Wednesday, February 8, 2017
Final Post
I haven't post here since, well you can see how long. Anyway, instead of deleting, I will leave this online, but however; a new website is in the future - I just need time to create it.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Monday, January 2, 2012
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
On Seeing Fela Broadway Musical on the 1st day of Kwanzaa
Fela was phenomenal! And yes, it was well worth the trek to the theater district in Manhattan in a blizzard. If you're in NYC metro area, see it before it closes Jan 2nd of 2011. Otherwise, you can catch in London UK or even better, it'll be showed at the BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) Rose Cinema on Thursday, January 13th.
The musical begins with the scene "Welcome to Shrine", Fela's nightclub in Lagos, Nigeria with the "Iba Orisa" (traditional Yoruba chant). Fela Anikulapo-Kuti talks about honoring the ancestors & how they watch over us. I'm 50/50 with him on that as every ancestor is not an Elder deserving of honor as they either refuse to evolved or was a Benedict Arnold. The ancestors watch over us yes, but only The Elders amoung them deserve our reverence. Also Fela's mother, Funmilayo Anikulapo-Kuti (played by Patti LaBelle), was honored as the Elder she is. She was an activist who thought against British colonialism. The FX they did on her was nice.
The theater had the Orishas names written above it, with a painting of Fela's mom & smaller paintings of MLK, Malcolm X & I think Marcus Garvey. The performers did a great job & performances well done. And every one of the dancers from cafe-latte brown to ebony black radiate that Black is Beautiful!
As the musical processed, Fela recounts how he was influenced by American music, notably jazz & James Brown. What I didn't know is that Fela liked Afro-Cuban music (salsa). And when he combined those styles with traditional African rhythms, Afro-beat was born! Afro-beat became popular worldwide & Fela traveled the world. I particularly like the dialogue between Fela & a Black American singer named Sandra Isadore.
They had a candid discussion on how Black Americans perceive Africans & vice versa. It was interesting to learn how Black Power & Pan-Africanism influence them both. Fela said Blacks are too preoccupied with race, yet Sandra said she grew up hating the color of her skin & that in Africa, it's homogeneous Black. Sandra said she admired how Africans overthrew their white colonial oppressors. Fela counters with, yeah - to be replaced by corrupt Black ones. But Sandra reinforce to Fela, Africana unity.
So Fela used the power of his music to let the world know about the corruption in the Nigerian government & the Nigeria gov was none too happy. In fact, 1,000 Nigerian soldiers raided The Shrine, raped the women, dragged a man downstairs by his ball & destroyed the place. The greatest offense was they dragged his mother upstairs to the 2nd level & threw her out the window. Those she helped liberated, ruthlessly killed her, the tragic irony.
Fela wanted vengeance but when he prayed to the Orishas to speak to his mother & she appeared, Fela didn't because his mother would not give him permission to let him use her death for revenge. Patti LaBelle broke into a song singing it in her "soul singing style" to just let the rain fall. Symbolic of weeping, of letting the water neutralize the fire of vengeance as revenge keeps the drama going. A sista in the audience said, "go head Patti". Chuckles followed.
So what Fela did was to carry his mother's coffin straight to the Nigerian president's house. He encouraged others to do the same. And the musical ended. Yet before it ended, there was a notable scene when Fela called out some companies as "International thieves" like AIG, Haliburton, IMF & Chinese Petroleum. Oh & lastly, Fela & the ensemble held up the Black Power sign & we in the audience did the same.
In another prior scene (yes I'm trying to list all the scene I found profound), Fela mentioned that when Africans allowed Europeans into Africa, stuff turned out missing like oil, diamonds, etc & what Africa got "in exchanged" was colonialism & Jesus. The audience & I laughed. Also another pivotal scene was when Fela realized this was a game & with all games, they're rigged by those in control so that they would win (with the masses loosing) & Fela took the often overlooked choice to not play no more games.
