It started as an experiment: what happens when you equip a vibrant youth community with the resources to express themselves through hip hop and electronic music? Last summer I traveled to Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo to find out and the results were more beautiful than I could have imagined.
In the heart of what National Geographic last year called "the world's most dangerous city," I spent two weeks crafting beats and songs with an amazing group of kids. Their lyrics ranged from frustrations with unpaved roads and access to water, to love songs, to stories of resiliency in the face of natural disaster.
I recall one instance when, in the middle of a beat making session, the lights dimmed, then shut off completely. The electricity never stayed on for more than a few hours in Goma, but we didn't let it stop the flow of creativity. All of the sudden an acappella beat box replaced the electronic drums, and mixed with hand claps, snaps, and groans to create a full-blown cypher.
Freestyling emcees, including myself, improvised lyrics in Swahili, French, and English, while my colleague Apple Juice Kid played on a broken djembe. Eventually the air became scented with the perfume of gasoline. Someone had grabbed the generator and we returned to our beat making session invigorated—ready to infuse the improvised ideas we had just come up with into newly inspired electronic music.
This is a new model for building musicians and community called Beat Making Lab, which will be documented every Wednesday on YouTube, in a new PBS Digital Studios web series. I will travel the world donating laptops and microphones to cultural centers and co-teach songwriting, sampling, and entrepreneurship.
I am an emcee in the hip hop and jazz band The Beast and a professor of music and African Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where I co-teach Beat Making Lab with world-renowned hip hop and electronic music producer Stephen Levitin (aka Apple Juice Kid). Stephen founded the class at UNC with the chair of our music department, Dr. Mark Katz in 2011. I joined Levitin to co-teach the class in 2012 and together we crowd-sourced funds to launch the first community Beat Making Lab in Democratic Republic of Congo that summer.
By September, we posted a video from our Congo Beat Making Lab on GOOD and caught the attention of a producer from PBS. Within a few months, we decided to launch Beat Making Lab as a new web-series on the PBS Digital Studios platform and the rest is history.
In February Apple Juice Kid and I traveled to Portobelo, Panama to build a studio at La Escuelita Del Ritmo. We collaborated with a local community percussion ensemble and our students wrote songs inspired by the Festival de los Diablos y Congos. We also made a beat with some inmates at the same prison that houses Manuel Noriega, in Gamboa. In two weeks I am flying to Senegal to build a Beat Making Lab in collaboration with a dozen young women rappers and beat makers in Dakar with support from non-profit partners Speak Up Africa and Intrahealth.
In each location we will produce several short episodes, which will include music videos, documentaries, beat making tutorials, and feature our students and non-profit partners. We are at the beginning of an inspiring journey. As a musician and professor I feel humbled by the opportunity to share some of my knowledge, and to learn from and collaborate with youth from around the world. I am also thrilled that PBS has provided us with a platform to share our stories with you. Please join us Wednesdays by subscribing to our YouTube channel and get ready for some hot beats!
"The project of LGBTI liberation … is a process of decolonizing the mind," writes John McAllister in the editor's note opening a new collection of queer African fiction published last month. "Just as the independence and democratization movements have had to overcome internalized racism, LGBTI Africans have to fight a homophobia that presents itself as nativist and patriotic but is actually a colonial hangover."
The collection was published in February as an edition of Q-zine, a quarterly magazine by the Burkina Faso–based Queer African Youth Networking Center. At a time when politicians in several African countries use homosexuality as an explosive wedge issue — often with the active help of the media — the magazine took on a big task when it launched in 2011: to push back on media portrayals of gays, lesbians, and trans Africans as well as to take on the cultural baggage that political organizations can't.
