Deep kora from Gabu
LISTEN: (Look at "Listen Tracks")
Night in Gabu drops quickly into the stomach of the earth. The shadows
brush away the red coloured reflection from faces and things and suddenly
we are in the dark, in the void. Birimin den - a kora is playing besides
us.We are still sticky for the heat that has just left us and we are lying on
the carpets, heavily, waiting for someone to offer us one more tea. The
stiffness disappears only when the black night becomes impenetrable and we
hear from the brousse the dull calling of howls, which perhaps is only a
body temporarily inhabited by a busy witch. Something, maybe a rat, was
biting the wood over our roof.
Young men turn on the generator, which slowly starts erupting. It misses
some beats and seems to be turning off but then is starts again. The old
light of a lamp which hangs naked in front of the house suddenly inundates
the courtyard, confining the spirits behind the corners of the houses.
Someone is tuning the kora in the dark. The sound is high, dry and rich of
harmonies that are beyond the spectrum of what is audible. The kora seems
to be made for the night and for the heavy silence of the countryside, to
reunite people and to fight the anxiety that rises like phantoms from the
roots of baobab and mangoe trees.Slowly the air turns opaque. It brings the rivers' humidity, which rises
from the banks and reaches the village like an invisible mist.
Children running after the last amusement are being prepared for the night.
They sleep in three, four of even five per bed and some on the floor.
Perhaps we have subtracted mattresses from them?When all the children are in bed, the koras’ - which in the meantime have
multiplied - start playing together, as if to merge inside a secret
embrace. Insisting riffs, hypnotizing, meditative, and nervous. The
traditional kora with its unexpected sequences pursues without hesitation
over the melody. The tempo becomes uncertain, seems it is sleeping, but it
is my breath that I hear coming from a distant gentle trance.
Gabu's deep koras instruct the crickets, by playing once again and for sure
not for the last time, the same electric and lopsided rhythms and the same
sweet harmonies of the times of Mama Janke Waali.“The energy that pulls people together is called love - sings the jali by
breaking the silence - it means being careful for who you love and for your
friends, for this love means to chose. Na mandi mogoye i kani fassama -
Don't expect to be friends with someone who doesn't like you. "
"When you love a person you accept her for what he/she is and you don't
care about his social status, his way of talking, of looking, of moving and
of walking. This is the meaning of love. To love someone is simply when
you don't want this person to be unwell. "
“At the time of the emperor Sunjata, one would offer always slaves, camels
and horses to griots, but you have given us much more; trust and love. In
life there is nothing more important than love. You are like the sunsun
tree in the forest, he doesn't need water to create its' fruits. “We thank
you from deep in our hearts.”
Listen Tracks
1-2. Djamana (Landing Kanuteh - kora, vocal; Madya Diebate - vocal; Bambi Kanuteh - vocal; Fatoumata Suso - vocal; recorded by Wallai Records in Tambasansang, Gambia, january 2010)
3-4. Chedo (Malang Diebate - kora, vocal; Kedjan Diebate - kora, vocal; Bakari Diebate - percussions, vocal, recorded by Wallai Records in Bolonbalola Darsalam, Casamance, january 2010)
Contest Info
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The Fieldstone Review, an online literary journal published annually, welcomes submissions of original, unpublished works of poetry, short stories, and creative non-fiction/personal essays. TFR accepts electronic submissions only; please direct your submission to the appropriate section editor’s email address. Submissions must be in Word or RTF format. In the email message you send with the attachment, please include your name, contact information and the title(s) of the work(s) submitted, as well as notification about whether it is a simulataneous submission. During the reading period, submission reception notification emails are sent within a week.
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The PSA will be accepting submissions from October 1, to December 22, 2010.
Individual Awards
PSA Member Awards
Awards 1-5 are open only to PSA MembersAward 1—The Writer Magazine/Emily Dickinson Award $200
Given by the PSA to honor the memory and poetry of Emily Dickinson, for a poem inspired by Dickinson though not necessarily in her style.Award 2—Cecil Hemley Memorial Award $500
Established by Jack Stadler, former Treasurer of the PSA, and his late wife, Ralynn Stadler, for a lyric poem that addresses a philosophical or epistemological concernAward 3—Lyric Poetry Award $500
Established under the will of PSA member Mrs. Consuelo Ford (Althea Urn), and also in memory of Mary Carolyn Davies, for a lyric poem on any subject.Award 4—Lucille Medwick Memorial Award $500
Established by Maury Medwick in memory of his wife, the poet and editor, for an original poem in any form on a humanitarian theme.Award 5—Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award $1,000
Offered in memory of a benefactor and friend of the PSA, and partially endowed by the Estate of Rachel Dalven, and the estate of Ellen Lamon Anderson, for a manuscript-in-progress of poetry or verse-drama. Previously published work may be included in your submission; include acknowledgment of publications on your cover page. Poems entered as part of a Di Castagnola manuscript may be entered individually in other PSA contests, but NOT if they are previously published. Note: There are two cover pages for this award, one of which is anonymous and includes a one-paragraph description of the collection or project. Page limit: 20 pages or less.PSA Member/Non-Member Awards
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Award 6—Louise Louis/Emily F. Bourne Student Award $250
Endowed under the wills of Louise Louis Whitbread and Ruth M. Bourne, this prize is awarded for the best unpublished poem by a student in grades 9 through 12 from the United States. Teachers or administrators may submit an unlimited number of their students' poems (one submission per student-see Entry Fees, in Guidelines).Award 7—George Bogin Memorial Award $500
Established by the family and friends of George Bogin for a selection of four or five poems that use language in an original way to reflect the encounter of the ordinary and the extraordinary and to take a stand against oppression in any of its forms.Award 8—Robert H. Winner Memorial Award $2,500
Established by the family and friends of Robert H. Winner, whose first book of poems appeared when he was almost fifty years old. This award acknowledges original work being done in mid-career by a poet who has not had substantial recognition, and is open to poets over forty who have published no more than one book. Send a brief but cohesive manuscript of 10 poems (up to 20 pages). Please include year of birth on cover page. Previously published work may be included in your submission; include acknowledgment of publications on your cover page. Poems entered as part of a Winner manuscript may be entered individually in other PSA contests, but NOT if they are previously published.Award 9—Louis Hammer Memorial Award $250
In memory of Louis Hammer, established by friends of the poet, translator, and editor, for a distinguished poem in the surrealist manner.Book Awards
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Award 10—Norma Farber First Book Award $500
Established by the family and friends of Norma Farber, poet and author of children's books, for a first book of original poetry written by an American and published in either a hard or soft cover in a standard edition in 2010. Translations are ineligible, as are chapbooks. Winning books are distributed to PSA members at the Benefactor level or above.Award 11—William Carlos Williams Award Purchase Prize Between $500 and $1,000
Endowed by the family and friends of Geraldine Clinton Little, a poet and author of short stories and former vice-president of the PSA, for a book of poetry written by a single author who is a permanent resident of the United States. The book must be published by a small press, non-profit, or university press in a standard edition in 2010. Translations are ineligible, as are chapbooks. Winning books are distributed to PSA members at the Benefactor level or above.