As the Fela musical ensemble took their bows, I realized why my mother loved the 1960s so much. The 1960s was a major opening when Black Americans started to love themselves, define themselves, self-empower themselves, united as a people & take their rightful place in the global stage as world citizens. My mother admits that she thought the 1960s would last forever. She got the hint it didn't once her beloved Philly Afrocentric/political event morphed (de-evolved) into a "shake your booty" fest.
The 1970s kind of held on to that energy but as political leaders were either jailed or assassinated, that energy started fading. And once civil rights sold out for a chicken wing at the liberal establishment's kiddie table, the theme became "nigga I got mine; now nigga go get your's" - thus bringing in "elitism" to divide & conquer us - again. And then the jheri-curl came along ;-) And that was it for Black power, Black beauty & Black unity.
As we all know, it's Kwanzaa. Despite being in Oakland, CA when Kwanzaa founder Ron Karenga (yes he goes by Maulana, but that's Swahili meaning Master Teacher & he's not that; IMO, that title needs to be earned as these self-appointed titles are other form of elitism) group, United Slaves, gun downed the Black Panthers, my mother celebrates it. Despite Kwanzaa's intent with many, Karenga's sanity was questioned & still is questioned. But whether we should celebrate a holiday created by possible madman is another discussion. My issue is that we, well those partaking in Kwanzaa, say the 7 principles (Nguzo Saba) of unity, self-determination, etc, but often fall short of them like people fall short on those new year's resolutions.
Of course no one is perfect, but there's no unity (Umoja, 1st day of Kwanzaa meaning unity) within the Black community. A lot of cliques (elitism) but not unity or at least the unity envisioned & ignited in 1960s. Then there's Kujichagulia. It means self-determination. It's my mom's favorite principle in which we define ourselves. Generally speaking, we let The Matrix (mainstream media, its systems, political parties, "isms", etc) define us. Emulating celebrities or doing something because external sources (including other people) says it's cool/popular is not self-determination.
So if you chose to celebrate Kwanzaa, really do the deep questioning to living those principles instead partaking in of the lip-service I've seen in these Afrocentric gatherings I'm been to & was taken to by my mother. For example on the 4th, Ujamaa (co-op economics), do we buy black (& I mean competent black businesses as my mom & I have seen some making poor choices like a Black own restaurant w/o a sign)? On the 4th Kwanzaa day, do we consider being self-employed or stay too scared to deviate from the good-job/good-benefits/good-hours mindset programmed into us since childhood? On Nia (purpose) the 5th day, do we ask ourselves, who am I? Why am I here? Or just continue to run in that hamster wheel or in the "rat-race".
On the 6 day of Kwanzaa, Kuumba (creativity), do we honed into our creative skills? It's more possible to do so once we decide to manifest our inner passions. And Kuumba has nothing to do with keeping our community clean. That was not the theme when my mother had my sister & I celebrating Kwanzaa. It was about Creativity -- as in drawing, painting, writing, even building a toy car of Popsicle sticks, not sweeping the streets of the community. I'm guessing that Kuumba was redefine to mean "pick up the trash" for the X-box generation. But then again, from what I overstand is that Kwanzaa was supposed to counteract the gross materialism of Christmas. More importantly, our inner creativity - developing our inner creativity is defines us & is our Authentic Identity. Without our own inner creativity & the nourishing of it, we inadvertently let outsiders define us & remain on that hamster wheel or in that rat-race society created for us to feed it's parasitic existence.
Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, in a way, lived out the 7 principles of Kwanzaa. He believed in the unity germinated by the Black Power movement & Pan-Africanism. He self-defined himself & not let his country's former British colonizers define him. He "did for self" by starting his own nightclub. And of course Fela was very creative as evident in his music. Lastly for me, unlike these modern civil rights "leaders", Fela exemplifies true manhood. Not just because of his unapologetic virility, but he was not afraid to take a stand. Nothing exemplifies bravery than publicly criticizing a corrupt government system. Yet, the government isn't going to & make people live honorably within the 7 principles of Kwanzaa or any moral code. That's up to each individual & the people as a whole.
Rafiq Jennings
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