The Muslim Writers Awards 2012

(UK/ worldwide)

Deadline: 20 July 2012

(Note: All entrants for the Unpublished Novel, Unpublished Children’s Story, Unpublished Poetry and Unpublished Short Story prize must be a permanent resident in the United Kingdom. Entrants for all other categories can be from outside the United Kingdom.)

The Muslim Writers Awards is back, and this year it's bigger than ever! With more prizes and partners, this year's ceremonies and host of events will be form the Muslim Writers Awards Festival, making it the largest Muslim writing event in the world!

The Festival welcomes submissions from writers across the world. We have a broad range of categories from screen play to novel writing to journalism.

As always shortlisted entries will be assessed by panels of esteemed judges, and the shortlisted entrants will be invited to a high-profile televised Awards ceremony scheduled for November 2012 in London. Our awards ceremonies are an opportunity to showcase talent from both published and unpublished writers. We work with a number of literary agents and publishers who are eager to read and review writing submitted to us.

MUSLIM WRITERS AWARDS 2012

The Muslim Writers Awards 2012 is calling submissions from over 16 writers for the following categories:

• Unpublished Novel Prize

• Unpublished Short Story Prize

• Unpublished Poetry Prize

• Unpublished Children’s Story Prize

• Stage and Screen Play Prize

• Young Journalist Prize (16-25)

• Published Novel Prize

• Published Children's Book Prize

• Published Non-Fiction: People and Places

• Published Non-Fiction: Culture

• Published Non-Fiction: History and Politics

To submit work for unpublished categories, Stage and Screenplay and Young Journalist prize, please click here.

To submit for the Published catergories, please download and complete the relevant Entry Form, below.

ELIGIBILITY

• All entries must be submitted in the English language.

• All entries must be original and the authors own unaided work.

• Submissions must not infringe any copyright or contain defamatory or otherwise unlawful matter.

• All entrants must be over the age of 16. Entrants for the Young Journalist prize must be aged 16-25 at the time of the closing date.

• All entrants for the Unpublished Novel, Unpublished Children’s Story, Unpublished Poetry and Unpublished Short Story prize must be a permanent resident in the United Kingdom. Entrants for all other categories can be from outside the United Kingdom.

• Entries submitted in previous Muslim Writers Awards competitions will not be accepted.

• Entrants for the Unpublished Novel, Unpublished Children’s Story, Unpublished Poetry and Unpublished Short Story must not have had work previously published or accepted for publication that fits within the category they wish to submit to.

• It is a condition of entry that any entrant in the Unpublished Novel, Unpublished Children’s Story, Unpublished Poetry and Unpublished Short Story categories whose submission is accepted for publication by any publisher anywhere in the world before the awards ceremony must withdraw their entry by notifying the organisers via mail@muslimwritersawards.org.uk.

• Entries for the Stage and Screen Play prize will not be accepted if they have been optioned or sold.

• Entries for the Published Novel prize, Published Non-Fiction (People + Places), Published Non-Fiction (Culture), and Published Non-Fiction (History + Politics) will be accepted if they have been first published after the 1st August 2011.

• Entries for the Published Children’s Book prize will be accepted if they have been published after the 15th August 2011.

• Entries for the Unpublished Short Story prize must not exceed 8,000 words.

• Entries for the Unpublished Novel and Unpublished Children’s Story prize must be a minimum of 8,000 words.

• Entries for the Stage and Screen Play prize must be no shorter than ten minutes stage/screen time.

• For both the Young Journalist prize and the Unpublished Poetry award, entrants may submit up to three articles/poems. All articles/poems must be placed in one Microsoft Word document, with each article/poem clearly labelled with their respective titles.

• For all other categories, only one entry per category will be accepted.

• For the Unpublished Novel award, the Unpublished Short Story award, and the Unpublished Children’s Story award please include a short synopsis of the work (up to 500 words).

• The closing date for the competition is midnight on the 20th July 2012. Submissions will not be accepted after this date.

SUBMISSION PROCESS

• For all published categories, seven copies of the book must be sent to Muslim Writers Awards, E1 Business Centre, 7 Whitechapel Road, London, E1 1DU, with a completed Entry Form available to download, below.

• All unpublished entries must be submitted electronically through our online submissions managers, Submittable.com. Entrants should complete all the required fields on Submittable.com when submitting their work. Once received, entries cannot be amended.

