There will always be someone who has it better or worse than us all. As Bob Marley said “Every man thinks his burden is the heaviest …Who feels it knows it not ” #CountYourBlessings .

I watched a 20/20 episode that reminded me to count my blessings.  Imagine never being able to be in a relationship or to easily and freely interact daily with people because certain sounds make it physically unbearable to be around them- and it’s a  disease called Misophonia that turns a seemingly “normal person” into “Incredible Hulk” style fits of rage that requires a cure instead of just personal choice. Imagine only having the taste for rocks and it being a condition called Pica instead of just the personal choice of being a picky eater with an acquired taste. I personally had to mute the sound of the women eating rocks because I couldn’t physically take it -much like the man with Misophonia ; however he has to find a way to mute the world because most sounds make him physically unable to function. I guess we all have levels of diseases & conditions with triggers that we either possess the capability to control or not. It’s about finding that balance and knowing when not finding that balance gets too out of control for you not to ask for help. The mind and its balances and imbalances are very powerful and no matter what we do to curb and control our ailments we can never run away from ourselves.

On this same day I also watched NY1’s The Call with John Schiumo , which offers New Yorkers an opportunity to weigh in on the topic of the day. The topic of the day was the recent news that the NYPD had more than 685,000 ”stop and frisks“ with over 40% being young Black and Latino boys/men.

“In a passionate opinion, a federal judge granted class certification status in a landmark trial opposing racial disparities in stop-and-frisk policing, and put the New York City Police Department on notice that they might face court oversight by the end of trial…Every person who has been stopped by police since Jan. 31, 2005, without reasonable suspicion will become a member of the class as a result of the decision, a number that court documents indicate will likely include “well over one hundred thousand” people…A staff attorney from the civil rights group that brought the lawsuit said the decision showed that the court understood that stop-and-frisk policy implicated high-ranking city officials in civil rights abuses…”The Court has rightly recognized that illegal stops-and-frisks are not limited to a few rogue police officers but are the product of a program designed at the highest level of the police department and affect hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of New Yorkers,” said Darius Charney of Center for Constitutional Rights. “As a result of today’s ruling, all those for whom this practice is a daily reality will now have an opportunity to challenge it as a violation of their fundamental constitutional rights and to ask the Court to order real changes in NYPD stop-and-frisk policy.”…In contrast, a New York City Law Department spokesperson offered muted criticism….”We respectfully disagree with the decision and are reviewing our legal options,” Connie Pankratz said.” READ MORE

A White gentlemen called in saying that the politicians , activists and Black and Latino people who were against “stop and frisks” were trying to run away from the crime riddled past of New York about 20 years ago during the crack epidemic, which somehow in our NYC narrative has become synonymous with Black, Latinos and crime- which now “stop and frisks” was/is part of the law and order of our society to prevent those days from rearing its ugly head again by keeping a certain sector of society in order on the streets or in a cage -domesticated from their animalistic wilds as to not ruin society for the civilized masters/majority. Ironically in this same week, a study came out to say that White people in America particularly in places like New York are no longer the majority. The  caller went on to say that if young Black and Latinos boys to men would stop with the sagging of the pants and make themselves look respectable then the police would see them as people who respected themselves and in turn treat them with respect. It just so happens that this is also the anniversary of Sean Bell’s shooting. While I agree that as a Black woman I as just as offended by the sagging pants of young boys and particularly the grown ass out men who we would all think would know better in they way the carry and represent themselves; I surely am not naive to the fact that clothing choice alone will not have police giving respect to these same young Black and Latino boys to men because just as many in designer suits have been disrespected, stopped and frisk with no wrong doing or explanation by police, as those shabbily showing their entire asses to the world.

A White woman called in and even challenged the host to stop saying it’s “stop, question and frisk” instead of just straight up “stop and frisk” as she stated even the Supreme Court had defined it because it makes it seem better than it is as if the police are stopping these young Black and Latino boys/men at an alarming rate to just possibly talk with them. The show’s host replied her by saying he will continue to call it ” stop, question and frisk” instead of “stop and frisk” because that is the name of the law and as a proffesional journalist he had no proof that all the stops by NYPD came with frisks. Even without proof stating that some came as just “stops and questions”, he was convinced that some had to have come with just questioning without frisks, as he went along to say how he doesn’t care what the supreme court said. That statement to me from someone that just proclaimed that he as a young White boy in the 80’s growing up in Staten Island-wore his bright green fat laces in his Adidas which was a part of the hip-hop style of that era and was never stopped and frisked by the NYPD;  yet that same hip-hop style back then and now is blamed for the frequency of young Black and Latinos getting “stopped and frisked”. He had even proclaimed to the caller that made the wardrobe argument that the debate on wardrobe had already been argued on both sides- with one side proclaiming freedom of choice and the other side proclaiming change starts with the the victim -I mean the suspect. I was floored when the usually cool John Schuimo got flustered with the White woman caller telling him the “uncomfortable truth” to a point where he raised a few octaves in his voice to reply that she was not teaching him anything he didn’t already know. As a journalist I thought he would know that the supreme court was the highest court to judge laws of the nation, so he should care what they say. The White female caller went on to say that it is obvious that the majority of the people who would be for the “stop and frisk” law would be White and the ones that would be against it would be Blacks and Latinos because they are the majority on the receiving end of it.

This all comes at a time when Trayvon Martin Vs  George Zimmerman is in the news with the same ideas of wardrobe, color and suspicion as a reason to “stop and kill” disguised as “Stop, question and kill when necessary to save the life of the aggressor”. This has brought the same divides in right and wrong depending on which side of the pedulum your deepest fear lies; whether it is in the victimization or being the victimizer- where we either  choose to put color aside or make it the focus in defining the victimization or the victimizer. Either way we can never run away from ourselves no matter how we paint the picture in our favor.  The same period in time when a young Black man makes world news for being killed because he looked suspicious in a hooded sweatshirt , a young White man made world news as the youngest self made billionaire with his signature wardrobe of choice being his Black hooded sweatshirt without any suspicion. When do we become a society or a world that truly faces our own truths. As Bob Marley said “Every man thinks his burden is the heaviest. Who feels it knows it not“.

As I was processing all of this last night, I saw these back to back tweets on my twitter timeline which said a lot to this very narrative going on not only in New York, but all over the world. Some of us are able to face our truths and demons and survive attempts to take away our lives like Abner Louima, Rodney King and  Chamique Holdsclaw and some like Amadou Diallo, Trayvon Martin, Mary Richardson Kennedy and Junior Seau are not. When racism and mental illness toppled with life hits you hard- your talents, your poverty, your wealth, your race or geographical location can not save you if you can’t attain the faith and tools needed to lift you out of the hood of darkness. This made me look differently at the horrific Basketball Wives bullying incident last week that had social media in such an uproar that it made the usually abrasive “I ain’t never scared” Tami Roman forced to deactivate her usually busy twitter account because she could not take the backlash any longer. As horrific as the incident may have been in seeing one woman break down another woman in such an abusive manner -I also realized that many of us failed to see that we watched Tami Roman literally have a mental breakdown on national TV with no recourse outside of serving as entertainment. If the rumors are true that this was all scripted then they all deserve an academy award and to have this train wreck of a show laid to rest as petitions have come out demanding before it ends up being the cause of someone’s life being taken away mentally or physically.

All I could think after seeing these  tweets was-Wow -Language is a powerful weapon. Something that has been coming up a lot lately in how we address one another and issues and how once again color/culture plays a role in the allocation of the address even when they are the same words.

I was at an African design forum the other day once again discussing and defining this idea of Re-Branding Africa and what New African Fashion is, when one of the panelist who happened to be half German and Ethiopian but raised all over Africa with Peace Corp parents – went into an argument with such conviction that somehow “Luxury” could be found in Italy or France, but not in the entire continent of Africa; Even though she makes and sells product that she brands as 100% Made in Africa to luxury retailers in the West while having convinced her “fellow Africans” that they do not make nor represent a globally recognized aesthetic of luxury products worthy of luxury production charges. Is it any worse when the same put down of the value of your worth comes from those who proclaim themselves as kin with an obligation to help you rise rather than from those who have built their reputation on keeping you stagnant or making you fall in order for them to rise?

What makes Ankara fabric designed in Africa any less luxurious than when Burberry designs it in London? What makes organic cotton grown in Uganda and made into a t-shirt in Uganda any less luxurious than the same organic cotton shipped to Italy, France or the USA and made into a t-shirt warranting the luxury label charging often 100 times more than their African counterparts? If Luxury is defined in fabrication and artistry of design and we start with the same source of luxury fabrication- all that is left is artistry. When your belly is empty  and craving to be fed- the luxury of waiting to indulge in a meal that will take all day to prepare in its finest artistry in taste becomes an unattainable luxury to indulge in for many African artisans. We all can agree that there is a lack of good paying jobs in Africa and that more often than not because of this there is only one income taking care of entire families with opens the door for exploitation in labor, not so much different from many parts of the world including Italy, France and USA which the panelist dubbed as known for luxury in a way that Africa has not arrived at yet. Much too often Africans are too busy with little choice between demanding real partnerships of investments in their labor or just being the laborers serving but not participating in the luxury market because of lack of opportunity, lack of information, financial circumstance in the fact that it takes money to make money  with Africans always never having money to make money, or being held back by the fear of change for the worse in rocking the boat and an unshakable pride in admitting that we often grow generation after generation never having been taught how to own our own, demand partnerships and just even knowing our worth. All of these things keep Africans stagnant in never attaining the luxury of being artisans with the luxury of time in the details it takes to attain the type of perfection where even imperfections add value to what is wanted and warranted in art. When you are automatically devalued because of geographical location, how can one attain that higher value unless they take themselves to a more geographically valued place?

Hearing the conviction behind the flawed arguments of  Africa not representing “Luxury” just made me wonder if the panelist making the argument had any real connection to the roots of Africa to categorically bypass its past- hailed to the highest of luxury with images of Emperor Haile Selassie I or Ashanti Kings and Queens long before she came to valiantly proclaim an obligation to pick up the pieces from their fall. She chose even to bypass the reality of Africa’s present, where just recently the Huffington Post had an article with the headline “Luxury Brands Target Nigeria As Boom Economy Creates New Class of Elite“. The use of words and descriptions in language is so important and powerful in its impact on the psyche of human beings. As Nelson Mandela said “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.” All I can say to my fellow Africans constantly faced with this burden of language reaping havoc on our psyche and forward movements is that the time has come to know our worth- defined by us and not by the rest of the world outside of us.

