Modern Griots Reviews: Colored Girls Hustle Hard Mixtape

Become a patron and support my blog and other writing endeavors on Patreon! ____________ What is your hustle? Colored Girls Hustle featuring founder Taja Lindley and Jessica Valoris released their first official mixtape, Colored Girls Hustle Hard, a 19-track compilation reimagining the conventional ideas of what it means to hustle and giving positive encouragement and […]

Modern Griots Reviews: Aja Monet’s “Inner City Chants and Cyborg Ciphers”

Last weekend, spoken word poet Aja Monet debuted her works from her upcoming collection, Inner City Chants and Cyborg Ciphers, at Kraine Theater, and it was an intimate exploration of Monet’s own personal stories and those stories extending out beyond herself to the cities of new York and Chicago, Paris, the Caribbean and the rest […]

Modern Griots Reviews: Pop Up Exhibitons from CCCADI and Black Eye

Last Thursday I managed to attend two pop up exhibitions, one in Harlem from The Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI), and the other in the Lower East Side, Nicole Vassell-curated Black Eye exhibit. The Spirit of El Barrio: Past, Present and Future exhibition was The Caribbean Cultural Center first in a series of […]

Modern Griots Reviews: Salome Da Voodoo Princess of Nawlins

One of the most compelling aspects about art is that it can make you feel different emotions at the same time depending on the multiple contexts that you bring to it and the representations presented to you. For example, there is a lot of conversation surrounding the multiple receptions and audiences for Kara Walker’s Marvelous […]

Modern Griots Reviews: A Dangerous Cure

We all know that humans use technology as a tool for our own advancement, but what about when technology becomes a trap to our own destruction? How do we as humans rationalize it all when technology does not help but is controlling us and leading us to chaos? This is one of the themes explored […]

Modern Griots Reviews: CCCADI’s The Goddess Grove

In many of today’s cultures and societies, feminine power and energy is not considered as important enough to be celebrated. Almost in every part, including in religion and spirituality, it is demoted in status and seen as a ridiculous notion. I remember sitting in a Pentecostal church one time listening to the sermon of a […]

Modern Griots Reviews: MoonDance at PS1

Many go to church on Sundays for inspirational music and message, but last Sunday I was at the Moondance event at MOMA’s PS1 in Queens for them. Organized by DJ King Britt, the event, which took place in tent dome, featured several DJs, several musical performances, poetry and a discussion on Afrofuturism. The afrofuturistic event […]

Modern Griots Recap: OmniPresent

Thursday, I attended the science fiction magazine, Omni Magazine, reboot reception and although I was not overwhelmingly impressed with the exhibition, there were a few highlights from it that I took away: *DJ and musical creative King Britt was there to show off his skills, including his A Different View mix (listen below), and some […]

Modern Griots Reviews: Afronauts

Last Saturday, I went to to New Films/New Directors short film showcase, which included Frances Bodomo’s 14-minute film Afronauts. Based on the 1960s Zambian Space Program, which grade school teacher Edward Makuka Nkoloso set up and had amongst its crew a 17-year-old girl and two cats. In Bodomo’s film, albino model and actress, Diandra Forrest, stars […]

Modern Griots Reviews: Daví

It’s not that often today that I come to witness an artist who reminds me of some of my favorite musical artists and excites me because of the force of the creativity that they bring to their performance and musical work. One of them is artist, choreographer and DJ, Daví I first saw him at […]