• Unpublished submissions should be typed in font Times New Roman, font size 11, in a Microsoft Word document format, with numbered pages. Submissions must bear the title of the entry in the ‘Header’ of each page, and must not bear the authors name.

• The submission of an authors work by the publisher/agent will be taken as agreement by the author that he/she is willing for the submitted work to be considered.

• The closing date for the competition is midnight on 20th July 2012.

SELECTION PROCESS

Judging for the Muslim Writers Awards will be as follows:

• Stage 1: A team of readers will read all submissions and select the top five entries, comprising the shortlist.

• Stage 2: The shortlisted entries will be put to the judging panels which will assess the entries, giving each a score.

• Stage 3: The judging panels will convene to discuss the winner of the prize.

• Stage 4: Shortlisted entrants will be invited to the awards ceremony to be held in London in November 2012, where the winners will be announced. More details will be available closer to the time.

The decisions of the judging panel are final and binding, and Muslim Writers Awards will not enter into correspondence or negotiation regarding the results.

Due to the high volume of submissions, the organisers are unable to contact all entrants to inform them of their progression through the selection process. Details of winners will be made available on the Muslim Writers Awards website after the Awards ceremony.

PUBLICITY

• Each winner will agree to take part in publicity for the promotion of the Awards which will include - but is not restricted to - his/her name and photograph being used. Writers will not receive payment for this.

• Winners will retain the copyright to their work but grant Muslim Writers Awards the right to publish their work in the anthology and excerpts on the Muslim Writers Awards website.

• Submissions do not need to be centred on topics of Islam or Muslim identity, however these are equally welcome.

• All entrants agree to have their email address added to the MWA mailing list.

• The submission of an entry will be deemed to imply the acceptance of these conditions of entry.

Download: published novel entry form, published children's book entry form, published non-fiction culture entry form, published non-fiction history and politics entry form, published non-fiction people and placed entry form

CONTACT INFORMATION:

For queries: mail@muslimwritersawards.org.uk

For submissions: Muslim Writers Awards, E1 Business Centre, 7 Whitechapel Road, London, E1 1DU

Website: http://muslimwritersawards.org.uk/

Call for Contributions:

The Sefi Atta Reader

(edited volume | Nigeria)

Deadline: 31 July 2012

Nigerian author Sefi Atta currently enjoys a great reception of her fictional work. Named the winner of the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa in 2006 and the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa in 2009 among others, Atta has published three novels and a collection of short stories with more pieces appearing soon. She has also written several plays that have been performed both on stage and on the radio. I am seeking contributors to The Sefi Atta Reader. The Reader will contain critical essays of approximately 9000 to 11000 words, key topic essays of approximately 3000 to 4000 words and interviews with Sefi Atta. A publisher has been identified, and Atta will make herself available for the interviews. Contributions should focus primarily on her body of writing, but may briefly address any of her interlocutors or situate her work within the larger body of African literature, especially the latest wave of contemporary African writing.

Topics/approaches might include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Globalization

• Post-colonial theory

• Women and motherhood

• Female friendship

• Conflict between women and any of the following: men, culture/tradition, their communities/families

• Convergence of personal and political spheres

• Class barriers

• Depiction and role of Lagos as a city in the literature

• Impact of death

• Neo-colonialism

Please contact Dr. Walter Collins at collinsw@sc.edu for more information and any questions. Contribution proposals (no longer than 250 words) should be sent to the address above by July 31, 2012. First drafts of contributions are due on or before September 30, 2012 and may be sent electronically. Please see www.sefiatta.com for more details regarding Atta’s career and work.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

For queries/ submissions: collinsw@sc.edu

The Melissa Lanitis Gregory Poetry Prize

Bona Fide Books will award annually The Melissa Lanitis Gregory Prize for an unpublished collection of poems. The winner will receive publication, ten copies, a $500 cash award, and a reading at Lake Tahoe. Prizes are awarded upon publication.

The Melissa Lanitis Gregory Poetry Prize
Call for Manuscripts
48 to 100 pages
Accepting submissions June 1 through August 31

Guidelines:

• Submit a previously unpublished, full-length poetry manuscript of between 48 and 100 pages.

• Include two cover pages: one with the title of the manuscript only, the other with the title of manuscript, name, address, telephone number, and email address.

• Include a table of contents and, if applicable, an acknowledgments page for prior publications.