“Scholars and scientists now conceive that Africa is the first place of mankind
Africans were the first builders of civilization
They discovered mathematics, invented writing, developed sciences
Engineering, medicine, religion, fine arts, and built the Great Pyramids
An architectural achievement which still baffles modern scientists’

[INTRO VOICE 2]
The 225th Emperor [echo] direct descent from Solomon and The Queen of Sheba [echo]
He is the “King of Kings, The Lion of Judah [echo]”
The name Haile Selassie I means “Power of the Trinity”

[Verse 1: Stephen Marley]
Educate yourselves, of Africa
To liberate yourself, Africa
Keep your heads up high
No more will we cry
Eeeeyh

Our history that they stole, Africa
Is written in our souls, Africa
Oldest nation on this earth
Know just what you worth
Well well

Ships that sail to distant places
Robbed us of our rising worlds
History says that you’ve betrayed us
Talking of the Gods you serve
Hear the rambling in the sky
Tears that our fore fathers cry
And today we’re still in chains
Take the shackle from our minds
You’re the corner stone
The king upon the throne

How beautiful are thou, Africa
Our nation have to bow, Africa
Don’t you fall from grace
You’re that secret place
Aye! Aye-ah-aye!

[Verse 2: Wale]
Power to the people, Motherland representa
I’m on trial with the man she my co-defendant
And I demand her attention, can you focus women?
I’m getting closer to the sky errytime I hit it
Haile Selassie I, “Power of the Trinity”
Soul made in naija, my voice made in Italy
White mans world that I’m livin’ in, some say
But it was Africa the continent we all came from
Can’t nothing come between me and you
So before I have seeds gotta understand my roots
Gotta understand the truth. We is all king’s ’round here
Lifes not all fair, work till we fall dead
Paul goin’ hard ’till I urn like a Pall-Bearer
Although my body’s in the U.S my heart’s there
I can never be ashamed of her, I got my features and my name from her
Mama Africa

[Verse 3: Stephen Marley]
The richest place on earth
Know just what your worth
Talking about the God you serve

Keep your heads up high

No more will we cry
They infiltrate our homes, Africa
They claim it as their own, Africa
Now we must stand tall
To break down all these wall-alls
Well well

Our children must be taught, of Africa
The science and the art, Africa
Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah Nahhh!

Educate yourself, Africa
To liberate yourselves, Africa
Keep your heads up high
No more will we cry

Beautiful are thou, Africa
A legend have to bow, Africa
Oh Oh!

Made in Africa, We share Africa (We share Africa)
Made in Africa, We share Africa (We share Africa)
Made in Africa, We share Africa (We share Africa)
Made in Africa, We share Africa (We share Africa)
Made in Africa, We share Africa (We share Africa)
Made in Africa, We share Africa (We share Africa)
Made in Africa, We share Africa (We share Africa)

Just this past week, New York Post writer, Phil Mushnick wrote a “racially condemning” or just “the uncomfortable truth” about Jay Z and his minority ownership of the new Brooklyn Nets as Brooklyn’s native son who would possibly be defining the style/marketing direction of the Nets with a suggestion of renaming the team “The New York Niggas/Niggers” in his usual cultural popularization of the word through the music that allowed him the luxury of being a minority owner of The Nets.

“…why not have him apply the full Jay-Z treatment? Why the Brooklyn Nets when they can be the New York N—-s. The cheerleaders could be the Brooklyn B—hes or Hoes….”

I couldn’t really understand the point of this article outside of exposing the Jayz Jay Z we already knew and being yet another White person looking for an excuse to publicly use the word Nigger in his social commentary  on how Black people using the word Nigger has someone been the downfall of modern society poising even little White children like his own who had never heard the word used until they heard rappers like Jay Z say it. Oh Please Mr. Mushnick -you are full of shit and you know it- I would bet anything that your children heard that word long before they Knew who Jay Z was. The crazy part is that  White people don’t see the justifiable anger by Blacks to stick by Jay Z in this condemnation as making millions on polluting his own people and society at large with illegal and bad behavior, but yet they don’t see anything wrong with holding up the Kennedy’s as American royalty for doing the same thing. If the Kennedy’s can erase their past illegal activities and bad behavior that also polluted their own people and society at large  from the history books to become glorified as American royalty in making their wealth legit- then why can’t Jay Z?

According to Mushnick Jay Z will basically define the same Brooklyn and New York of Showtime’s Girls, caught up in the same race baiting or telling yet another side of an uncomfortable truth of not just Brooklyn, not just New York and not even just our nation but seemingly the entire world in the way we use language and perception in seeing and speaking to and about the same contexts. We either face the elephant in the room head on constructively or run away from it. Partly because of Mushnick and others statements this past week -the question came up for social media consumption and debate saying “When Do We Allow Whites To Criticize Blacks?“,  as if any clear conclsuion outside of race baiting was going to come out of posing a question like that in the race baiting Root. Yes I said it- there are Black focused news and information outlets that are just as much race baiters as their White counterparts. The definition of race baiting (the unfair use of statements about race to try to influence the actions or attitudes of a particular group of people) does not change because of color, the same way that Nigga/Nigger ’s definition does not change because of color. We all have to stick to one concise definition to keep a society from constant confusion in division.

I believe that faith in knowing there’s a higher power who creates miracles can save those who believe. The idea of a God that kills when faced with disobedience and non-believers, when one of the fundamental teachings of most faiths and humanity is “Thou shall not kill” is extremely ill-conceived to me and very UnGodly. I always hear people talking about they are “God-fearing” people, but I saw this quote that spoke to what I feel in my heart when I hear “God-Fearing”.

After seeing the images/words below in the form of a chain letter in hopes of being granted miracles by passing it along and by making one fear God in knowing that questioning or denying the power of God in anyway can eventually get you killed is very unGodly to me as well . This type of ideology makes me wonder about the teachings of religious fear mongering, which is far from the love from and of the higher power that I have come to know in my spirituality and faith.

We all should take a moment in prayer and reflection to really look deep within ourselves as we go to our selected places of worship on Sunday to truly decide if we are praising God in fear or in love, for by his/her deeds shall a man/woman be known because we can never run away from ourselves.

Ya running and ya running
And ya running away.
Ya running and ya running
And ya running away.
Ya running and ya running
And ya running away.
Ya running and ya running,
But ya can’t run away from yourself
Can’t run away from yourself -
Can’t run away from yourself -
Can’t run away from yourself -
Can’t run away from yourself -
Can’t run away from yourself.
Ya must have done (must have done),
Somet’in’ wrong (something wrong).
Said: ya must have done (must have done),
Wo! Somet’in’ wrong (something wrong).
Why you can’t find the
Place where you belong?
Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do (running away);
Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do (running away);
Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do (running away);
Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do (running away);
Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do (running away).
Every man thinketh his
Burden is the heaviest (heaviest).
Every man thinketh his
Burden is the heaviest (heaviest).
Ya still mean it: Who feels it knows it, Lord;
Who feels it knows it, Lord;
Who feels it knows it, Lord;
Who feels it knows it, Lord.
Ya running and ya running
And ya running away.
Ya running and ya running
And ya running away.
Ya running and ya running
And ya running away.
Ya running and ya running
But ya can’t run away from yourself.
Could ya run away from yourself?
Can you run away from yourself?
Can’t run away from yourself!
Can’t run away from yourself!
Yeah-eah-eah-eah – from yourself.
Brr – you must have done somet’in’ -
Somet’in’ – somet’in’ – somet’in’ -
Somet’in’ ya don’t want nobody to know about:
Ya must have, Lord – somet’in’ wrong,
What ya must have done – ya must have done somet’in’ wrong.
Why you can’t find where you belong?
Well, well, well, well, ya running away, heh, no -
Ya running away, ooh, no, no, no,
I’m not (running away), no, don’t say that – don’t say that,
‘Cause (running away) I’m not running away, ooh! (running away)
I’ve got to protect my life, (running away)
And I don’t want to live with no strife. (running away)
It is better to live on the housetop (running away)
Than to live in a house full of confusion. (running away)
So, I made my decision and I left ya; (running away)
Now you comin’ to tell me (running away)
That I’m runnin’ away. (running away)
But it’s not true, (running away)
I am not runnin’ away. (running away)

As we honor the messenger on the 31st anniversary of his transition from earth to home going- leaving the world to carry on the teachings of love and freedom, and the love in freedom- I thought I should pay tribute in profile to Nestor Robert Marley’s mother on Mother’s Day- since she gave the world an incomparable gift of life , music and teachings that continue from generation to generation.

There has been so much press hype on the so called mystery of Bob Marley having a White father with the release of the Marley family and even the long lost and seemingly continuos bad blood between Bunny Wailer, Chris Blackwell and & Rita Marley finally coming together full circle in a authorized documentary entitled Marley; but here we unlock the mystery, wisdom, vision and soul of the woman who gave birth to the one called Marley.

“Cedella Malcolm Marley Booker (July 23, 1926– April 8, 2008) was the mother of Jamaican reggae musician Bob Marley and a singer and writer…Booker was born Cedella Malcolm in Rhoden Hall, Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica, to Alberta Whilloughby and Omeriah Malcolm, a farmer, a “bush doctor”, and one of the most respected residents of Nine Mile (son of Robert “Uncle Day” Malcolm, who descended from the Cromanty slaves shipped to Jamaica from the African Gold Coast in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries). At 18, Cedella Malcolm married Norval Sinclair Marley, a white Jamaican of English ancestry, when she became pregnant with his son, Robert Nesta (which second given name “Nesta” means prophetically “wise messenger”). Norval Marley was a Marine officer and captain as well as the plantation overseer. His family applied constant pressure however, and although he provided financial support for them, the Captain seldom saw his wife and son. Bob was ten years old when Norval died of a heart attack in 1955 at age 70. Cedella and Bob then moved to Trenchtown, a slum neighborhood in Kingston. This was the only place Booker could afford to live at the time, being a young woman moving from the country to the big city on her own….While living in Trenchtown, Booker gave birth to a daughter, Pearl, with Taddeus Livingston, the father of Bunny Livingston – aka Bunny Wailer – who formed the original Wailers trio with Bob Marley and Peter Tosh in 1963…Cedella then married Edward Booker, an American civil servant, and resided first in Delaware, where she gave birth to two more sons, Richard and Anthony, with Booker. Anthony was killed in a shootout with Miami police after walking through a shopping mall with a 12 ga. shotgun and opening fire on responding police; Richard Booker survives her. After Edward Booker’s death in 1976, Cedella moved to Miami, Florida, where she was present at the deathbed of her famous son who died from cancer in 1981. Booker lived in Miami for the remainder of her life…” Read More

Briefly researching who Cedella Marley Booker- the mother was was quite intriguing and told me so much more about who the boy  named ” Messenger” who became a legend  really was. I never knew that Bob hand delivered his mother to the one and only Lee Scratch Perry to produce and globally introduce her musical talents and sound to the world as he had done at studio one with Bob Marley and the Wailers. I never knewthat Bunny Wailer and Bob Marley shared a biological sister in common named Pearl, which made Bob and Bunny not only kin through music as founders of the original Wailers , but also sharing a mother and father via the birth of their sister. I also never knew that there was a love story that produced this legend via the love story of a dark skin Jamaican Christian girl from St. Ann who at the age of 17 started a romance with a White  50 year old Jamaican man whose father was English of Syrian Jewish descent and whose mother was said to be a non-white mixed race Jamaican -which I will interrupt as probably an Asian and African global fusion which is representative of many  ”mixed race” people in Jamaica.

