody moves voluntarily. Human right groups doubt this, and the author was obstructed several times during the research for this article. The official reason given was: "We don't want you to gather politically unwanted information."

As well as human rights organisations, environmentalists also have a problem with the farms. Some four decades ago, 40 per cent of Ethiopia was covered by forest, but today it is less than three per cent - and the bushland in Gambella is burning.

Farm manager Sekhon does not hide his lack of interest in environmental concerns. For him, it is important to develop the farm, and he is behind his ambitious schedule. To catch up, little Red and his friends must continue weeding. (source)

Egusi soup and jam

2012-01-23T05:01:00.001-05:00

{liberatormagazine.com exclusive feature}

Egusi soup and jam
by Ruby Amanze

waiting, for this giant wave of ecstasy that never came.
a traveler honorably returning home via the kitchen,
attempting to piece together the remnants of an identity lost,
a culture not quite known.

the recipe was half passed down, half invented and half gleaned from ‘how to’ videos. but three halves is hardly math, and so too the recipe was far from systematic

[first, you get a big pot. (the kind they sell on the top shelf of brown people super markets: heavy, yet made from metal that bangs easily)…

you cannot substitute olive oil for palm, but collards work instead of spinach. it’s the dried seed of a melon. who ever thought of that?
nutty and protein rich. we drank it with our fingers after the garri balls had finished. a favorite even amongst the ‘non-garri & soup’ eating versions of ourselves. pepper to taste, but pepper ample. elijah started from birth but for the rest of us, a preferable tolerance can be nurtured. stockfish optional…]

during the day we would leave nigeria and walk west to school. swallowing cultivated balls of how the british empire once ruled the world, and something about icarus and the romulus twins. every evening we would return home, only to continue conversing in our adopted tongue. sometimes we met ourselves half way and ate nigerian interpreted versions of imperial food. but mostly we walked all the way home. to Egusi. it was our saving grace.

she couldn’t always make my soup for me. just like she couldn’t always thread my hair, or sew my clothes, or protect my heart.

so on tuesday, rather late by most standards, the decision was made to re create this symbol of everything authentically real in a true nigerian woman. i’d never been so decidedly nigerian before, at least not on my own accord.

in no particular order: [i chopped onions, found an adequate pot, cooked an assortment of meats, fried ground egusi in palm oil til it clumped, blended tomato and bell pepper to puree (the more you add the redder it’ll be), don’t forget to save the stock, find pot, boil water for garri, chop onions, chop hot pepper, chop mushrooms, chop whatever, add spinach (or collard substitute), spread the preserves…]

the wave never came. somehow the anticipated feeling of extreme triumph and validation evaded me. sadly, i hadn’t won any war, proven my patriotism, earned my proverbial stripes. in fact, as much as i convinced myself otherwise, i hadn’t done anything particularly impressive at all. instead my kitchen was calm and normal (minus the fragrant aroma of nostalgia and homesickness), with regular dishes in the sink and remnants on the chopping board. no cathartic tears had fallen into the soup. no ancestral holy spirit had come upon me. no great moment of cultural clarity. nothing. nothing at all. i made garri, washed my hands and sat down to eat the soup.

it tasted like peanut butter and jam, not jelly.

Microcosmos le Peuple de L'herbe / The People of the Grass [film]

2012-01-19T05:01:00.000-05:00

IMDB: "1996. A documentary of insect life in meadows and ponds, using incredible close-ups, slow motion, and time-lapse photography. It includes bees collecting nectar, ladybugs eating mites, snails mating, spiders wrapping their catch, a scarab beetle relentlessly pushing its ball of dung uphill, endless lines of caterpillars, an underwater spider creating an air bubble to live in, and a mosquito hatching. Written by Will Gilbert"

Pre-blackness, blackness & post-blackness / 195,000 b.c. to Today

2012-01-18T05:01:00.000-05:00

{liberatormagazine.com exclusive feature}

The first recognizably black humans began appearing in Africa around 200,000 years ago. Some 50,000 years later, they began to engage in the more refined human behaviors including sophisticated tool and jewelry making, painting, sculpture, and the control of fire. About 5,000 years ago, Menes became the the planet's first king of a nation-state that maintained its dominance and prominence until 30 B.C. For the next 500 years or so, various kingdoms and states appeared throughout the African continent. We might consider this time span as playing host to "pre-blackness"--not because early man or the ancient Egyptians did not posess dark skin but because their complexions had not yet been thoroughly politicized.