• Simultaneous submissions are permitted; please let us know right away if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere. (Refunds will not be issued.)

• A reading fee of $20 (US) by check or PayPal must accompany each submission. Multiple submissions are accepted; each requires a $20 entry fee.

• More than one manuscript may be chosen for publication.

• Submit via email or post.

 
Email submissions

 
Email your submission to submissions@bonafidebooks.com.

 
Please submit your $20 entry fee via Paypal, or by check if you are submitting by post.

 
If sending a check, please make it payable to Bona Fide Books, Inc.

Mail your submission and fee to:
Bona Fide Books
The Melissa Lanitis Gregory Poetry Prize
PO Box 550278
South Lake Tahoe, CA 96155  
 
All entries must be received or postmarked by August 31.

For more information about the 2011 prize winner, click here.

 

 

 

David Osagie is a Nigerian freelance creative. His works feature tradition & perfection in a mix of surreal, african and grunge digital pieces.

http://www.davidosagie.com/

Teju Cole

on the destruction

of Timbuktu:

“It takes a lot of work

to silence silent objects”

The brilliant Teju Cole, blogging for the New Inquiry on about iconoclasism, the power of images and the destruction of Sufi shrines in Timbuktu:

Images are powerful. They can bring people into such a pitch of discomfort that violence ensues, and iconoclasm carries within itself two paradoxical traits: thoroughness and fury…. iconoclastic movements is that they are never about theology alone. They include politics, struggles for power, the effort to humiliate an enemy, and a demonstration of iconoclasts’ own neuroses. Behind iconoclastic bravado is a terror of magic, a belief in dead saints no less than that of iconophiles and, crucially, a historical anxiety that, in the Timbuktu case, is about presenting the bona fides of Ansar Dine to its Wahhabi models in Saudi Arabia and to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

That which doesn’t speak dumbfounds. After all, who can tell what such objects are thinking? Best to destroy the inscrutable, the ancient, if one is to truly usher in a pure new world. So, the invaders continue their work in Timbuktu with enthusiasm and good cheer, smashing pots, breaking bricks, rattling at the doors of the mosque. It takes a lot of work to silence silent objects. But already it is clear that not only the people watching from behind the gate are consumed with fear.

__________________________

Save Timbuktu!

30 June 2012: UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova expressed her distress and dismay over the destruction of three sacred tombs that are part of a World Heritage site in Timbuktu, Mali. Ms Bokova called on the belligerents to cease the destruction immediately.

“Reports that the Mausoleums of Sidi Mahmoud, Sidi Moctar and Alpha Moya have been destroyed is extremely distressing,” the Director-General said. “There is no justification for such wanton destruction and I call on all parties engaged in the conflict to stop these terrible and irreversible acts, to exercise their responsibility and protect this invaluable cultural heritage for future generations.

The Director-General, has repeatedly urged international cooperation to protect the sites which bear witness to the golden age of Timbuktu in the 16th century and to a history that stretches even further back to the 5th century of the Hegira.

Earlier today, the Chairperson of the Committee, Eleonora Mitrofanova (Russian Federation) described the destruction of the three tombs as “tragic news for us all and, even more so for the inhabitants of Timbuktu who have cherished and preserved this monument over more than seven centuries.”

On Thursday, 28 June, the World Heritage Committee, meeting in St. Petersburg, accepted the request of the government of Mali to place Timbuktu and the Tomb of Askia on UNESCO’s List of World Heritage in Danger. 

I am very pessimistic that UNESCO or any other organisation will be able to convince the rebels that this ancient city should be cherished as if it were the last flower on earth.

 >via: http://afroeurope.blogspot.com/2012/07/save-timbuktu.html

__________________________

In Mali,

Art as Real as Life Itself

By HOLLAND COTTER

Published: April 16, 2012

BAMAKO, Mali — Political tumult in the last few weeks — a military coup, a Tuareg and Islamist takeover in the north — has all but eliminated tourism in this West African nation, which has long been a magnet for Western travelers in search of firsthand encounters with living art traditions.

But in calmer times the usual focus of such a quest is the landscape of cliffs and gorges in central Mali known as Dogon country. The classical tour includes two standard items: a Dogon masked dance performance and a view of a mural-size expanse of rock paintings, reputedly ancient, in the area.