The literature issue has special significance to McAllister, a professor of literature at the University of Botswana, who married his longtime Kenyan partner in Cape Town, South Africa, the year Q-zine launched. It takes on one of the major arguments used throughout Africa to justify harsh anti-gay laws, like ones now being debated in places like Uganda and Nigeria. McAllister argues:
Contrary to the claim that homosexuality is a European/Western import, it's actually homophobia that is the Western import. It was brought to Africa by missionaries and colonial officials in the late 19th, early 20th centuries (at the time when the moral panic over the new medical/psychological category of "homosexuality" was at its peak in the West) and inserted, so to speak, into African cultures along with Christianity, Victorian prudery, bourgeois dress codes, table manners, etc.
The anthropological and historical evidence makes it pretty clear that pre-colonial African societies had their own, often quite tolerant or even accepting, ways of accommodating alternative sexual ways-of-being into traditional social structures and kinship systems. Homophobia, including the sodomy laws that are still on the books in most African countries, are what are "unAfrican" therefore, not homosexuality in itself.
The stories in this volume reflect some of the complicated texture of LGBT Africans' lives.
"An Albino Snake," by journalist Jacob Nthoiwa, tackles the intersection of money, race, and sexuality through a story about an assault on an employee of a South African sex shop.
I just lay there for a while after regaining consciousness. Directly above me was the stain in the ceiling where the roof leaked. It looked like a big gray map of South Africa. And that darker gray spot at the centre where the water oozed through when it rained was exactly where Jozi was located. Or, better still, maybe it was exactly where I, Sabelo ... (well, you don't need to know my last name) formerly of ... well, far from that dirty grey patch, was now located,…
I tried to lift my head, but it felt as heavy as lead. A sharp pain shot through the back of my neck. I gave up on the idea and decided to survey the tiny shop with my head on the floor…. I started with the shelf directly in front of me. Everything seemed to be in place. A neat row of Erex ("For Stronger Erections and Peak Performance!"),Roughriders and Slippery Stuff ("Enhancing the Pleasure of Human Contact!"). The Specials of the Week. I had arranged the display myself this morning, while the boss did his morning cash count.
Nkululeko Siboniso Mthembu starts his contribution, "Kizori, My Brother," with a tale of two children cross-dressing to fetch livestock.
We are running because we don't want any adult to see us. Not that fetching cows is criminal. We are laughing because we are looking at each other and wondering what people are thinking. What will the other boys who are also fetching cows think of us? I am wearing a two-piece. It's my aunt's; my mom wouldn't have even thought of buying that.He is also wearing a two-piece dress belonging to our younger aunt. Aunt Winnie and Aunt Ninnie are two years apart, just like me and my cousin.
We haven't planned this, but it just happened that, as I was reading to him, we were in an unused bedroom where all the old clothes are kept. We looked at the two dresses hanging there, and we thought how fun it would be to fetch the cows while wearing them. Two identical dresses, just like us. We have been in all sorts of trouble before, so being caught while doing this seems like more fun. The beating that may follow is nothing compared to the fun and the shock value.
Army specialist testified she was raped several times
19,000 men and women are assaulted a year; only 3,200 are reported
A military chaplain told one victim that rape was "God's will"
(CNN) -- BriGette McCoy described how she was raped on her first military assignment, two weeks before her 19th birthday. She described how, later that year, she was raped by another soldier in her unit.
Then came sexual harassment by two officers -- including one who requested that she be moved to work directly for him, she said Wednesday.
Testifying before lawmakers, the former Army specialist described the "anguish" and "entrapment" she felt, and the horror of the ordeal that followed.
"I no longer have any faith or hope that the military chain of command will consistently prosecute, convict, sentence and carry out the sentencing of sexual predators in uniform without absconding justice somehow," she told the Senate Armed Services Committee's subcommittee on personnel.
"It even starts at recruitment," she said. "We have quite a few of our men and women that are being raped and sexually harassed during the recruitment process."
Quite a few of our men and women are being raped during the recruitment process. BriGette McCoy, former Army specialist and rape victim
McCoy was one of four alleged victims who testified Wednesday about a problem the military has acknowledged.