The newly released Marley film set the stage for all the hoopla and headline making narrative of what most are calling a true Bob Marley story with the family actually being fully involved and pushing the project after some earlier attempts with big Hollywood names like Martin Scorsese and Jonathan Demme , who for one reason or another just  could not find the right fit with the family in being able to speak the language of the life of Nester Robert Marley on film. As Nelson Mandela said “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart. ” I would come to find out from Cedella Booker’s own words that this is a trait she past down to her son as a Marley legacy in never forgetting where you came from in language or otherwise.

When I read the quote by  Bob’s eldest son Ziggy Marley blasted all over the world saying “I think Bob always regretted that he wasn’t black.” I must admit I was irritated because there has been so much race baiting, religious baiting, tribal bating, political party baiting and any separation of ying and yang/black and white there is from all around the world on all sides, so I didn’t want what is being called the best insight into Bob’s life as a man, not just the artist put to film, to be the narrative of the tragic mulatto who lived this whole life of legendary greatness and global adoration as a Black man who brought the message to the world in a way that every one sang “Every man has the right to decide his own destiny ” while shouting out the African nation of Zimbabwe ;yet because of his father being a White Jamaican somehow made him less of a representation of a Black man. In a way maybe this is what drove Bob to be the embodiment physically and mentally saying “Me only have one ambition, y’know. I only have one thing I really like to see happen. I like to see mankind live together – black, white, Chinese, everyone – that’s all..I don’t stand for the black man’s side, I don’ t stand for the white man’s side. I stand for God’s side…”. It shows us all how society divides and conquers with manufactured divisions of race, religion, tribe, gender , sexual orientation and every division we can find when all that really matters is what is in one’s heart and soul. I don’t want my memory of Bob to be yet another man of greatness never to have had their soul satisfied. His passion in fighting for the Black man to be free & African EmPowerment in being the ultimate representation of the soul of a great Black man with unmitigated power who is embraced by the world over; yet he saw his exterior as closer to White than Black and it couldn’t catch up to his soul that ran deep in the beauty of Blackness of Africa – forever waiting in vain to be satisfied and possibly thinking that it should have been Peter’s face to his words…..”

While there are so many articles in the blogosphere about Norval Marley’s philandering ways  embedded with racilicious verbiage leading to visuals that intentionally unintentionally depicts Bob Marley’s father as some plantation era overseer that was bedding down young Jamaican plantation workers or their daughters without barely mentioning -if at all that Bob Marley was born in wedlock and according to Cedella’s own words with her being baptized with Nester in her belly with a father and husband that was a kind man who did his best to take care of her and Bob until he died when Bob was a young boy, not this strange tale/narrative of a dead beat father who was never in Bob’s life and had him and his mother in abject poverty while he lived his White rich privileged life that had been going around for generations. I hope in the hoopla of introducing the so called “unknown White father” into the narrative of the one called Marley that we also listen to the narrative of Cedella Marley -the mother and wife -in telling her love story within a marriage that bore a son named by his father  as Nester -The Messenger”.

Cedella- Nesta Robert Marley’s mum was a great children’s book author and musician and an even greater gospel reggae singer who carried the message of generations of singers, griots, teachers and wordsmiths who set that DNA free in a young boy who was told by a non believer that his birth name sounded like a girl’s name, so his mother allowed a name reversal to suit society, but she never stopped calling him Nester. From that root, the young boy grew up to live up to his birth name  as “Messenger” . The greatest gift and sacrifice a mother can ever make to the world  is setting the seed and allowing it to grow freely to live up to its ultimate potential -this is the legacy of Mama Cedella and what every mother in the world leaves and hopes to leave with every generation- Triumphantly!  Every mother’s ultimate redemption song -after passing through the good, bad and ugly times in trying your best to figure out and understand the balance of allowing the seed to grow freely and giving it the right amount of water nourishment, love , care and tenderness it needs to live a fully fruitful life-with rich soil setting the seeds for the next generation to also bare life’s fruits. No one knows a child more than an engaged mother. No matter what it says on paper a mother never stops calling your birth name.

” I think Nester have seen some resemblance of me in Rita (Bob’s Only Wife)… A lot of people would think that Rita is my daughter more than Bob my son…  Jah never make a mistake, he knows everything he is doing and he do it right…”

Rita Marley is yet another mother of Marley that I would like to pay homage to because she continued the legacy  in standing firm as the mother of generation Bob -a global African generation living and thriving the world over in Bob’s name. Getting to know Mama Rita in the video below also allows a closer introspective to Bob Marley the man and his wife and back up singer. Everything we have a commitment to is using us to get through its manifestations. It’s all a matter of the commitment in levels of mutual inity in the way we  engage those levels of commitment. When it came to Bob- music was surely a weapon in the deepest passions of love and war in evolutionary revolution of freedom. Basically an ecstasy induced by happiness, triumph and freedom- this is how and who I remember the always on time  Messenger- Nestor Robert Marley AKA BOB Marley .

We judge people on who they choose to love or have sex with- man or woman- with no concern to what they want and have agreed to because we only desire to hear ourselves preach world wide of the idea of the manifest destiny we hate; while claiming it in love at every step -as the path forward in telling others who and how to live as if that is our destiny. Rita Marley in her own words said “I didn’t feel like I was a wife, I felt like I was Bob’s background vocal, So their little  things I would have to remind him… hey bob… be careful….watch those girls…watch those this- then I became the watch eye, the mother hen… type & he would call me sometimes to get girls out of his room. I didn’t complain cuzs I felt I was there for the job & so the relationship became, more like I have a commitment to this thing“…Rita Marley- Mother, I-Three

Rita the mother hen understood her power as the ultimate say in the sweetness of the songs she made in expression of the special kind of bond, fellowship and love she shared with Bob, which even his own mother acknowledged as a deeply special kind of love that her son expressed to her about how he felt about his wife-Rita Marley. A love that could truly only be understood between them, but was evident to the world. Rita Marley in her words to show Bob that she can be her own girl /herself  beyond the background singer , mother, wife, one draw hit –has had an exemplary solo career of her own with beautiful love ballads serving every bit of the passion of the love songs era Bob Marley -writing about his romance with another woman named Cindy Breakspeare -Junior Gong’s mommy. While he may have written “Turn your lights down low“ and “she used to call me dada” for Cindy Breakspeare; he surely wrote “Satisfy My Soul”  and ” No Woman No Cry” for Rita, along with every song for the building, emancipation and empowerment of Africa for global Africans because he clearly chose her and in turn she clearly chose him to build his global African Nation from root to fruit. Rita Marley continues the legacy from yard to yard across the world, with a home base at its roots and gateway in Ghana, West Africa.

Rita Marly was never waiting in vain- she was taking back her power in fighting in love for her man with beautiful love ballads like “I’m still Waiting” with the knowledge that her place in the life of the messenger was as it was written beyond words, man and even beyond herself as a wife , mother an artist. In watching the videos of Rita and Cindy talk about their relationships with Bob, I get the sense that Rita was the syrupy sweet shy dark skin root Jamaican christian girl open to be shown the world , who fell in love with a “bad man pon de town” -relative to interpretation because she was captured and fell in love with the deepness of the love and passion in his soul, much like his mother Cedella and Bob Marley’s father Norval. Rita Marley has set her own path in a rich legacy of music and true essence of the blessing of motherhood and how we should hold it up to the most high. I end this tribute to Mama Cedella and Mama Rita …..  by saying Good Morning Jah!

Happy Mamas Day to all the lil mamas, big mamas, birth mamas, round the way mamas, village mamas, earth mamas…global mamas…U are all our Ye Yo’s! We love you and we thank you for all you have done, continue to do and will do in the name of the ultimate blessing of motherhood! Heres to building a greater future in reflections of our Sweet Mothers!

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#AllOfTheMothers #AllOfTheFathersWhoStandByThoseMothers #AllOfThoseFathersWhoWilBestandingByThoseMothersAfter Today

As we go thru Europe to find the soul of music being brought by the Daughters of Yaa sprinkled all over the world in warrior queen goodness, our passport in global fusion leads us to make a stop in Germany  and London Via African foundations to find no other than Y’akoto, Joy Denalane and Emeli Sandé. Y’akoto is the half German, half Ghanaian songstress born in Hamburg and raised in Tema.

Y’akoto’s voice is heaven sent from Jazz, Soul, R&B, Afrofolk, Afro-pop and all genres that the industry stuck on labels can put her sound with ; she flows effortlessly in bringing the universal spirit of soul filled music that immediately captivates your mind while occupying your body in the type of feel good music that as Bob Marley says “once it hits you , you feel no pain”. Y’akoto is amongst the new wave of Global African soul singers like Sena, Wunmi, Anbuley, Asa,Nneka, Tawiah and a great  crew of true artists around the world who are this generation’s throwback to eras gone by when music was live and consumed by global collaborations in the universality of versatility  that is so intoxicatingly soulful regardless of language or borders. Y’akoto is working with her fellow German superstar- Producer/Artist Max Herre- who is married to another global fusion in German Chocolate, the German/South Africa -Joy Denalane. These women speak the global language of music between borders bringing separated worlds together in their global fusion while naturally and respectably celebrating all the sums of its parts.

“She has been compared to some of the biggest names of her craft, such as Erykah Badu, Amy Winehouse, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, and has proved in many concerts that she’s as convincing on stage as in the studio. Both her EP Tamba and the Single “Diamonds” have set the bar high and raised expectations for her debut album….Now, the day has arrived: Babyblues, the first longplayer of 23 year old singer Jennifer Yaa Akoto Kieck a.k.a. Y’akoto from Hamburg is here! In collaboration with Mocky, Haze and production team Kahedi (Max Herre, Samon Kawamura und Roberto Di Gioia), the cosmopolitan with roots in Ghana and residence in Hamburg, Germany recorded 14 songs – songs that excel with their simplicity and focus as well as through Y’akoto’s voice which, despite her youth, has an amazing maturity and depth.” Read More

“Y’akoto’s music feels like a piece of chocolate, which slowly melts on your tongue. Born in Hamburg with a Ghanian descent Y’akoto creates the sweetest soul music, wich just makes you chill out and feel deep relaxation….Her musical style reminds you of Nneka or the brilliant Erykah Badu, both of whome performed live with Y’akoto already. Her colleagues as well have a high opinion of her. Max Herre characterizes her as “a talent, who you meet up with once in a decade, if at all.” At the end of march her debut album “Babyblues” will be on sale. The first single is entitled “Diamonds” and impresses with a smooth groove, understated african rhythms and the intense soulful voice of Y’akoto.”Read More

Joy Denalane represents the best of German Chocolate in her musical flavoring. Berlin’s own German-South African songstress, Joy Denalane, is so underestimated- her voice is sick-more heaven than hell-silky smooth with the grit like a throwback to classics like Aretha, Gladys & Chaka -one day she will also have strictly 1st name recognition because her voice is PURE FIRE! I was introduced to this phenomenal women on her Heaven or Hell track with Raekwon a few years ago, but with my exploration of her body of work, I fell in love with a future legendary voice , sound and soul. Her collaborations with her husband- famed German artist and producer Max Herre has brought so much beautiful music to the world, creating a musical power couple that the world needs to be as familiar with as they are with Beyonce and Jay Z.