Dances are arranged by appointment. You book one through a local hotel, pay upfront and hire a driver to ferry you out along cratered roads to a village. There, with the help of guides, you make your way up a cliffside to a shelflike clearing.

At a scheduled time two dozen or so young men, some on stilts, all with masks representing spirits and animals, silently emerge from behind high rocks. They circle the clearing at a measured pace, then, one after another, go into short, tightly choreographed solos danced to the driving rhythms of a drum orchestra.

Dust rises. The speed and intricacy of movement increases competitively as the musicians urge on the dancers. Then, in well under an hour, it’s over. The performers linger to pose for pictures and vanish as silently as they came.

Canned ethnography? For a Western art critic who tries to resist value-laden paradigms, like high versus low, traditional versus modern, and genuine versus fake, but who is still steeped in binary thinking, it was hard, on a recent visit, not to take the event as an artifact, a slice of globalist consumer art — at least at first. But Africa, once you start asking questions, tends to change how you see.

The dance, it turns out, is a radically condensed version of a funeral masquerade, a communal ritual intended to urge the reluctant dead into the afterlife, where they can assume useful roles as ancestors. A full-scale performance, honoring important elders, can go on for days. The one I saw under a hot winter sun was the CliffsNotes edition. But it was also an example of history in motion, cultural survival in progress.

The Dogon, a farming people said to have come to the region centuries ago to avoid conversion to Islam, have long since been claimed by that religion and by Christianity alike, and by the most seductive of faiths, secular materialism. And as the force of incursions has increased, age-old means of self-support have diminished. Climate shifts and the departure of young men to cities have made agriculture a constant and losing struggle.

In these circumstances tourism has been a godsend. The packaged dances have brought in cash and have given young men a reason to stay home. By packaging and selling their culture, the Dogon have been keeping it viable.

In the West we have a particular definition of authenticity and a mania for it as a standard for art, especially art that we envision as elemental, unmodern, unspoiled. We gauge genuineness in terms of age, rarity, uniqueness, history of use, motives for creation. But in Africa, as often as not, authentic is simply what works, socially and spiritually: for example, the way each Dogon tourist dance keeps a larger dance, and Dogon identity, alive.

Once this idea sank in, Africa blossomed for me, knocked me off balance and kept me that way.

Songho, a Dogon village and the other regulation tour stop, is famous for a cliff face covered with rock paintings that mark the site of a male circumcision camp. Although the village is now Muslim, Dogon initiation still takes place every three years, with boys coming from the surrounding countryside.

The paintings, done in black, white and brick-red pigment, are of floating shapes, some recognizable as humanlike figures, others looking uncannily like cartoon versions of recent communications hardware: televisions or computers or iPhones complete with small screens and keypads.

No one has yet cracked the symbolic codes here.

They may relate to local family histories or to elaborate Dogon oral epics of ethnic origin and destiny. What’s striking, though, and initially disconcerting is how vivid, even garish, the images are, despite a vaunted antiquity.

For this there’s an explanation. Every three years the wall is selectively repainted. Certain symbols are freshened up, while others are left to fade. And occasionally, it seems, new things are added. Although we tend to think of rock paintings as a time-mellowed medium, a lot of what’s here looks as bold as just-bombed graffiti tags.

But as with the masquerade, just because something doesn’t look old doesn’t mean it’s not. And anyway, I found myself thinking, “What’s the big deal about old art, of the kind locked up in Western museums?” Art, like life, is about growing and recharging, keeping on the move. Change is realness. Africa, present-minded and unsentimental, seems to keep saying this.

Or at least I kept hearing it, as I did on a visit to the ironworkers collective, the Coopérative des Forgerons, back in Bamako, Mali’s capital. Embedded deep in the city’s Great Market, the cooperative is an artisan village unto itself, a tangle of dirt lanes and alleys lined with lean-to sheds.

In each, one or two men stand or squat in front of an open forge and heat pieces of castoff metal — car body scraps, plumbing parts, strips of roof sheeting — to an orange glow before hammering them into new things: plows, hoes, cooking bowls, tools and machetes.

In West Africa blacksmiths have always been feared as magicians because of their freakish, godly ability to smelt iron from ore, and turn solid to liquid and liquid to solid again. At the same time, they are revered for their technological prowess. Without them and what they make, crops could not be cultivated, wars waged, homes protected, rituals performed.