"Blackness" as we have come to understand it today is a creation of 18th century Europe and the Enlightenment. It is a label that is currently inspiring so much ambivalence among people of African descent. During its tenure, blackness has become associated with slavery, illiteracy, dancing, physical strength, Jesus, good fucking, good cooking, violence, anger, laziness, courtesy, melodrama, comedy, music, ignorance, and wisdom all of which are practiced with the unique urgency of a people at the bottom of an opulent society.

During the last fin de siècle, occurring during the transition to the 21st century, a vogue began to spring up around the label, "post-blackness". Post-blackness is the attempt by some to infuse blackness with characteristics not commonly thought to be held by average black people. It's thesis holds that traditional blackness is too narrow or essentialist to describe new advances, views, and changes among black people. Yet, along with any progression, the underlying theme of blackness (i.e., how Africans and people of African descent deal with racism) has not disappeared. Far from being "after" or "later than" blackness, post-blackness is a misnomer for the effort to bring nuance to the current understanding of black, itself a very "black" thing to do (i.e., destroy stereotypes). We could venture to describe this process as the creation of a polyblackness, a hyperblackness, or simply a more detailed blackness. The distance and resolution implied by post-blackness is simply not consistent with reality today.

Editor's note: Also, consider this a token of our support for today's internet "blackout"

"Life is a struggle with ourselves more than the will of Satan" / Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Binyavanga Wainaina

2012-01-13T09:01:00.001-05:00

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie read from her work and then joined fellow African literary heavyweight--and Kwani? literary journal alumnus--Binyavanga Wainaina as part of Lannan Foundation's Reading and Conversation Series, which was held at New Mexico's Lensic Theater on September 28, 2011. Wainaina's recently published memoir, One Day I Will Write About This Place, is an absurdly well-crafted coming of age tale set in Kenya, his home country. He is currently a Bard Fellow and Director at the Chinua Achebe Centre for African Literature and Languages in Bard College. The details of Adichie's and Wainaina's dialogue--which covers literature, love, sexuality, politics, and hair, among other topics--are important, but I especially marvel at the easy flow of the banter between long-time friends, and the way their palpable love, respect for, and knowledge of each other manifests and pushes them along, individually and together, slowly but surely.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Reading

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in conversation with Binyavanga Wainaina

Bringing America's violent past into a coherent narrative that defines you / An interview with Dinaw Mengestu

2012-01-12T09:00:00.000-05:00

“We are always inheriting histories that aren’t ours, and we’re always victims to our parents’ pasts ... How do you grow up in America, and feel American, when you also have this violent past that preceded you? How do you bring those together into some coherent narrative that defines you?”
-Dinaw Mengestu

At Work: Dinaw Mengestu
(SOURCE: TheParisReview.org)

How to Read the Air is the second novel by Dinaw Mengestu. It’s narrated by a young American Ethiopian named Jonas Woldemariam. Jonas’s disintegrating marriage to his wife, Angela, forces him to retrace the steps his parents, Yosef and Miriam, took when they first emigrated from Ethiopia to the United States. Their abusive and loveless marriage stands in stark contrast to the hopes of the American dream. But in distinguishing their past from his life, Jonas may be closer to understanding his own failures. I recently spoke to Mengestu in the Penguin offices before the start of his book tour.

Why did you set part of your novel in Peoria, Illinois, the same town where you grew up?

DM: I always wanted to write about the Midwest. I’m also very aware of the idea of “immigrant literature” and how it is excluded from the traditional category of the American literary novel; there’s the American literary novel and then there’s the immigrant novel, which is seen as a derivation, and not a natural extension of what someone like Saul Bellow and other American immigrants traditionally have been doing. Beginning my novel in the Midwest was deliberate; I was staking its claim in America. I wanted Jonas, the narrator, not to be an immigrant but to be someone who was undeniably born in America.

What do you not like about the immigrant novel as its own category?