About 19,000 men and women suffer sexual assault each year in the military, former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said, though he noted that only about 3,200 assaults were reported. About 10,700 of those cases -- 56% -- involved male victims in 2010, based on anonymous reporting collected by the military.
In painful, dramatic testimony, three women and one man, all of whom have left the military, described their suffering -- and explained why, in some cases, they never filed reports. They helped paint a picture of the military as a place where victims are often pressured to remain quiet or endure having their reputations and careers tarnished for coming forward.
High-ranking representatives from each military branch also gave statements, each one saying how brave they thought those troops had been in telling their stories openly. They stressed that special victims' units have been established along with training to recognize, investigate and prosecute cases involving rape.
Rebekhah Havrilla was sexually harassed by a team leader to such an extent that she needed mental health care and medication, she said.
"One week before my unit was scheduled to return back to the United States, I was raped by another service member that had worked with our team.
"Initially, I chose not to do a report of any kind because I had no faith in my chain of command, as my first sergeant previously had sexual harassment accusations against him, and the unit climate was extremely sexist and hostile in nature towards women," she said.
WEB EXTRA: Rape in the military, Part 2
Rape Victims: Military Calls us "Crazy"
'Invisible War': Rapes in the military
Later, she filed a restricted report against her rapist and the team leader.
A year later, the former sergeant testified, she bumped into her rapist in a store, who told her he had been moved to her new location.
"I was so re-traumatized from the unexpectedness of seeing him that I removed myself from training and immediately sought out the assistance from an Army chaplain who told me, among other things, that the rape was God's will and that God was trying to get my attention so that I would go back to church," she testified. "Again, I did not file an unrestricted report against my rapist."
"Six months later, a friend called me and told me they had found pictures of me online that my perpetrator had taken during my rape."
So she turned to the Army Investigation Division, which carried out a full investigation, she said. An investigator had her describe in detail what was happening in each of the photos.
After months passed, she said, she was told that her rapist had told investigators that he had had consensual sex with Havrilla. The command did not pursue adultery charges, and the case was closed.
"The military criminal justice system is broken," Havrilla said.
Later, after the hearing, Havrilla posted a message on Twitter: "I have your name, Chaplain. Sweat in your britches."
Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut told military leaders that he appreciated their comments but criticized them for giving "lawyer-like" statements.
The problem of sexual assault in the military is a problem that demands a more immediate response.
He called "sexual assault" as an "immensely destructive force," likening the assaults to the problem the military first grappled with years ago over strengthening its insufficient body armor so that the armor could withstand IED blasts.
Male victim: 'The culture of victim blaming must end'
Male service members are victims, of course, and Brian Lewis reminded senators of that Wednesday.
Lewis told senators he felt "humbled" to be "the first male survivor to testify in front of Congress on this very important issue."
After enlisting in the Navy in 1997, he was raped by a superior officer during his first tour, he said.
"I was ordered by my command not to report this crime."
Then, he said, "I was misdiagnosed with a personality disorder" and was discharged. That remains on his record, he said.
"The military has shoved many survivors out the back door with inaccurate, misleading, and very harmful, almost weaponized, medical diagnoses like personality disorders that affect their benefits and future employment opportunities," he said.
The military has shoved many survivors out the back door with inaccurate, misleading, and very harmful, almost weaponized, medical diagnoses Brian Lewis, former Navy officer, rape victim
McCoy also said many victims are let go with "less than honorable discharges and personality disorders on their records, further hindering them from applying for medical treatment and medical claims."
"The culture of victim blaming and retaliation while failing to punish the perpetrator must end," Lewis said.
"We also need to ensure that prevention efforts are inclusive of male service members. ... We cannot marginalize male survivors and send a message that men cannot be raped, and, therefore, are not real survivors," the former officer said.
But, as senators pointed out, there are few convictions made in the military.