In their ovenlike sheds, intent on their hazardous work, paying no mind to tourists angling for shots, they embody the much-told story of Africa as a culture of recycling. And on a continent where art can often be defined as things or actions employed as a means of managing power, they illustrate the force of African agency, of using power — call it art — to create new forms.

A few days later my thoughts turned back to Grand Market as I walked through the permanent textile display at the National Museum of Mali. There’s some fine old material here: fragments, kept under glass, of 12th-century weaving by pre-Dogon Tellem people who used caves, some near the cliff where I’d seen the masquerade, for burials.

But most fabrics in the gallery are of far more recent date, from the 1970s through the 1990s, and of types still for sale in the city today. As if to point up the gallery-to-street connection, lengths of various new cloths hang free in bannerlike rows from the gallery ceiling and are draped over barrel-like metal stands.

For anyone used to the sanctified, conservation-minded environment of Western museums, such casual flair delivers a jolt. I scanned the room, checked some dates, thought confused thoughts about art versus product and was prepared to make my stay short when one item caught me eye.

It was a cotton hand-weave with jazzy, Matisse-ish patterns worked out in gradations of indigo. Fabulous. Date: around 1982. And hadn’t I seen something very like it before? I had. The weave was virtually identical to that in the Tellem pieces nearby, and the indigo pattern closely resembled one I’d admired as it sat, half finished, on a Dogon-country loom.

If the museum’s strategy was to bring past, present and an encompassing concept of preciousness together, it worked. To see it working, and to be entranced by the sight, required for me an on-the-spot shift in perceptual habit.

Taste is habit, a form of learned behavior. And habit is what we rely on to make us feel at home and comfortable in the world. So judgment based primarily on taste, like most art criticism, is inherently conservative, predictable, fixed.

Africa is a habit breaker. It teaches that the ideal of unalterable tradition is an illusion, that change itself is a tradition, maybe the great modern one. It teaches that now is as authentic as then, and already is then. If, on an African visit, such thoughts kick in at all, chances are they’ll grow larger and realer. As you gradually — confusedly, delightedly — come to realize, the basic experience of being here is learning how much you don’t know.

>via: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/17/arts/design/in-mali-finding-art-as-authenti...

Respect the Shooter:

SHAWN PETERS

 

BY Fanon Che Wilkins

Unless you’ve been deeply involved in the contemporary New York art and music scene, you might not have heard of Shawn Peters. Personal modesty and a deep abiding desire to remain behind the scenes where his eyes sculpt new visuals for the avant-garde has kept Peters off the public radar. Yet, his meteoric rise behind the camera will not allow him to remain in obscurity for long. The Brooklyn based, New Rochelle raised Peters has been quietly making his mark behind the lens for artists as varied as Blitz the Ambassador, Pharoahe Monch and Gregory Porter. Peters, along with visual alchemist Terence Nance recently completed Triptych for Afropunk Films–a new series of documentary shorts that profile the work of artists Sanford Biggers, Wangechi Mutu, and Barron Claiborne with others to follow.  Triptych debuted at the Brooklyn Museum on May 24th. Peters and Nance also collaborated on An Oversimplification of Her Beauty which went to Sundance and Blitz the Ambassador’s short film Native Sun, shot on location in Ghana. Peters also serves as the consulting Performance Producer for the Weeksville Heritage Center in Brooklyn and has been instrumental in featuring artists such as Meshell Ndegeocello, Jose James, Pharoahe Monch, Cody ChesnuTT, and Theophilus London.

In Peter’s words he is “just getting started” and like most, his journey to finding his creative genius has been far from a straight line. We recently caught up with him between shoots to find out what that journey has been like and who and what has inspired him to devote his life to the world of film and the creative imagination.

Life+Times: When we talked a while back you mentioned that one of your greatest influences was famed Harlem photographer Roy DeCarava. How has DeCarava’s work shaped your approach to image making?
Shawn Peters: When I was in graduate school at the University of South Carolina I was in the media and film program with a concentration in cinematography but I shifted half way through to still photography. My professor and advisor Gene Crediford was an older white guy who was from the South and he really mentored me. He and I became very close and he would always tell me that I needed to check out this guy Roy DeCarava. This was in the mid-90s and I had never heard of Roy DeCarava back then because most of us had only heard of James Van Der Zee, Gordon Parks and others. DeCarava was not part of the mainstream discussion when it came to black photographers—at least in my circles at the time. My professor, however, insisted that I learn about his work so after I graduated I moved back to New York and I sought him out. I learned that he was teaching at Hunter College so I called his office multiple times and finally got him on the phone. After a short discussion he agreed to take a look at my portfolio and he spent at least a half a day with me examining my images and offering critiques of each one. He told me about some of his dark room techniques in terms of printing and took a lot of time with me that day—something he did not have to do. I didn’t spend that much more time with him after that, but I later ran into him at The Museum of Modern Art  during a huge retrospective of his work. So DeCarava has been a huge influence on my image making because his work was never commercial—it was very quite and he had a very personalized approach to seeing light and how it interacted with form and subject. So I try to approach my work as he did.