DM: If it wasn’t a category, then it would be great. If it wasn’t already pigeonholed and marginalized, then it would be fine. I would have no problems. When I think of my work, I’m aware that I’m American and African at all points and times. And without a doubt, my experience and understanding of America was shaped by having immigrant parents. At the same time, people say, He’s an Ethiopian novelist or an American Ethiopian novelist. And I want to say, I became an Ethiopian novelist at what point? I’m not. I wrote my first book without being to Ethiopia since I was two years old. Why is this an Ethiopian novel and not an American novel? The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears is very much about America—it just happens to have African and Ethiopian characters, and in fact, it happens to have more characters who are not Ethiopian than who are. It’s more the way the conversation is framed and always debated. You’re being spun off because of your ethnicity.

Let’s talk about Jonas, your protagonist. He is both a storyteller and a liar, which gets him into trouble. What is the difference between telling a lie and telling a story?

DM: There’s a difference for each motivation, but they serve a common purpose. Jonas lies as a way of protecting himself. He lies to avoid the difficult things in his life: his own issues, his own complicated history, his own failings. At the same time, he tells stories as a way of rebuilding himself. The process of inventing history still demands an emotional engagement. It allows him to re-create himself. They both come from the same root. You use stories to hide from your life, but you also use stories to reveal something integral about what you don’t actually know.

What were you trying to say with the dissolution of Jonas and Angela’s marriage?

DM: Don’t get married. Get married and get a prenup. No, I think it was as much as anything about two people who have equal desires but are unable to communicate their needs to one another. In some ways they very much mirror what happens to Jonas’ parents: there is this gap in communication, a gap in language, and the inability to use words to say what is troubling for them. I wanted the marriage to dissolve in discreet moments, and not blow up. I wanted to show how two people can be attached to each another and still feel completely alienated.

I thought that you were, perhaps, also trying to show how abuse can last for many generations.

DM: There is a physical abuse that happens to Jonas, and there is the isolated emotional abuse that happens to Angela. They’re two people who are recovering, but their equal levels of damage mean they are unable to form this identity that they wished they could. At the same time, they do make an effort, and even though it fails in the end, there is this hopeful sense that at least they have tried. That effort is one process of removing themselves from their past.

Your characters seem very isolated from the world. Why is that?

DM: I think they’re all deliberately disengaged with the world. They’re not seeking tangible connections, like a great career or a great life. They’re very happy to be protecting themselves and living in their small isolated realities, because, in a certain way, there’s more comfort. Certain characters have great failings because of their inability to move outside of their own damaged terrain, and it’s only until they do that they become fuller, more meaningful people.

Do you believe in happy endings?

DM: It is a happy ending. Nothing is resolved permanently, but I think it’s happy because there’s an understanding of mutual love at the end that reconciles the brutality and violence that have shaped the narrator and his marriage. It is integrated into who he is in a way that allows him to accept it coldly and with a certain amount of grace. (source/full text)

Dr. John Henrik Clarke / Lecture on the political and spiritual history of African Christianity and Islam

2012-01-10T09:01:00.000-05:00

I do not know if Dr. Clarke titled this lecture "The Rise of Islam", as stated in the video. If he did, he underestimated himself because this lecture broadly covers the entire gamut of African spirituality from Old Kingdom Classical Africa to the Nation of Islam.

Quite relevant this week, in light of new media sensation, Nigeria's Boko Haram. Michael Amoah speaks to Al Jazeera about that from London:

"Africa in the European imagination is a problem to be solved" / Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speaks

2012-01-06T08:01:00.000-05:00

What are the stories that Europe tells itself about its colonial history? asks Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Adichie's Purple Hibiscus (2003) won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book in 2005. Her most recent book, The Thing Around Your Neck (2009) is a collection of short stories detailing the lives and livelihoods of Nigerian immigrants to the United States. In the video below, she turns her focus to Europe, despite the misleading claim in her introduction that she knows nothing about the continent. What follows this confession is a critique of dominant European narratives about Africa, grounded in Adichie's take on the infamous speech delivered by French president, Nicholas Sarkozy, at Senegal's University of Dakar on July 26, 2007. According to Adichie, the European story about Africa "is a story that basically says, 'yes, colonialism happened, but...' and whatever comes after the 'but' is the focus of the story. The 'but' is crucial. The second part of the story is much more emphasized than the first." Adichie touches on European perceptions on "the link between the affluence of Europe and the poverty of Africa," in her fascinating contribution to the series "Narratives for Europe: Stories that Matter," organized by Spui25, a cultural resource center in Amsterdam.