According to a 2010 Defense Department study, only 8% of sexual assailants are referred to military court, compared with 40% of similar offenders prosecuted in the civilian court system.
Military 'desperately needs to be shown the next steps'
Anu Bhagwati, director of the Service Women's Action Network, was the fourth victim who testified.
She said that in her years as a Marine officer, she "experienced daily discrimination and sexual harassment," which included rape jokes and "commercial sexual exploitation of women and girls."
While stationed at an infantry school, "I witnessed reports of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment swept under the rug by a handful of field grade officers.
"Perpetrators were promoted, were transferred to other units without punishment, while victims were accused of lying or exaggerating their claims in order to ruin men's reputations."
She called on Congress to grant "convening authority over criminal cases to trained, professional, disinterested prosecutors. Commanding officers cannot make truly impartial decisions because of their professional affiliation with the accused, and oftentimes with the victim as well."
She also called for civil courts to be opened to military victims.
"Congress must ensure that men and women in uniform can access the remedies available to all other aggrieved individuals under the Federal Tort Claims Act and the Civil Rights Act. Given the prevalence of retaliation against service members who report incidents of sexual assault and harassment, the absence of these remedies for military personnel is especially shameful."
"We are looking," she said, "at an institution that desperately needs to be shown the next steps forward."
The Pentagon estimates that roughly 19,000 service members are assaulted annually. A small fraction of the incidents are reported because most victims fear retaliation or ruined careers, and only about 10 percent of those cases go trial. One in three convicted military sex offenders remain in the service….
What a landmark day, and what a powerful group of photos from the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Personnel Subcommittee hearing yesterday on Military Sexual Assault. The Subcommittee is chaired by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand who has pushed to expose the military’s shameful enabling and coverup of sexual abuse. I recommend the NYT story linked to above. We share our thoughts on a number of the images from the encounter.
In the lead image, we see executive director and co-founder of the Service Women’s Action Network, Anu Bhagwati, herself a a victim of military sexual assault, talking with Maj. Gen. Gary Patton, director of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office. What’s so powerful is the way the photo aligns Anu’s gaze as much or more with Patton’s shoulder, as if she were looking to the insignia for answers and also to the military, by way of the uniform, to account for itself as an institution.
In this second photo with Patton and Rebekah Havrilla, a former sergeant who also testified about her sexual assault, what is poignant to me, beside Rebekah so clearly expressing herself, is that the scene is captured by two women newswire photographers. I find a tacit sense of solidarity in this — as if an echo, too, of the seven women now sitting on the Armed Services Committee, and the overall sense that things, however slowly, are shifting.
In this photo, the four courageous former soldiers who testified about their abuse, Bhagwati; former Army specialist BriGette McCoy; former Army sergeant Rebekah Havrilla; and former Navy petty officer third class, Brian Lewis, sit with their thoughts. It’s striking to witness such an internal and quiet moment while these men and women present themselves as witnesses to a nation.
In a stunning piece of symbolism, we see military brass witnessing Bhagwati’s testimony. I don’t know who the officer is second from left but I do appreciate his demonstration of emotional pain. Far left is Lt. Gen. Dana Chipman, Judge Advocate General of the United States Army. During the hearing, Gillibrand ripped the “convening authority” structure of the military in which commanders are charged with policing their own ranks.
In a particularly tender moment, not just unusual for a Congressional hearing but novel for the combination of leadership and nurturing exhibited by the Senator, we see Gillibrand embracing Officer Lewis. The photo simultaneously contravenes the physicality of his abuse and demonstrates the kind of genuine intimacy perverted by Lewis’s military superiors.
Finally, it takes a confident photographer to put forth a portrait as intimate as this one when the intimate violation of these service people is the subject at hand. Getty photographer Win McNamee artfully negotiates that territory, however, in the form of this close visual dialogue between Bhagwati’s sensitive words and the identity and nominal allegiance embodied by her service pin.