With collaborations with artists like her husband Max on 1st Liebe AKA First Love, it brought me memories of that perfect love found by hip-hop and soul between Mary J. Blige and Method Man when they gave our generation our own love anthem in a classic throwback.  I am completely in love with Joy and Max as a couple because the music they make together oozes with the pure love and the sexiness of two beautiful souls whose fire burns through their lovemaking, with the final undeniable product being two beautiful baby boys who are just as deliciously pleasant to the eyes as their music is pleasant to the ear. From English to German, whether collaborating with Lupe Fiasco, Bilal or their counterparts in Germany, the soul of Joy’s voice never ceases to bring pure sweetness of  sounds to any  track. In 20008 Joy and Max founded their own recording imprint, Nesola Records.  Her first album Mamani which translates to Mother was produced by her husband Max and dedicated to her mother, then came her second album and first English language album entitled Born and Raised, which was recorded in Philadelphia along with her newly released third album Maureen . Joy’s recording in Philadelphia has brought back the classic Philly soul sound reminiscent of the greats of the past with a new global fusion flavor. I am proudly proclaiming that this is one of my favorite artists of the future. Take a listen and indulge in the pure goodness of the JOY of good music! Just in case you are still wondering who Joy is -she is your favorite artists favorite artist -LOL-get to know Joy!

I was the daughter
Of a little known king
When they came
And put me in a castle
My eyes had never seen
They spoke in tongues
I’ve never heard
They took me to the sea
At the edge of the earth
I journied tempest waters
Reached these distant shores
My clothes are tattered
And my soul is worn
I bore a daughter
In captivity
They came late one night
To take her away from me
I cried and I cried
Oh, Lord have mercy on me
Can’t they see
That little girl
Is royalty

Chorus:
I held my ground
And took my stand
Can’t help
Feeling sometimes
That I’m a stranger
In this land
In this land of mine

My mother used
To cook and clean
For the rich folks
On the hill
Made sure
I got an education
And could hardly
Pay the bills
I studied
Schools of thought
And philosophies of man
Started questioning
The contradictions
In this land
I left the classroom
Joined the rallies
In the street
Marching hand in hand
In the Mississippi heat
I spent so many years
Of my life on the move
That confrontation
Was the only thing i knew
Talking unity and how
We gone push on through
Can’t even say no more
If anything’s improved

(Chorus)

I’m a family man
With a wife
And two kids to feed
I dedicated my life
To seeing we succeed
The way I sought to make it
I learned to follow the rules
So we can make sure
Our children visit
The finest schools
Grandmas on the weekends
Going on about the good old days
When decent black folks
Be trying to make a change
My parents used to tell me
To live my life steadfast
But some may ask me
What it is that I have

(Chorus)

LOVE, MARRIAGE AND BABIES – MAKE BEAUTIFUL MUSIC…..DON’T YOU AGREE….

There’s so many things to say right now
I got so much on my mind
Look at what is going down
How much higher can we climb
The system that we’re living in
Depends on poverty and greed
But people don’t need charity
It’s justice that we need

Pre-Chorus:
There’s disrepair
It’s surrounding you
And it’s worse than it’s ever been
We’ll overcome
Overcome the things they do
We’re halfway there
Cause we know the truth
But living is another thing
We’ll overcome
Overcome the things they do
Lift your voice and sing

Chorus:
A change is coming our way
Step by step and day by day
We’ll live by all that we say
Step by step now come what may

There’s war all around the world
In the name of democracy
Can’t tell the rouge from the just
When they bring hypocrisy
I see my sisters on the move
Making sure we all contend
Must’ve lost something on the way
We reduced ourselves again

Pre-Chorus

Chorus

Rap:
Before we go forth
We gotta take ‘em back, back
So we can know what we did
Cause if we never know what happened in de past
Then we can never know, that’s what it is
If we don’t do it for us
We gotta do it for our kids, kids
So they don’t gotta relive
See, there’s so much happening, it ain’t gonna get fix
With singing and rapping and we gotta take action
And turn that preach into practising
Cause what happen back then, will be right back again
But each one teach one, cause we only as fast
As the last one straggling, so help ‘em out

Bridge:
Step by step day by day
Said it won’t be long, it won’t be long
Step by step come what may
I feel it coming on strong
Step by step day by day
We gonna overcome
Step by step come what may
As long as we are one

Chorus
Can’t tell the rogue from the just

What more can you want than a soulful brainiac who can engage you in intellectual conversation, give you some medical advice and blow out your eardrums with her superb vocal range. If this type of woman sounds interesting to you then allow me to introduce you to Adele Emeli Sandé - known by her stage name Emeli Sandé because the United Kingdom can not have two Adele’s at the same time. Emeli has more than carved out her own path as a singer/songwriter who has penned songs for artists such as Alesha Dixon, Chipmunk, Leona Lewis, Cheryl Cole, and Tinie Tempah just to name a few. Emeli was born in Scotland to a Zambian father and an English mother. She studied medicine at University of Glasgow, but decided her calling to heal would have to come through her music instead of formalized medicine. At the tender age of 24 Emeli is a force to be reckoned with as a writer who writes all her own material along with having a great vocal range that will surely see her having a career in longevity doing what she does best- bless the world with her gift of great soul music. Simon Cowell has called Emeli his favorite songwriter of the moment  and 2012 saw Emeli crossing over the pond to bless USA audiences with our newest global fusion import via London with a foundations of roots equally firm in Zambia, England and Scotland. At the top of 2012 she was engaged to her long time boyfriend who is a scientist, juxtaposing an amazing home of high level intellect with high level music to match – My kind of home!

“Emeli Sande is the future superstar you probably already love. The incredible lungs behind one of this year’s biggest songs, Heaven, Emeli has already had a number one, after appearing on Professor Green’s Read All About It, and could be Christmas One with her new single Daddy. 2012 is the year Emeli steps into spotlight and goes stellar – after already winning a Brit’s Critic’s Choice Award – with the release of her debut album Our Version of Events, out February 5. Emeli is also taking her beautiful street soul on tour – currently supporting Coldplay in Europe, then headlinling her own UK tour dates in April.” READ MORE

“Even though this forthcoming debut album from Scottish-born pop singer Emeli Sandé doesn’t hit the US ‘til June 5, I’ve had it since Feb n’ just couldn’t wait to give the curious a peep into her stellar LP! Be on the look out for her US (live!) invasion for dates in April in NYC n’ LA, then later in her summer tour opening for Coldplay across North America. Introducing us to her soulful, royal vocals is the album opener n’ single, “Heaven” (also remixed by Alpines which I’ve uploaded for your listening pleasure) that’s graced w/the right orchestral n’ choir accompaniment to catapult her into such a majestic pop status. Seeing her live also confirms how incredible her talent is. A natural on stage n’ already grabbing the Critics Choice Award at the Brit Awards for 2012, this is the next UK diva following in the prestigious footsteps of Adele n’ Florence + the Machine who both won these accolades in the past. As the LP continues w/other songs such as “Mountains”, “Clown” and her other single “Daddy” feat. Naughty Boy, you’re roped into her sensational songwriting, almost always pushing you into a state of deep pondering along the lines of love’s peaks, desperations n’ complexities, all bringing out emotions that physically instigate a tear or 2 or 3… Let’s say, you’ll be crying easily if you’re going through a normal life, so don’t be ashamed. What’s Sade to the 1980s, might as well be Emeli Sandé to the 2010s. Believe me, her pop appeal is stamped through “Maybe” – one of my ultimates – or “Suitcase” and “Breaking The Law” where she exposes just her vocals to these acoustic gems. Soon, I have no doubt you’ll be singing along, longing for love, elongating heartbreak n’ lounging to these timeless Emeli Sandé songs as your soundtrack to hopefully a long-lasting (yes n’ sometimes painful) life…” READ MORE

If there is a time more than ever when our little girls need a supershero from Africa to her Diaspora..it surely is Now. Issues from colorism, racism, sexism & all of our many global isms, skisms  etc. & overcoming them has lead to what I call the movement of the global African daughters of  the great warrior, Yaa Asentewaa, who have come to realize their place in finding resloution to our many revolutions. From the ones who once existed in flesh to those who are our current living legends keeping the revolution of  the African woman going forward- like Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, Miriam Makeba, Winne Mandela, Margaret Ekpo, Queen Nzinga, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf , Wangari Waathai & many more, to the new generation of writers, musicians, filmmakers, architects, economists, designers, activists leaders & all around cultural curators & creatives finding their creative freedom in honoring the past by building on it with a push forward to the future . A new movement of the people who understand that Mama Africa is our individual & collective responsibility because if Africa burns then we burn with it.  Our supershero, Wunmigirl is amongst the global Africans ushering in a cycle that understands that it has no end because culture should always be in a state of evolving as it revolves around its preservation of history & legacy from past to present, in preparation for the future-The  type of love language spoken by a global village of Wow Wow’s, preparing to take over the world, 1 Global African Nation at a time. Wunmigirl invites everyone to cross over to her side, while asking the listener to exercise his/her individual & collective right to define what is crossing over.

Wunmi Oliaya is the England born girl, who grew up in Nigeria, currently living in Brooklyn, New York- who by the sound of the drum crosses the Atlantic, worlds over & metamorphosing into Wunmigirl -a Global African Supershero saving global Africa from mental enslavement, self doubt, self hate, and injustice with truth & reconciliation raw & unfiltered powered by her gari!  Wunmigirl is the supershero “bobo slayer” at a time when African nations like Queen Nzinga’s Angola have finally decided to make domestic violence a national priority & Winnie Mandela’s South Africa has gone as far as creating female condoms with teeth to fight against the overwhelming rape statistics in the nation.  Wunmigirl bluntly speaks on this taboo topic at a time when global Africans understand that any violence against women & domestic violence  is a cycle that needs to stop by finding a sense of freedom in order to take the first step to change. Our “bobo slayer” & supershero, Wunmigirl opens the global dialogue with her music while other global Wow Wow’s like Carla Selby utilize their creativity in teaching domestic violence victims how to become survivors by giving them freedom to attain skills to pour their creativity into as they step toward freedom.

Freedom is often attained in sacrifice, consequences & rewards without guarantees other than our own level of faith & push to attain the change that we say want to be. This is what our supershero represents as she comes around to save the day by leading her Wow Wow’s to freedom land,where the language of love is the national language of her tribe. We need our global voices who bring our global connection back to its basics.  Our supershero, Wummigirl  with her nation of Wow Wow’s declare “Are you hearing Me Bobo, when I say I No Go, I No Go,Are You Hearing Me Bobo, when I say I No Do, I No Do ”!