L+T: Your work today is primarily concerned with cinematography and you have returned to where you began in graduate school. Why the return and what has that transition been like?
Shawn Peters: Well after graduate school in 1995 I was broke. I was interning on film sets and working to get photography jobs but I was not making it. So I made a choice  to get a job and I ended up working for AT&T for about four years and did very well. I was later asked to be a partner in an IT firm with some cats who had retired from AT&T and that lasted an additional four years. I was making great money, but I was not happy. So I got into the music business because I figured that would put me in touch with the arts so I started working with Martin Luther, Cody ChestnuTT, and I helped to found Rebel Soul Records. I ended up spending another three or four years doing that. Finally I decided to return and do what I always wanted to do so I enrolled into New York University’s Summer Intensive Cinematography program in an effort to get updated on the new technology and get back in the fold of filmmaking. Just as I got back into it DSLR film technology took off and high quality filmmaking became accessible and affordable to anyone. Shortly after I finished the program I went out and bought a Canon 7D and after having it for two days I was offered an opportunity to be the director of photography for Blitz the Ambassador’s video “Something To Believe.”

Native Sun • A short film by Blitz the Ambassador & Terence Nance from MVMT on Vimeo.

L+T: You seem to have remained quite busy since the NYU course and have been working with people like Pharoahe Monch and jazz vocalist sensation Gregory Porter.
Shawn Peters: Well after working with Blitz things just snowballed from there and I began being contacted by folks in the music industry who were coming to find out that I was now behind the camera following my dream. Monch liked the “Something To Believe” video and his management got in touch and we met at my apartment, clicked and agreed to make Pharoahe’s “Clap” video.

L+T: In your most recent work you have been working a lot with director Terence Nance. How did that relationship develop?
Shawn Peters: Well let me go back a bit. Actually the first film I ever served as director of photography (DP) after NYU was in Holland. I was not using a DSLR, but a Sony E-1 with a 35mm adapter. We shot the video for a song called “The Way” for a Dutch artist named Postman.Well one day I saw a fundraiser campaign on the Internet for a film by Terence Nance and I was really impressed with his creative approach and aesthetic choices. I thought to myself wow I would really like to meet that dude. So after not really thinking about it again I get on the train near my home in Brooklyn and I randomly run into him. Terence has that big hair so you cannot miss him. So we started rapping and it turned out that we had a mutual friend in Blitz The Ambassador. I told him that I was a DP and he asked me to send over my stuff because he was looking for a DP for Blitz’s “Something To Believe” video. So I sent him “The Way.” He liked it and hired me for the job days after I had purchased the Canon 7D. This then led to me bringing Terence on board for the “Clap” video for Monch. Now interestingly, Terence almost did not make it on the video because Pharoahe’s people thought his ideas were kind of out there so I conceived the original outline for the film. I later hired writer Kevin Nelson to write the screenplay and then Terence re-wrote the script to his style and adjusted things to his directorial vision and then we shot it. “Clap” put us on the map and was one of our better pieces in my opinion.

L+T: Now you have been doing a lot of work with Gregory Porter. What has it been like to be part of his meteoric rise on the music scene over the last two years or so?
Shawn Peters: Well what’s interesting is that I know Gregory from around the way in Bedstuy. Gregory’s brother had a coffee shop in the neighborhood called BreadStuy and Greg used to make soup and hummus and fancied himself as a chef who could also really sing. Every now and then Greg would have gigs in some of the local spots around the way. So fast-forward…my aunt, who is also my spiritual advisor has a spiritual center up in New Rochelle where I grew up. Well she always encouraged us to bring folks up to perform at her center so one day I brought Greg up there and he just blew the whole place down. My clairvoyant aunt stepped to me and was like “Listen this guy is going to do it—just watch him in the next couple of years because he is going to take off.” For obvious reasons I never doubted my aunt’s ability to see the future. After Greg dropped his first album I was asked to DP the video for “Illusion.” Greg’s brother Roy was supposed to direct it but for all kinds of reasons he was overcommitted in other areas and was unable to do it. I ended up directing and shooting the video myself. That was the first time I directed. After that they brought me on to direct the “1960 What?” video out in Detroit. I later ended up collaborating with director Pierre Bennu, someone I had known for years, on Greg’s “Be Good” video.

