…In My Life…

This year is going to be a long one… During the fall semester, I will be working on three projects: my honors thesis on Psychosocial Politics of Percussion in Hip Hop, a Jazz paper comparing the reception of early Jazz and the reception of Hip-Hop and a paper on the racial and cultural representation in […]

What Is Afrofuturism?

“Curator Ingrid LaFleur is a world traveler. She is an art advisor and curator whose work has taken her to the far reaches of the globe. She has traveled South America, Africa and Europe to make visual art more accessible to people who don’t generally experience the arts from around the globe. As an advocate […]

Fela Kuti Meets De La Soul…

Gummy Soul artist, Amerigo Gazaway, combined the music of Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti and Hip-Hop’s legendary group De La Soul to create “Fela Soul.” The song above is called “Breakadawn” and uses samples from Kuti’s “Water Get No Enemy” and De La Soul’s “Breakadawn.” This is one of the best fusion/mashups that I have ever […]

The New Black Imagination!

Rob Fields, creator of the black music blog Bold As Love, is planning for the first Festival of the New Black Imagination in Brooklyn, New York on Oct. 15 and needs your support. This is the description of the festival: “Our Story The Festival of the New Black Imagination is about the future of black […]

Justice Is Not Always Just Part 2

Yesterday, the Supreme Court denied Troy Davis a stay and he was executed at 11:08 pm. We may have lost this battle, but let us continue the war on the death penalty and the prison industrial complex: 1) “Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal’s deed, however calculated, can be […]

Slavery in Canada?!

When many people think of slavery, they tend to focus mostly on the United States, which is a given since the United States has been a huge power over the rest of the world. However, we tend to forget that the entire world was affected by the Transatlantic Slave Trade. One of the places where […]

Justice Isn’t Always Just…

I do not believe in the death penalty because there is always a possibility of doubt, and our justice system has never been perfect often with racist, classist and sexist underlying issues within it. As I think about the possible execution of Troy Davis today, I can’t help but think of another story of the […]

Modern Griots: Gregory Porter

The Grammy-nominated Jazz singer, Gregory Porter has a voice that speaks back to the Jazz, Soul, Blues and Gospel singers of the past. He cites Nat King Cole, Joe Williams and Donny Hathaway as three singers who have inspired him in his career. For his CD, “Water,” he worked with legendary alto sax player, James […]

Computer Love

Before the Internet, web cameras, Skype, online dating sites and the T-Pain autotune craze, there was The Zapp Band‘s song “Computer Love” and the talk box. Enjoy! (P.S. Thanks to the podcast, Blacking It Up for getting this song stuck in my head!)

Four Little Girls

In honor of the four girls, Addie Mae Collins, Cythia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Denise McNair, who were murdered in the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, here is Spike Lee’s 1997 documentary, “4 Little Girls.”