From one side of the Atlantic to the other, the language of the soul of a house’s foundation is never lost in its people. From scavengers to aristocrats,  from paupers to kings, from the roots of mama Africa to the fruits of her global African children who protect her land as environmentalist, there has always been a local & global code of ethics & self governance that we never had to make a government or church matter, but rather just a human matter that directly effects forward movement as a people . Much like the sons of Lagos- Seun & Femi Kuti , Wunmigirl comes with the roots of Africa with fury that is determined to rise with a vision of an Africa for Africans. Our Supershero is here to showcase the future of her motherland-Future Africa…from Londontown to Lagos roots…our supershero be for Nija Inside!

Wunmigirl comes with her global tribe, a nation of Wow Wow’s- Global African fashionistas who adorn our supershero’s capsule fashion collections- paying homage to the African roots of our supershero while staying true to her futuristic evolution, which gives offerings of beauty in its natural progression from the root to the fruit! The nation of Wow Wow’s come in all shapes, shades & sizes also representing the natural progression which is uniquely & beautifully Africa-Cutting across the evolution & revolution of the Wow Wow sound & style of Wunmigirl – A journey of an African Supershero whose Wow Wow’s run the world as she keeps it rockin’ globally!

Supershero-Wunmigirl comes with her own language in her vocal drum…she commands global spirits, who invest their souls in a dance of joy cheering for her to win a battle contained in a global love language deeply rooted in the soul of house. Every Supershero must come with a soundtrack. Wunmigirl comes with a Global African soundtrack telling the story of an ALA to the future- contuning the natural progression from the root to the fruit in taking & continuing the rights of passage to superhershero staus! Wunmi, from ALA (African Living Abroad) to the Future of the Global African Supershero is the story we can not wait to to be told, seen, progress & embraced globally manifested in our global African image-representing the new sound of Global Africa – Tortured, Cultured, Seasoned , Styled & Ready for It’s Close Up to Shine!

Wunmigirl is a musician, a designer, an artist, a sister, a daughter, an aunty, a woman & a Grand Daughter of  Africa -a new era much needed & gladly welcomed Global African Supershero commanding & introducing a global love language that allows audiences to embrace an experience that makes them say  ”Wow Wow- that was incredible”!

Wunmigirl is the supershero that gives voice to the voiceless & let’s it be known that there is too much talk talk talk with no one listening!

Wunmigirl came calling for a kick start  for Future Africa & everyone started listening. The pledges came in & the people got behind the journey to the experience. We now join Wunmigirl in her journey from ALA to hearing the sound of our African Supershero after receiving her rights of recording passage in Ghana, West Africa. Refreshed, Rejuvenated, Reinvented& Reformed- the 4 R’s in the spirit of a true Supershero ready for the performance of her well earned right of passage! Wunmigirl is taking us on the journey as she tells our Global African stories in the truth of a new generation dubbed “Future Africa”! From the continent to her Diaspora, Future Africans are looking to Africa as the Future. While many with earned & self imposed titles as historians, intellectuals, experts, elders, leaders, Pan-Africanists & some entitled title seekers lose touch with the forward movements of Future Africa because they are too immersed in the beautiful struggle sound of their own voices, waxing poetic in verbal masturbation about the failures of what was, without much care & solution to what is & what will be! Wunmigirl lets the “Bottom-Line” know that it is full of shit…& that the little girl from London, to Nigeria, to New York, to Ghana & all points in between her ALA journey has attained & accepted her Global African Wunmigirl Wings! A roots honor never lost to be found, but rather awaiting her rightful time of preparation & passage! We are the Future ..This is Africa, Enter The New World…Wunmigirl-Africa’s new Supershero birthed from the queen of Afro-Fusion Wunmi Olaiya!

PHOTO CREDITS: Regine Gigi Romain , TKAFoundation, WUNMI.COM , Delphine Diallo

On November 12, 2011 while visiting Ghana, I was delighted to attend a free tribute concert at Citizen Kofi in Osu dedicated to the memory of Hi-Life Music Legend Mac Tontoh- formerly of globally recognized mega Hi-Life bands Uhuru & Osibisa. Legends such as Ebo Taylor, Pat Thomas, Jewel Ackah, Ben Brako, Gyedu Blay Ambolley along with future legends such as the daughter of Pat Thomas, Nana Yaa played their hits  backed by the talented  band & musical direction of Kwame Yeboah & his band Ohia Be Ye Ya (direct translation:Poverty will be painful) to remember, honor & celebrate the life of Mac Tontoh & his great contribution to world music & putting the music of Ghana on the global map.

As a young girl who grew up with the sounds of these legends of Hi-Life music blasting from speakers from Ghana to New York, I never imagined that I would see all these legends on one stage, in Ghana & for free on my mother’s birthday -the person who single handily introduced me to all these great historical musical legends- whose original vinyl  records I inherited when she moved  back to Ghana. All I could say was Wow! What a great treat of beautiful music from Hi-Life living legends honoring/remembering their brother & fellow legend, Mac Tontoh, who will never be forgotten! I was even more delighted that as I went to take a picture with Pat Thomas, he did a double take & told me how much I look like his daughter & that she was about to perform on stage so I should check out my sister. Well, I am not sure how much we really look alike; however she was just as beautiful as the soulful voice that came through her, so the compliment from her father was well received. I was still on a natural high the day after this concert because I danced my butt off & felt that extra special Osibi fire in my sa, which Mac Tontoh spoke of in my 2008 documentary “Black Star Rising” ! After a couple of seemingly rough unproductive weeks in Ghana, I was energized & in good spirits wanting more. This was truly a beautiful welcome home reminding me why I love my nation & why this black queen will always be empowered by the black star mogya (blood) that runs through me.

The production was a job well done by the organizers, but we need a lot more of this in Ghana in accessibility for all to celebrate, teach & learn about our cultural history through our past & living legends. Thank goodness for social media outlets like Facebook  because otherwise I would have completely missed this once in a lifetime experience since there was little talk about it amongst Ghanaians in general & in Ghanaian media. That same night there was a Daddy Lumba concert  honoring his global contribution to Ghanaian musical culture with all the extra dignitary VIP status along with the heavy price tag that the average Ghanaian couldn’t afford, yet to my surprise somehow a large portion of the audience at the FREE tribute concert to Mac Tontoh were White people & non-Ghanaian tourists, students & business people- Things that make you go HMMM!

As much as I & many Ghanaians globally love Daddy Lumba, his global contribution to the spread & preservation of Hi-Life music does not surpass or even come close to that of Mac Tontoh & Osibisa to be any more worthy of warranting the recognition & attendance of two former presidents or any more worthy than Mac Tontoh of  commanding a large amount of local media coverage recognizing a night dedicated in his honor .  It just makes me think how much we really care about our historical global legacy & why is it that we only seem to respect & see its worth after it is taken away from us, celebrated & deemed worthy globally by others outside of us?  It had to take Disney to retell & bastardize the story of the Ashanti Empire in “The Sword In The Stone“ in order for Ghanaian media outlets, animators & creatives to think to promote, educate, share & pass down the story of Okomfo Anokye to our children so that our legacy will never be forgotten in its pure form by us for us.

I can’t bypass the irony of completely overlooking the man & band who were hands down the reason why the world truly took to Hi-Life music & the power of fashionable Ghanaian musical culture in celebration of the ultimate bleached faced do-rag wearing borga,Daddy Lumba, by the pay to play Ghanaian media & two former presidents who seem to be in some sort of odd love triangle just to agitate & disrespect the sitting president whom they all seem to collectively want to see be a one term president for their own separate interests. The day after both the Mac Tontoh & Daddy Lumba tribute concerts, all you heard about in Ghanaian media was the Daddy Lumba concert & the shenanigans of Ex-President Jerry Rawlings approvingly overseeing his controversial wife Nana Konadu dance with former nemesis & Ex-President John Kufuor.  It seems everything in Ghana has political motivations even the honoring of our legends. It seems like Ghanaian media is more in the business of adverts., sponsorships & playing politics than actually holding up the integrity of true journalism in seeking out stories that are meaningful & worthwhile for Ghana as a nation instead of just who pays them to cover their stories.

Daddy Lumba is definitely a worthwhile story & worthy recipient of the accolades bestowed upon him, but just imagine if there was a tribute concert in honor of  John Lennon of the Beatles the same night as a tribute concert to Coldplay & former Prime Minsters Blair  & Gordon where all over the press about cutting a rug together at the Coldplay concert with no acknowledgement of John Lennon’s tribute the same night. The Beatles told the world “Here Comes the Sun” as they entered the world scene in a globally celebrated  British Invasion the same way Osibisa brought the world a “Sunshine Day” as they entered the world scene with their globally celebrated authentic Ghanaian musical invasion. Cold Play like Lumba are the new generation & new faces of their national culture of music globally, yet we can never overlook the fact that without The Beatles & Osibisa there may not be a Coldplay & Lumba attaining vast global audiences & their contributions are no where near to walking in the shoes or overlooking the legacies of The Beatles & Osibisa even to be able to say that the baton has been passed on to them to run with so to me to have little recognition of Mac Tontoh’s tribute by his nation seemed disrespectful to me particularly on the part of the media.

I was happy to be at the politics free tribute to Mac Tontoh, a night that I will never forget & will one day tell my children about because the legacy of Mac Tontoh & Osibisa is forever. It never seems to fail, just when I am over the unique madness of Ghana/Africa & ready to get out of dodge, I am surprised with the goodness & greatness that always makes me want to stay longer! My ♥ /hate relationship with my Black Star Nation continues as I remain thankful & grateful for all its roses along with its thorns! Forward Ever , Backward Never!

“Come with me on this happy trip back to the promise land ,all will be happy & gay…You’ve been kept down for much too long…Stand Up Please, Say I am free… Don’t Forget You Are Always Welcomed home…WELCOME HOME!!!”

“We must perform like Ghanaian, and for that matter Africans. My advise is that whatever we do, should be African /Ghanaian oriented and that is what will win the trophy for us in the industry,” Mac Tontoh -REST IN POWER!

Slyvia Vanderpool Robinson was a singer, music producer, publisher, record label executive, all around fly mama & music business mogul, who leaves a legacy as the founder of the first rap record label- Sugar Hill Records, which launched the careers of greats such as: Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five, Spoonie G, Treacherous Three, Funky Four Plus One,& The Sugarhill Gang-gaining world wide exposure for yet another new genre of music exclusively born & bred in Black America. Today Sugar Hill Records is  run by  her offspring- including her son & grandson Darnell Robinson.