Powerful song from Lupe Fiasco that pays tribute to Jonylah Watkins the 6 month old killed by bullets the other day in Chicago..This is a heartfelt beautiful song.. Nothing more needs to be said.. Listen to the words and let us all end violence in our community. Shout out to Lupe for doing the song.. Shout out to NBA star Derrick Rose for paying for the funeral..
Although it’s a famous photograph, I couldn’t find any high-resolution versions online or any information about the photographer or where it appeared. All online sources I could find credit this photo as appearing in the March 20, 1964 issue of LIFE magazine, but after buying that issue on eBay, I saw a short Malcolm X story, but not the photo. I reached out to a friend, who put out some queries on some photo sites. No luck. I contacted Wayne Taylor who runs the excellent Malcolm X Project at Columbia University, his answer was that “allegedly Malcolm had the photo taken by folks within his organization for publicity purposes not long before his death. Because of constant death threats and the firebombing of his home, Malcolm wanted to put out a photo showing that he was indeed armed and ready to defend himself against future threats. However, I can't say where and when the photo was published.” Several months after he posted the question, my friend finally got a response back to his question on the message boards on photo.net:“At first I tried, according to the faulty note regarding the origin of the photo on Wikipedia, to search for it in the March 20, 1964 issue of Time. As you can imagine, the effort was of no avail. However, after two hours of intensive search, i finally stumbled upon the answer: The photograph was taken by New York Times photographer, Don Hogan Charles, and was published in the September 1964 issue of Ebony Magazine. I hope this information helps. Moreover, I am hoping that, by providing you with this info, you guys will help correct those wrong information on Wikipedia."Oddly, the famous picture is in a 1993 reprint of the article in Ebony during the release of Spike Lee's movie...but not in the original 1964 issue. However, a similar picture does appear in the 1964 issue, Googling Don Hogan Charles turned up a blog entry. According to the blog, Malcolm X got Charles the job at the Times, where he became the paper’s first black photographer and "gave Harlem a voice in the paper".
Here it is the Complete wold famous BBC TV special from 1963 Summer by Nat King cole in HD resolution. I gave a little high and low pass with Equalizer to the sound and then I normalised it to max volume. Unfortunatelly Nat's voice is still sounds indirectly, but it's the technician's mistake who forgot to stick a hidden microphone on his suite before the show started. I also gave a more strength to the picture too... A little sharpness and a little detail enhancer for more detail, maybe a little too much of them. But I hope the result won't get dissapointed anyone. Hope you'll like it, cause I do. Honestly he's my all time favorite singer and performer.
Let's try not to use the word "legend" in this post...quite hard when you wanna evoke a night with an iconic singer & songwriter of the 60's/70's Soul scene, supported by core members of one of the most revered acid-jazz band of these last 30 years !
Leon Ware celebrated this week his 73d birthday on the stage of the New Morning in Paris, with the help of some Incognito musicians, among whom guitarist & band founder Jean-Paul "Bluey" Maunick.
If the word Groove needs a clear definition, then this night must be it. From Leon's classic songs like Rockin' You Eternally, Musical Massage, Why I Came To California... to incredible covers of timeless tracks he wrote for Michael Jackson, Minnie Riperton, Maxwell or Marvin Gaye (I Wanna Be Where You Are, Inside My Love, Sumthin' Sumthin', I Want You...), this Valentine's day night was almost too hot to be true!
Add to that Leon Ware's sense of humor, an incredibly colourful orchestration made in "Bluey" Maunick, the soulful voice of UK singer Vanessa Haynes and a cool featuring from an underground french MC and you get a moment of pure delight.
Here are a few video extracts, so let's groove !
