Modern Griots Reviews: Roots Reversion – “Rehistory” Lessons from Black Rock Coalition and CCCADI

*Become a patron and support my blog and other writing endeavors on Patreon! __________ Black Rock Coalition and CCCADI (Caribbean Cultural Center) hosted events last week that reminded audiences, especially those of the African diaspora, of how much black histories, stories and voices get erased, revised, transformed, hidden, abducted, revised, whitewashed or any other […]

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: 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 Recap: The Rite Path

“Aiye Aiye Ft. Eli Efi, V.I., Amma Whatt, For Something & Oloriwaa!” From the Egbe Iwa Odo Kunrin/Brinrin group I have written before on expanding what we think of as time travel in terms of mental and spiritual time travel. One way that I did not think of until last night’s program at Schomburg Center […]

Modern Griots Review: Zetwal (Twinkl)

Can poetry be fuel for a spaceship? One man, Robert Saint-Rose, from the Caribbean island of Martinique believed so. The inspiring documentary film, Zetwal, which means “stars,” or “twinkl” from the film, in creole, follows the journey of the Caribbean folk hero who builds a spaceship in 1974 on a mission to be the first […]

Modern Griots Review: Oya and Anyanwu — The Faces of Change

Without stories, we are nothing but shells, only giving others the physical form of ourselves. Stories ground the spirits and forces around us and make them real. Oya priestess Isoke Nia expressed this sentiment last night at the Schomburg Center in Harlem at the enlightening tribute to the Yoruba orisha, Oya, and writer Octavia Butler. […]

Cosmic Ghost at the Museum…

Tuesday was my last day of classes, so yesterday I decided to treat myself to a few of exhibitions. First, I went to the American Museum of Natural History to see “Beyond Planet Earth: the Future of Space Exploration.” Upon entering, we saw my favorite astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, speaking in a video about the […]

Moving on the Wires: “H(A)UNTED” Exhibition

Tomorrow in Manhattan, the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute will be having an opening reception at 7pm for “H(a)unted,” an exhibition in response to Trayvon Martin and the historic criminalization of Black men. The exhibition will run from tomorrow to May 18th and Shantrelle P Lewis is curating it. Fyeahafrofuturism will be there as […]