“All the other rappers didn’t consider the Sugar Hill Gang to be real rappers. They just got lucky. They hadn’t lived the life, they hadn’t invented anything. They took what people were already doing in New York and Sylvia got her son [Joey Robinson Jr.] to find some kids to imitate what was going on in New York. There wasn’t so much resentment towards the Sugar Hill Gang as jealousy that they got to be the first group out. I think Sugar Hill Gang is the only group that was manufactured–the others all had their own material.” READ MORE

Without Slyvia the world would  not have heard “The Message” &  ”Rapper’s Delight“-the noted first rap hit record  by a hip-hop group, which launched hip-hop globally as an official new genre of music. Sylvia payed homage to her Harlem roots in building a new globally recognized renaissance of Black creativity in music, art & poetry that came with a distinct style & sense of culture representative of Sugar Hill- the exclusive, wealthy Harlem neighborhood that got its name in the 1920s, when the area became a popular place to live for wealthy African Americans. “Named to identify the “sweet life” in Harlem, it was a popular residential area of rowhouses for wealthy African Americans during the Harlem Renaissance, including W. E. B. Du Bois,Thurgood Marshall, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., and Duke Ellington. Langston Hughes wrote about its relative affluence in relation to Harlem in his essay “Down and Under in Harlem“. Read More

Sylvia’s Dynamic Productions  as a producer & singer  were sampled in many of our favorite Songs : Check it out HERE

Here are Thembisa S. Mshaka’s 10 things you should know about Sylvia Vanderpool Robinson

Source: thembisamshaka.com

1. She founded the seminal hip-hop label Sugar Hill Records in 1979 with husband Joe Robinson and Morris Levy. It was actually her second label venture, the first being All Platinum Records, an R&B imprint. Sugar Hill’s roster was home to Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five, Spoonie Gee, Treacherous Three, Funky Four Plus One, Sequence (featuring Angie Stone), and…

2 .The Sugar Hill Gang. The group is credited with releasing the first commercial rap smash hit, called “Rapper’s Delight”. Some 14 minutes long with no repeated hook, this song was a watershed moment for hip-hop.

3. “Rapper’s Delight” used “Good Times” by Chic as its music bed, creating instant familiarity for the song and a perfect delivery system for rhyming over a beat. For better or worse, Sylvia was a pioneer of sampling and all its uncharted legal territory (just ask Nile Rodgers, composer and leader of Chic).

4. Sylvia Robinson was the woman producer behind two of the genre’s seminal records: “Rapper’s Delight” and “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five. She also produced “Love on a Two Way Street” by The Moments (1970).

5. Before Sylvia Robinson became one of rap’s first moguls, she was one half of the R&B duo Mickey and Sylvia, whose Top 20 hit “Love Is Strange” pushed over a million copies—in 1957.

6. Sylvia also enjoyed success as a solo artist with her racy opus “Pillow Talk” (1973), certainly a precursor to songs like “Love To Love You Baby” by Donna Summer and “Love Hangover” by Diana Ross. That heavy breathing and moaning to music? Sylvia started it.

7. Sylvia’s songs have also been sampled by some unlikely artists: Kate Bush used the drums from “Pillow Talk” on “Running Up That Hill” (1985) as did Fleetwood Mac for “Big Love” (1987).

8. Sylvia’s voice has been sampled too. Moby sampled her vocals on “Sunday (The Day Before My Birthday)” and master beatmaker J Dilla chose to sample her from “Sweet Stuff” for his song “Crushin’”.

9. Sylvia understood that publishing was where the big, long dollars were in the music business. A shrewd businesswoman whose practices were not always equitable, she earned a reputation for underpaying and micromanaging that, according to Dan Charnas, author of The Big Payback, had “Grandmaster Flash split from the rest of his crew over creative differences and lack of payment.”

10. We have Sylvia to thank for discovering multiplatinum crossover rap icons Naughty By Nature. They made a lackluster debut on her Bon Ami label in 1987 as The New Style before moving over to Tommy Boy Records and changing their name.

“Love on a Two-Way Street” is a Soul ballad written by Sylvia Robinson and Bert Keyes in 1968. The song was originally recorded by Lezli Valentine, an artist signed to All Platinum, the record label that Sylvia Robinson co-owned with her husband, Joe..READ MORE.

RIP OUR DEAREST SLYVIA

Sometimes in life what makes my day is to hear of other people’s accomplishments. Today is one of those days. As Ghanaians & people all over the world who respect freedom & the greatness of man to bring about a global mindset toward change & freedom celebrate Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s 102nd birthday &  Founder’s Day In Ghana; I am delighted to hear that the young people of my Black Star Nation are Honoring the Past By Building The Future!

Ghana taking the lead from the Gaddafi led AU’s 13th Ordinary Summit in the Libyan town of Sirte, where African leaders adopted the centenary birthday celebration of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah as a continental event by stating, “We unanimously agreed to celebrate Dr Nkrumah’s centenary birthday & put it on the AU’s calendar of Special Events“, went on to  finally  take action in 2009 to make Dr. Nkrumah’s birthday a national holiday, celebrating the man, his achievements & his strong vision for a united & independent Africa. Dr Nkrumah became one  of Africa’s most prolific leaders who is celeberated all over the world from a memorial in New Delhi, India to a commemorative stamp in Russia & a New York State Senate resolution celebrating his contribution as 1 of the founders of Pan-Africanism. As diginitaries from around the world visit & send well wishes to Ghana in honor of Dr. Nkrumah’s 102nd birthday today, I can’t help but to acknowledge the elephant  not in the room,Muammar al-Gaddafi- the modern day African leader who thru Dr. Nkrumah’s influence spoke publicly in a push to carry out the vision of a United States of Africa. Today, Gaddafi has basically been deposed in the same style of people’s revolution cloaked in a western backed coup d’état that met Dr. Nkrumah. We are now left once again to look toward the future, hoping a new leader will emerge to carry the torch of a United States of Africa.

“It is time to give life to the dream of a united Africa. If we could even make the regional and economic committees at the sub regional levels work, we will see a much faster progress than we are seeing today. Let Africa not deceive herself, nobody is going to move out of the front of the world queue and create space for us to take a place… We have to work together to move up the front of that queue…it was time the continent rewarded Nkrumah’s commitment to see among other things, a united Africa liberated from poverty, noting that African leaders must back their words with action to ensure the realization of Nkrumah’s dreams for Africa.” READ MORE

While politics in Africa continues to disappoint most Africans, the future is bright among the young people who refuse to have the actions  & lack of progress in African politics defer the dreams of the Africa they want to see & build. One of these young people is Ghana’s own Mantse Aryeequaye. I remember meeting & interviewing Mantse for my labor of love documentary entitled Black Star Rising. I met Mantse in Osu, Ghana in 2008 as a young writer, visionary & man about town who spoke about creating pirate radio in Ghana, growing up as a hip-hop head in Ghana & being a part of the MOP (movement of people) in Ghana who were showcasing the vibrancy of the talents & Arts in Ghana…Now fast Forward to July 16, 2011 & the dream of what the future of Ghanaian arts celebration will hold, has not only been mobilized but realized & celebrated as a movement & festival started in a small historic fishing town that will sooner than later find its global fusion in local & worldwide recognition like the plethora of established & emerging global street arts festivals that have sprouted up in cities like New York, Los Angeles, Berlin, London, Paris etc.

The name of the festival- Chale Wote geniusly exemplifies the spirit & style of Ghanaians in every way, bringing us back by taking us forward to our essence in nostalgic future! Chale Wote is the Ga word for flip-flops that all Ghanaians rock & it also translates to man/homie let’s go! The Chale Wote festival juxtaposed the best of Ghanaian fashion, music, art, culture and the new generation of sports in Ghana that is more BMX bike extreme sports than football. The beautifully raw rugged streets of  the small fishing town of (Jamestown) James Town in the capital city of Accra holds so much of Ghana’s history of greatness for producing some of the greatest boxers like the legendary Azumah Nelson-the first African Boxer to be inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame & rising stars like Joshua Clottey, along with Ghana’s Greatest Photographer James Barnor & his Ever Young photography studio. James Town is also home to Ghana’s oldest prison, James Fort,  which held Dr. Kwame Nkrumah & many of Ghana’s freedom fighters as the nation woke up, fought & regained its power against their former colonizers to elect Dr. Nkrumah as our very first president while still being held in prison.

Jamestown is located right on the Atlantic Ocean & is a lively  colorfully boisterous town with many open spaces & beautiful architecture juxtaposed with the dense poverty of economics but not of spirit ,which served to be the perfect location for the Chale Wote  Street Arts Festival!  Big Ups to Mantse & all those who dare to dream, dare to take the chance in lighting a spark that may set the fire of greatness, all those who have no fear of failure because they are too consumed with the desire of creating success, and those collectively brought together their passion to make this beautiful expression of Ghana come to fruition. There maybe some who may call you failures because they are void of the unwavering love in black star souls & are hollow without ability to soak up the idea & manifestation of potential in dreams & actions. I can’t wait to hopefully be there to bare witness to the experience in the flesh & to hopefully be able to contribute on the next go around in April 2012! CHALE WOTE!!!

“The premiere edition of the CHALE WOTE Street Art Festival, held on July 16th, was a success because many people believed in a simple idea. Teamwork and artistic talent make a powerful combination. With only three months to plan and a limited budget, more than a dozen young creative professionals rolled up their sleeves and got to work on the largest free street festival to ever hit Accra. The result: a 12-hour fantastic street maze of live action art stretching from the Mantse Agbonaa to the old Kings Way building—graffiti + street painting, bike/skateboard/rollerblade street stuntin’ parties, art installations, experimental theater, a fashion circus, drumfunkbass music, spoken word, and a live music concert—never before seen on this scale in James Town. The idea began at a Talk Party in Osu back in March. The monthly discussion series is hosted by ACCRA [dot] ALT. “We were tired of talking about change. It was time to take action and generate a viable economy for art in this city. CHALE WOTE is well on its way to making Accra a cultural hotbed and international destination,” says filmmaker and ACCRA [dot] ALT producer, Mantse Aryeequaye….” READ MORE

Photo Credit: Nana Kofi Acquah

Follow The Organizers: Accra[dot]Alt

Photo Credit: KwesiBlack.com

For other photo credits go to : Face2FaceAfrica.com

While everyone & their momma was praising Kanye & Jay Z’s new album, the rest of the world was getting messed up & fighting for our lives.