L+T: Well you just celebrated your 20 year college reunion from Morehouse College and its amazing that you went to school with some major players in the art world today. You were fortunate to count folks like folks like Saul Williams, Martin Luther, Sanford Biggers, Corey Smyth, Tahir Hemphill, Adisa Iwa, and DJ Soul Messiah just to name a few as your classmates. What was that experience like?
Shawn Peters: Well what’s interesting is that Morehouse is not known as a school that focused a great deal on the creative arts, but many of us pursued art because of our tremendous desire to offer something artistically meaningful to the world that was particularly relevant to reclaiming our dignity as a people. I mean Saul Williams was a philosophy and theatre major and his efforts in those arenas shaped his poetry and music prowess. Martin Luther majored in mass communication and was a filmmaker in college. The great thing about Morehouse was that we all learned about the importance of articulating ourselves, whether it was behind the camera, on the stage, in the pulpit, or in front of the classroom. I mean Sanford Biggers work focuses primarily on cultural identity and ‘reriteing’ history through art—that is seeing history itself as a malleable art form. Recognizing that history is written out of a creative selection of ‘facts,’ Biggers’ work seeks to treat history like sculpture with an eye toward remolding the past. So in essence, all of us share a common interest in using our voice to advance the collective interests of our people and humanity in some kind of way. Morehouse taught us that and I am forever grateful.

Photo Credit: Marvin Joseph

Harry Belafonte talks

Civil Rights,

Martin Luther King

+ being Black

in ’60s Hollywood

with The Guardian

[Video]

Leke Sanusi July 3, 2012

 

The stately Harry Belafonte is a historical force as well as a creative one. Having sung, danced and acted his way into the history book and the hearts and minds of music and movie lovers over the course of a six-decade career, the towering 85-year-old also marched, picketed and debated his way to changing the course of the world as we know it, playing a seminal role in the fight for Civil Rights.

A stunning triple threat, Belafonte stood, and still stands, as an imposing figure, catching the eye with his undeniable looks, but amazing audiences with his ability to entertain; he is truly a man born for the stage. A theatrical soul and spirit. Developing close relationships with several proponents of the nonviolent factions of the Civil Rights Movement, the son of a Martiniquan chef and a housekeeper of Jamaican descent soon became one of the faces of the battle for equality, standing alongside the likes of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and Charlton Heston.

An icon, a legend and inspiration, the one-time calypso recording artist has lived through and experienced the tectonic shifts in American culture. Belafonte watched as Reverend King was shot on the balcony of The Lorraine Motel in Memphis. He was 36 when JFK was assassinated in Dallas, 41 when Robert Kenneddy was struck by three bullets in a kitchen passageway of The Ambassador Hotel. He celebrated as Lyndon B. Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of ’68, and smiled on with the likes of Joan Baez and Alice Walker at the inauguration of Barack Obama.

The influential performer and activist recounts his experiences and tells the untold story of his life in the critically-acclaimed documentary, Sing Your Song.

The biographical film charts Belafonte’s growth and development, delving into his upbringing and mapping out the trajectory of his career. Directed by Susanne Rostock, the film begins with Belafonte’s birth in Harlem and then embarks on the journey of his life, highlighting his efforts in the quest for civil rights.

In a video interview with The Guardian‘s Sarfraz Manzoor and Cameron Robertson, Belafonte opens up about his life, Sing Your Song, and his book My Song: A Memoir of Art, Race & Defiance. He discusses his friendship with Martin Luther King, Jr., his relationship with JFK, and the inhumanity of segregation.

Speaking about his influences and the figures that inspired him to persevere in the face of discrimination, Belafonte explains:

“In Harlem I saw all the heroes: Paul Robeson, Jackie Robinson, Joe Louis, Jesse Owens, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald. We all lived in the same place; the poor and the rich. That’s not quite the way today. If it wasn’t for television, we’d hardly know one another.”