Défi pour cette chronique : ne pas utiliser le mot "légende". Une vraie gageure lorsqu'on doit évoquer une soirée en compagnie d'une véritable icône de la scène Soul/Groove des années 60's/70's et de plusieurs membre du groupe acid-jazz le plus célèbre de ces trente dernières années. Le chanteur et songwriter Leon Ware a en effet fêté cette semaine sur la scène du New Morning son 73ème anniversaire, en compagnie d'une partie du groupe Incognito, dont son fondateur, le guitariste Jean-Paul "Bluey" Maunick. Depuis les classiques de son immense carrière solo Rockin' You Eternally, Musical Massage, Why I Came To California... jusqu'à une série de covers de titres inoubliables qu'il a écrit pour Michael Jackson, Minnie Riperton, Maxwell ou bien sur Marvin Gaye (I Wanna Be Where You Are, Inside My Love, Sumthin' Sumthin', I Want You...), cette soirée de la Saint-Valentin a rarement eu autant de sens...Ode à l'amour sans doute, ce concert fut surtout une définition parfaite du mot "Groove" grâce l'orchestration impeccable made in "Bluey" Maunick. L'humour facétieux de Leon Ware, la superbe voix de la jeune chanteuse anglaise Vanessa Haynes, et un excellent featuring d'un MC français ont corsé l'addition d'une soirée de rêve. Ci-dessus quelques extraits vidéos...so let's groove !
Leon is joined by Brand New Heavies' Carleen Anderson and Michael Franti of Spearhead on a special and intimate set at the Paradiso venue in Amsterdam.
Backed by Leon's own DOX Orchestra, and the Zapp! string quartet, he re-arranged and re-mixed a selection of his own masterpieces.
A prize of $2,000 and publication by Elixir Press is given for a first or second poetry collection. Submit a manuscript of at least 48 pages with a $30 entry fee by March 31. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
All entries will be considered for publication in bosque (the magazine). All entries will be read anonymously.
Send no more than one story per entry. Each story must not exceed 5000 words. Multiple entries are acceptable, provided that a separate reading fee is sent for each.
Novel excerpts are acceptable but should be self-contained.
Simultaneous submissions are acceptable, but the contest fee is non-refundable if the submission is withdrawn. Please notify AWC as soon as possible if a submitted story is accepted elsewhere.
Previously published works and works accepted for publication elsewhere cannot be considered. Bosque's definition of publishing includes electronic publishing.
Electronic submissions only. Please read the following instructions carefully before submitting.
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Between March 1 and 31st only, please use our online submission manager to submit your entry–click on "submit" button on lower left of white box to create an account. If you already have an account, sign in to proceed. Check to be certain your manuscript document does not contain any identifying information, please. Standard ms format: (double spaced, 1" margins, no fancy fonts, numbered pages). All mss will be assigned numbers for anonymity. Please note that your submission will not be processed until you have paid your contest fee (available online March 1st). Failure to comply with any of these instructions is cause for your ms to be eliminated from consideration.
*Elizabeth Rosner is the award-winning author of the novels The Speed of LIght and Blue Nude. She lives in Berkeley, California, and frequently teaches writing workshops. www.elizabethrosner.com
Questions: contest(at)abqwriterscoop(dot)com
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short stories/novel excerpts up to 5000 words, formatted per industry standards. Please be sure your contact information appears on the ms, and include bio/publications at the end of the ms, not in your email. Email to: lynn(at)abqwriterscoop(dot)com
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poems up to 4 poems, in one document, formatted per industry standards. Please be sure your contact information appears on the first page of your ms, and include bio/publications at the end of the ms, not in your email. Email to: hilda(at)abqwriterscoop(dot)com
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creating community in New Mexico for writers everywhere
The 30-Something Project is collecting a wide range of literature for an interactive online anthology to be published in September of 2014 — featuring women in their thirties! The anthology will be published by mosheflow publishes books, Inc. If you are interested in this unique and creative opportunity, read the guidelines below.
Focus:
When did it hit you mentally that you were in your 30s? Describe the moment and what led you to own the 30′s era.
What are some key issues that the 70′s babies possess in the 21st century?
What has it been like as a 30-something and how has it changed your life as a woman?