Once again the internets were all a flutter over the release of Watch The Throne & the stans were out in full praise mode. I expected it, so I was just going to let this week pass & let the stan party roll in silence, but the more I watched the news, heard how 600,000 Somali children could die from starvation, got phone calls from my people in London & realized the madness going on that was being ignored in place of overwhelming praise over an album that had these two rich Black men spitting mediocre lyrics being compared to Civil Rights icons  & hip-hop classics, it just had my mind blown &  I was just over my fellow humans & Black people in particular in our lack of priorities in seeing why we seem to be in an endless cycle that goes more in circles than forward. Jay & Ye are saving so much money in marketing fees because their “stans” volunteer on the daily to help sell their records without any pay, as if they are the ones putting their John Hancocks on the millions of unemployment checks being delved out in a nation that seems to be on a downward spiral, particularly for ethnic minorities & the poor majority

As I watched the video of racist white teens running their car over a Black man in Mississippi just because he was Black, all I could think about was Emmett Til. While all of twitter & other social media were having their own listening party with full play by play commentary for Watch the Throne, all I could hear was Nina Simone’s Mississippi Goddam, as I was incessantly bombarded with “New Day“, which samples Nina Simone’s Feeling Good. I was far from feeling good knowing that the new day reflections for their unborn sons had not come for many Black men in Mississippi like James Craig Anderson, along with the murdered father of 4, Mark Duggan, at the hands of police that set off the riots in North London that same night, the thousands dying in Somalia’s famine from lack of basic nourishment & shelter & the seemingly doom & gloom economic crisis in America that is disproportionately hurting those who look just like hip-hop’s new savior kings Ye & Jay! Perhaps the best song on the album that has any real lyrical substance in reflection of the times is Murder to Excellence ,unfortunately Black excellence in this case is far from Dubois’s Talented Tenth, but rather a celebration of some sort of new Black opulence & wealth , as if we had never been there before & Jay ,Ye & their circle of new money friends invented it.

“On a recent Sunday morning just before dawn, two carloads of white teenagers drove to Jackson, Mississippi, on what the county district attorney says was a mission of hate: to find and hurt a black person. In a parking lot on the western side of town they found their victim. James Craig Anderson, a 49-year-old auto plant worker, was standing in a parking lot, near his car. The teens allegedly beat Anderson repeatedly, yelled racial epithets, including “White Power!” according to witnesses…”READ MORE

2 QUOTES FROM PRIME MINISTER CAMERON (1986 and 2011)

“Things got out of hand & we’d had a few drinks. We smashed the place up and Boris set fire to the toilets.” David Cameron, 1986.

“The looting and arson last night were criminality, pure and simple. Justice will be done and the people will see the consequences for their crimes” David Cameron, 2011- Cameron’s London

“Two nights of rioting in London’s Tottenham neighborhood erupted following protests over the shooting death by police of a local man, Mark Duggan. Police were arresting him when the shooting occurred. Over 170 people were arrested over the two nights of rioting, and fires gutted several stores, buildings, and cars. The disorder spread to other neighborhoods as well, with shops being looted in the chaos. Collected here are images from the rioting and the aftermath” READ MORE

I threw up my hands in seeing any hope that we will all somehow come to the realization that we have to do better, expect better & demand better from those who we support with our hard earned money, be it ourselves, those who we pay to serve & protect us, artists or our elected leaders. It seems very few hip-hop insiders outside of Chuck D & Dream Hampton seem to agree that it is about damn time that hip-hop stepped down from the throne of braggadocio & grew up just a little bit. It is seems many so called hip-hop heads really don’t know the history of hip-hop as blogs & commenters belittle Chuck D’s relevance for speaking out to raise the bar. I fully understand that artists are there to entertain & that is what we pay for, not for them to use their celebrity to uplift people or make political, civil or human rights statements in protests or upliftment of people in anyway, but when artists & their “stans” & critics alike start referring to themselves as political figures, leaders & activists then we all have a right to hold them to the litmus test of their bravado in exclaiming the greatness set by the standards & actions of those who they are compared to.

In Kanye’s case it was the misfortune bordering on some sort of undiagnosed psychosis in delusions of grandeur that made him think to put himself in context with Hitler.  I was floored by Kanye West likening  the “hate” toward him to that of Hitler & a Huffington Post Black Voices article that likened Kanye & Jay Z to Muhammed Ali & Paul Robeson. All I could say was GTFOH & get a clue. Jay & Ye ’s shit talking about their riches, bitches & diamond rings is far from the bravado of Ali & Robeson’s shit talking with a purpose of being recognized as men & equals at a time when Black people were not seen as equals by any means no matter how much wealth we had. How irresponsible to misinterpret history in teaching a new generation who probably have no clue about Ali outside of the fact that he is known as one of the greatest boxers of all time & I doubt that many of this new generation of hip-hop enthusiasts even know about Paul Robeson with the failure of our education system to teach our young people about Black history outside of Black history month & the fact that they are descendants of slaves.

View more LIKE IT IS HERE

“Paul Robeson was the epitome of the 20th-century Renaissance man. He was an exceptional athlete, actor, singer, cultural scholar, author, and political activist. His talents made him a revered man of his time, yet his radical political beliefs all but erased him from popular history. Today, more than one hundred years after his birth, Robeson is just beginning to receive the credit he is due… During the 1940s, Robeson’s black nationalist and anti-colonialist activities brought him to the attention of Senator Joseph McCarthy. Despite his contributions as an entertainer to the Allied forces during World War II, Robeson was singled out as a major threat to American democracy. Every attempt was made to silence and discredit him, and in 1950 the persecution reached a climax when his passport was revoked. He could no longer travel abroad to perform, and his career was stifled. Of this time, Lloyd Brown, a writer and long-time colleague of Robeson, states: “Paul Robeson was the most persecuted, the most ostracized, the most condemned black man in America, then or ever.…” READ MORE

As much as I love the work  of Ava Duvernay & think she is brilliant in her work to get the Black Film Industry united & to attain its global recognition, I couldn’t disagree with her  more in her comparison of Watch the Throne to a militant masterpiece à la Ali & Robeson. We can love our artists all we want in the feelings that they evoke in us personally, but when we give unearned accolades in revisionist history- that becomes a problem for an entire generation both past & present future.

“Watch the Throne — is a Black Nationalist Masterpiece for the New Millenium. Too Much? Because that’s how I feel right now. That’s what I hear. I hear Black Rich Militance, in the best definition of such a term. I hear the audacity of black gazillionaires saying wonderfully black things like, “I arrived/When Fred Hampton died.” Whaa-at?! You did? Okay. Damn.I hear pride. Pride wrapped in Maybach imagery. Things Oprah understandably can’t say. Things Obama surely can’t say. Things that for obvious reasons no true Black Power Players in Film, Sports, Music and Television have really dared speak in public in eons. Robeson comes to mind. He talked the talk. In the 40s and 50s. Ali comes to mind. He shouted the talk. In the 60s. But there’s been decades of silence since then from folks who have “made” it. Tell me who has “made it” to the highest heights and then started speaking the truth about the beauty of us, Black Folk, our souls, our bodies, our brains. Who? READ MORE

When Ali & Robeson spoke of the beauty of Black people  in reaching the highest heights in soul, body & brains it was far from being based soley on riches. This is where our generation seems to be misinterpreting our history & progress because there is more Black wealth in the world than ever, yet global Africans are still at the bottom & we have not gotten that far in our everyday struggle to be equal citizens of the world in basic respect as human beings whose very life & existence are worth as much as any other human being. All the money in the world has not, can not & will not bring us that until we hold ourselves to higher standards beyond materialism  & shit talking. Ali & Robeson used their celebrity, wealth & access to shed a light on a global African struggle that was bigger than just them as individuals, which is a greater part of their legacy than the fights or music that brought them celebrity & riches. It was never an attitude of  I got mine so you better stop “hating” on me & pull yourself up by your boot straps, hustle dope or whatever you need to do to get yours like I did. As Muhammed Ali said after winning the gold medal at the Olympics: “That gold medal didn’t mean a thing to me if my Black brothers & sisters were treated wrong in a country I was supposed to represent“!

Jay Z can never arrive after Fred Hampton died without ever having gone to battle or martyrdom for his people, but  he could very well take over where the godfather of rap, Gil Scott Heron left off by using music as the weapon in the new message to & from the messenger laying a foundation for the soundtrack of the new generation’s global revolution in hopefully finally finding some real resolutions.

Jay & Ye seem to have people so roped in- in a way that defies logic to me because many put down hip-hop & its misdirection & indiscretions, but somehow when Jay & Ye continue the same formula they get a pass & are praised as the second coming  of Ali & Robeson- Huh? Everyone is allowed their personal taste in music, but come on people we are just taking it too far with these two & their twisted logic & demonic imagery that plays right into the whole damn world loving them while saying they are part of the so called  ”illuminati“- whatever the hell that is. I have yet to hear anyone be able to explain what this so called illumanti subculture is & how so many artists we hate to love & love to hate are part of it & should be feared;however it can’t really be that feared if those who are said to be amongst them are the ones we seem to be always showering with praises of taking us all to the next level. The next level of what is what I would like to know. It seems we are all more than happy to be participants in this well staged ,well choreographed dance to nowhere based in false reality. As much as I love Ricardo Tisci & the idea of collaborating high art with hip-hop & fashion ,I realized this is all relative because I couldn’t get past the horrific looking images that jumped at me & were supposed to somehow represent  ”Bold colors and angular lines incorporated symbolically to convey the “masculinity of two of the most iconic rap figures of our time with Tisci’s recognizabl geometrical prints, surreal religious iconography, animal faces and “American obsessions“! OK, whatever that means -I couldn’t get past the 1st image.

By now many maybe calling me hip-hop’s favorite word for deflecting personal responsibility- “Hater”, when it comes to Ye & Jay. As Jay once said I “brush my shoulders off”  to that nonsensical logic because  it is exactly that- deflecting personal responibility in not wanting to hear a dissenting opinion. I do not hate Jay & Ye at all & I actually think they are very talented, which is why I hold them to a higher standard than many others who shall remain nameless. I see what power hip-hop has globally & I would love to see us all use that power in building our nation as Ali, Robeson and so many others did in lending their voices to the Civil Rights struggle.

As Mayor Bloomberg whose policies are partly responsible for so many young Black & Latino young men being prevented from fully participating & contributing to their society gets praised as the great white hope coming to save young African-American & Latino men in New York after 9 years of seeing them as nuisances & invisible men, I can’t help but to wonder where all the Black millionaires & billionaires are who talk about how much they love & want to celebrate those that look like them. I guess you shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth , unless you had to get your teeth kicked in by it’s hoof first. Who will step up to the plate for Somalia outside of misleading hip-hop hooray headlines associating something that has no merit in association except in finally taking the time to tell the story. Who will step up for global Africans hurting worldwide who can use a hand up from their own in concrete examples of what can be if we are really about loving & celebrating ourselves instead of always waiting to be saved from ourselves from others outside of ourselves!

“The problems that face young black and Latino men in New York City are deep-seated and diverse, officials who work in minority neighborhoods say. They vary not only from neighborhood to neighborhood, but also from family to family and man to man.So when Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced on Thursday a $130 million plan to help young black and Latino men find jobs, raise families and stay out of trouble, those men — and the mentors who would help them — were tentatively happy, but raised some questions.“I’m glad to see somebody’s actually mentioning the words ‘young men’ and ‘color’ in the same sentence as ‘funding,’ ” said Danny R. Peralta, director for arts and education at The Point Community Development Corporation in the Bronx.Still, Mr. Peralta worried that the money would just graze the surface of the problem. “If you can’t wake up in the morning to some food or if you can’t get some counseling for whatever traumas you’ve been experiencing,” he said, “it is not going to reach you.’Lee Cabrera, 23, holding his son as he looked out on a courtyard in the Harlem River Houses development, said, “There are a lot of homeless kids out there right now.” With three children under 6 and a fourth on the way, Mr. Cabrera said looking for a job was the last thing on his mind. Would Mr. Bloomberg’s plan help him raise his family? READ MORE

By now we have all been bombarded on the internets with yet another so called “Highly Anticipated Album” from Jay &  Ye!  Well the album entitled “Watch The Throne” is still not out & is allegedly going to be out on August 8, as we keep watching the throne & praise leaked single after single. First we heard H.A.M & now “Otis”  & the stans came out in droves praising the usual “I am the greatest, richest & everyone that doesn’t like what I stand for is a hating “Ninja” lyrics that seems to be all Jay & Ye & most of mainstream hip-hop seem to be all about today.