“I was befriended. Paul Robeson was the first one. Then came Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois — one of the greatest intellectuals of the 20th century. These men stood strong and tall in the terms of dealing with human degradation and human pain. They did things about it.

“Then there was a woman named Eleanor Roosevelt. She was the wife of the President of the United States of America. She threw her lot in with us, and was constantly in our community.”

Powerful and impressive as ever, with undiminished gravitas and effervescence, Belafonte explores the culture and atmosphere of his life and times, putting things into perspective and reminding us all of the heroes, heroines and giants of the not-too-distant past.

Watch Mr. Belafonte’s interview below.

 

 

Top 10 Independence Day

Videos From Africa

July 3, 2012 Posted by: okayafrica

July 4th is “Independence Day” for the United States (but really, how can you gain independence on colonized land?). To “celebrate” (see previous parentheses) we decided to scrounge around for our favorite videos – old and new – from independence days across Africa.We found powerful speeches, regimes hightailing it back to the metropole, people dancing in the streets, and other great images from around the continent. Here they are in no particular order:

1. Above are scenes from Freedom Square, Torit, Eastern Equatoria State in South Sudan on July 9, 2011. South Sudan is Africa’s newest country.

2. Cameroon’s first president, Ahmadou Babatoura Ahidjo, is captured here on January 1, 1960. These images of Ahidjo are unusual because it is said that his successor, Paul Biya, has made efforts to erase archival footage and photos of Ahidjo.

3. At Independence Day celebrations in Zimbabwe on April 17th 1980, Bob Marley performed his famous song “Zimbabwe” to a crowd of thousands.

4. On June 30, 1960 the new democratically elected Prime Minister of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba, delivered a fiery, unrehearsed speech to a room full of important folks including the King of Belgium. In the speech, he detailed the atrocities and injustice bestowed upon the Congolese people and praised them for enduring the Belgium regime. Lumumba was murdered by firing squad a few months later during a coup that the Belgium government has now admitted they supported. Listen to the full speech with English subtitles above, and read it here.

5. On March 6, 1957 Kwame Nkrumah, the father of Pan-Africanism, celebrated independence day in Ghana as the country’s first president. Delighted narration aside, this video highlights the interesting folks that showed up to the festivities including Richard Nixon and Muammar Gaddafi. A photo of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King was also taken at the event.

6. On December 9, 1961 the people of the newly decolonized “Tanganyika” (modern day Tanzania) waved farewell to the Duke of Edinburgh as he boarded an airplane leaving Dar es Salaam. The contrast between Julius Nyerere‘s western-style suit and the old regime’s white wigs notes a clear sign of transition. The video itself cannot be embedded, but we still thought it significant enough to include. Watch the whole clip here.

7. This footage from December 24, 1951 in Libya shows the country’s first and only King, Idris I of Libya. Idris ruled until 1969 when he went away to Turkey to received medical treatment and Muammar Gaddafi led a coup d’etat that defeated his kingdom.

8. We can’t overlook this incredible and rare archival footage from Cape Verde’s first independence celebration on July 5th and 6th 1975.

9. April 27, 1994 is Freedom Day in South Africa. This date honors the first democratic elections in South Africa when Nelson Mandela was voted into power. Here is the Soweto Gospel Choir singing the “new” South Africa’s national anthem “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika.”

10. Last but not least is this news report (it’s unclear what network) on the candidates for the first democratic elections in Nigeria in 1960. The report highlights regional issues that are still relevant today. Find more archived news reports from the election here.

 

AHMAD JAMAL

• July 2, 1930 Ahmad Jamal, jazz pianist and composer, was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Jamal began playing the piano at the age of three and began formal training at seven. He moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1950 and recorded his debut album, “Ahmad’s Blues” in 1951. In 1958, Jamal recorded the album “But Not for Me” which included “Poinciana.” That album stayed on the Ten Best Selling charts for 108 weeks. Other recordings by Jamal include “Crystal” (1987) and “A Quiet Time” (2009). In 1994, Jamal was designated a NEA Jazz Master, the highest honor in jazz, by the National Endowment for the Arts. That same year, he was named a Duke Ellington Fellow at Yale University. In 2007, he was inducted into the Order of the Arts and Letters by the French government and received the Living Legends Award from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.