Jay & Ye to me literally dropped “Otis” -the memory  & legacy of a great man , who in his young age lifted his people, his entire nation  & the world to see the soul & substance of Black America at a time when we were seen as second class citizens who didn’t matter & were left to carry the ills & burdens of our nation disproportionately on our back- A time that is not much different from today. I guess I stand alone  with the journalist from the Chicago Tribune in having the yearning desire  for an elevation in music that actually reflects the true soul & life of the fruits of Hip-Hop’s Roots as the voice of the people, who are often forgotten & need & use music for inspiration & hope for a better tomorrow. As some of our leaders call for a call to consciousness at a time when even the blind can see & feel the suffering of the people, there is no time better than now to examine our own consciousness of the reality that surrounds us locally & globally. As global hip-hop artists use their voices in the true essence of hip-hop as the voice of the people , think about who you are supporting & how they represent your voice!

“A snippet of Redding’s 1966 soul classic “Try a Little Tenderness” kicks it off and Jay-Z and West then get busy trading verses about how incredibly large they’re living. “I invented swag, poppin’ bottles, puttin’ supermodels in a cab,” Jay-Z declares. “I guess I got my swagga back.”..West scores points for dropping in a reference to Greek mythology (or is he nodding to the French design house?): “Luxury rap/The Hermes of verses/Sophisticated ignorance/Write my curses in cursive.”…But the references to luxury cars and private jets quickly lose their escapist luster, grossly out of step with a summer in which joblessness and foreclosure are becoming all too common for many Americans. ” READ MORE

No one can deny the talents of Jay & Ye & the dynasty that they continue to build, but as I watch the throne of the glossy flossy emperors with little substance in addressing the needs, trials & tribulations of the people of their Kingdom, I can’t help  but to wonder what the people really want when they ask for change, as they continue to follow & praise the same leaders who come with the same ol’, same ol’, as their loyal followers continue to throw can’t do no wrong praises & roses at their Bentley motorcades as they drive by leaving unrealistic aspirations for a people whose reality can use a lot more inspiration just to get by. Music is a weapon  & it can be used to kill the people or to give them new life in freedom & hope for a better tomorrow. As Nina Simone declared in her Protest Anthlogy & Lauryn Hill took to a new generation called hip-hop:  ”An artist’s duty is to reflect the times. I think that is true of painters,sculptors, poets, musicians. As far as I am concerned it’s their choice,I choose to reflect the times & the situations in which I find myself, that to me is my duty, how can you be an artist & not reflect the times…”

“I look at my environment and wonder where the fire went? What happened to everything we used to be?….Hip-Hop started out in the heart now everyone trying to chart..Come on baby, light my fire,Everything you drop is so tired, Music is supposed to inspire, How come we ain’t getting no higher? Now tell me your philosophy On exactly what an artist should be,Should they be someone with prosperity, And no concept of reality? Now, who you know without any flaws. That lives above the spiritual laws, And does anything they feel just because There’s always someone there who’ll applaud.” (c) Lauryn Hill

The release of “Otis” has brought new light & dialogue to the great man & musical genius who is known worldwide as Otis Redding & we can all thank Jay & Ye for reviving this time in history; However, at the age of 42, call me crazy but I just expect a little higher standard from the man who is no doubt seen as the most powerful  & the global representative of the culture which we call hip-hop. How can we ask our young people to do better  in their lyrical content & what they stand for when the example of their elders leaves little to be desired in being the antithesis of the change that we want to see?  I wonder what Otis would say because the lyrical content in this song is far from trying a little tenderness.

I, like many have been mesmerized & hypnotized by hot beats & mind blowing lyrical flows that gloss over the lack of substance in lyrical content, but there comes a time when we can not help but see the walls of the kingdom crumbling around us in desperate need for renovation.  As Clutch Magazine asks “who’s the blame for misogyny in hip-hop, the artists or the fans?” It’s time for an overhaul in self evaluation because we can’t continue to blame the artists for  giving us what we seem to love to consume. After all it’s a business & we need to start being more proactive & invested in the business of ourselves, our future & our legacy.

“I freed a thousand slaves I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves. Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.” Harriet Tubman

If we want to celebrate Otis Redding’s legacy through hip-hop, then let’s stop sitting on the roc or at the dock of the bay wasting time & try a little tenderness because we have dreams to remember as we watch the throne. All the bravado in the world means nothing if a warrior does not move his nation forward in their time of need.

“If there is no struggle..there is no progress..those who profess to Favor Freedom and yet depreciate agitation…want crops without plowing up the ground…they want the ocean without the awful roar of it’s many waters..Power concedes nothing without demand.” Fredrick Douglas-1857

“If we have lost touch with what our forefathers discovered and knew, this has been due to the system of education to which we were introduced. This system of education prepared us for a subservient role to Europe and things European. It was directed at estranging us from our own cultures in order the more effectively to serve a new and alien interest.” Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah – Excerpt of speech given at the Congress of Africanists in Accra, Ghana, December 1962.

Jay-Z x Kanye West – Otis Lyrics

[Otis Redding]

It makes it easier, easier to bear

You won’t regret it, no, no

No, girl they won’t forget it

Love is their home

Happiness yeah

Sq-sq-sq-squeeze her, don’t tease her

Never leave her…

[Jay-Z]

Sounds so soulful don’t you agree

I invented swag

Poppin’ bottles, puttin’ supermodels in the cab, proof

I guess I got my swagger back, truth

New watch alert, Hublot’s

Or the big face Rollie I got two of those

Arm out the window through the city I maneuver slow

Cock back, snap back

See my cut through the holes

[Kanye West]

Damn Yeezy and Hov,

Where the hell ya been?

Niggas talkin real reckless: stuntmen

I adopted these niggas, Phillip Drummond ‘em

Now I’m bout to make them tuck they whole summer in

They say I’m crazy, well, I’m ’bout to go dumb again

They aint see me cause I pulled up in my other Benz

Last week I was in my other other Benz

Throw your diamonds up cause we in this bitch another ‘gain

[Jay-Z]

Photo shoot fresh, looking like wealth

I’m ’bout to call the paparazzi on myself

Uh, live form the Mercer

Run up on Yeezy the wrong way, I might murk ya

Flee in the G450 I might surface

Political refugee, asylum can be purchased

Uh, everythings for sale, I got 5 passports

I’m never going to jail

[Kanye West]

I made “Jesus Walks” I’m never going to hell

Couture level flow, it’s never going on sale

Luxury rap, the Hermes of verses

Sophisticated ignorance, write my curses in cursive

I get it custom, you a customer

You ain’t ‘customed to going through Customs, you ain’t been nowhere, huh?

And all the ladies in the house, got ‘em showing off

I’m done, I hit ya up mana-naaaa!

[Jay-Z]

Welcome to Havana

Smoking cubanos with Castro in cabanas

Viva Mexico, Cubano

Dominicano, all the plugs that I know

Driving Benzes, wit’ no benefits

Not bad huh? For some immigrants

Build your fences, we diggin’ tunnels

Can’t you see? We gettin’ money up under you

[Kanye]

Can’t you see the private jets flyin’ over you?

Maybach bumper sticker read “What would Hova do?”

Jay is chillin’, ‘Ye is chillin’

What more can I say? We killin’ ‘em

Hold up, before we end this campaign

As you can see, we done bodied the damn lames

Lord, please let them accept the things they can’t change

And pray that all of their pain be champagne

Well everything maybe for sale in the worlds of Jay & Ye, but we don’t have to accept that change is beyond our control because when we fight for & bring about real change, we can all drink champagne without the pain-the way Otis intended & delivered.

While your eating the pork in the H.A.M remember that all Rocs no matter how glossy & shiny they may appera are not diamonds! We are what we consume so consume carefully.

“H.A.M”

(with Jay-Z)

[Kanye West]

It was all good just a week ago

niggas feel theyselves and then Watch The Throne drop

niggas kill themselves

What niggas gon do Hov?

This a new crack on a new stove

I’m in the two-door, true that

niggas tellin’ me “You back”

Like a nigga ever left up out this bitch, huh?

and if life a bitch suck my dick huh?

and I bet she fucked the whole clique, huh

By the way nigga, you should fuckin’ quit, nigga

Just forget it, you talk it, I live it

Like Eli I did it, jokes on you muthafucker and I get it

No paper hoe, but you can have some more of me

Or-gy, or are we speakin methaphorically

Historically, I’m kickin’ bitches out like Pam, nigga

Goin’ HAM nigga, me and Jigga

and a nigga still young, wanna have no kids

But I’ve been practicing with some actresses as bad as shit

And a few white girls, asses flat a shit

But the head so good, damn a nigga glad he hit

Got em jumpin’ out the building

Watch out below, a million out the door

I’m about to go HAM

Hard As a Muthafucker,

Let these niggas know who I am

I’m about to go HAM

Hard As a Muthafucker,

Let these niggas know who I am

[Jay-Z]

fuck y’all mad at me for?

You don’t even know what I’ve been through

I play chicken with a Mack truck

Y’all muthafuckers woulda been moved

I swam waters with great whites

Y’all muthafuckers woulda been chewed

I hustle with vultures late nights

Y’all muthafuckers woulda been food

fuck wrong with these dudes

Try to walk around in these shoes

See the shit I saw growing up

And maybe you can take a peek at these boo’s

niggas fantasize about the shit that I do daily like

These rappers rap about all the shit that I do really

I’m like really half a billi nigga

Really you got baby money

Keep it real with niggas

niggas ain’t got my lady money

Watch the Throne don’t step on our road

Bad enough we let you step on our globe

When my nephew died, daddy dead

niggas took the price on my uncles head

Nobody called the cops as my uncle bled

So I feel like I would like to know my uncles bread

Bow down, brother pay homage

don’t spill hate all on my garments

Commes Des Garcon, fuck your fresh

head shots nigga fuck your vests

fuck the pig, no pork on my fork

Peace God cause you know a nigga just went Ham

Hard As a Muthafucker,

Let these niggas know who I am

Yeah I’m ’bout to go HAM

Hard As a Muthafucker,

Let these niggas know who I am

Yeah I’m ’bout to go HAM

Instead of going HAM , I would rather let our future generation know that they can have dreams to remember!