This book looks a fascinating read. Co-authored by two American professors of English, it is the previously unpublished correspondence between African-American poet Langston Hughes and writers from the 50s and 60s South African magazine Drum. The South African writers include Peter Clarke, Todd Matshikiza, Bloke Modisane, Ezekiel Mphahlele, Peter Abrahams, and Richard Rive. The co-authors have analysed and reviewed the issues and themes alongside reproducing the letters in order to provide a broader context to the issues. The opportunity to consider the Civil Rights movement alongside the anti-apartheid movement is an excellent one, when you think that more often than not the campaigns are discussed in isolation of one another. It seems obvious that people would have made connections and supported and encouraged one another during this time. At a cover price £52.50 I am afraid that it goes on the Christmas wish list for the moment.
Black August: A Hip-Hop Benefit Concert (2010)
Thursday, August 26
Reception: 6pm / Program: 7pm
A live performance and panel discussion will follow the screening. Co-presented by the ImageNation Cinema Foundation.
ImageNation Cinema Foundation and the Film Society at Lincoln Center present the World Premiere of Black August: A Hip-Hop Benefit Concert . The film documents the movement behind the annual event that the nonprofit Malcolm X Grassroots Movement produces to raise awareness about and support for political prisoners in the United States. Part concert film, Black August highlights performances in New York, Cuba and South Africa by Mos Def, dead prez, Talib Kweli, David Banner, Common, Erykah Badu and others. Featuring exclusive interviews with exiled activist Assata Shakur, former Black Panther Kathleen Cleaver, political prisoner Mutulu Shakur and others!
Black August: A Hip-Hop Benefit Concert (2010)
dream hampton, 2010, USA/Cuba/South Africa; 80m
Advance Purchase:
$25 General Public
$22 Student/Senior
$20 MemberAdvance tickets are also on sale at the Walter Reade Theater's box office.
At the Door:
$30 General Public
$27 Student/Senior
$25 Member
via filmlinc.com
Shadows Behind Assange's Conspiracy
The question is unavoidable: who holds the end of the string for rape accusations and a 12 hour arrest warrant on Wikileaks founder Julian Assange?
Two Swedish newspapers reported that the allegations were made by two women who had worked with WikiLeaks in Sweden. That Assange knew both women seems to be established, and the two women independently verified stories before going to the police last Friday. Their story becomes stranger when Swedish police said they had been afraid to go public, while the women specifically denied these reports: "He is not violent and I do not feel threatened by him.”
These women, if in fact honest, admittedly enjoy little benefit of the doubt given the international battle between the Pentagon and Assange. What else can they say if they're being truthful? But one of the women released a suspiciously scripted remark: "The charges against Assange is of course not orchestrated by either the Pentagon or anyone else. The responsibility for what happened to me and the other girl is held by a man with a skew perception of women who do not take no for an answer.”
So they were aware of the Pentagon's witchhunt and just decided to help out? How generous and coincidental.
No suspect outside the women fits the criteria more than the US government. An American or Afghan entity in favor of the war has more cause to discredit Assange than individual women. Furthermore, few US citizens have the power to manipulate the Swedish police, judiciary, and media. A larger organization appears at work. And the timing was perfect - Assange was visiting Sweden to discuss his actions. To call these events a conspiracy does injustice to reality.
The Swedish reveal traces of a cover up on their part. Although Eva Finne, the country’s chief prosecutor, dropped the rape allegations due to lack of evidence, an investigation into the second charge of molestation against Assange continues. This could be false justification for the rape allegations though, to be dropped as well. The Associated Press reported, “The prosecutor’s office provided few details about the case against Mr. Assange, who denied the allegations. Nor did it say why it backtracked so quickly.”
That’s a shady situation.
Timing may hold the answer to Assange’s enemy. His response on Twitter, that Washington had prepared to use “dirty tricks” and that the charges’ timing was “deeply disturbing,” makes perfect sense from the US government’s perspective. The Pentagon, having denounced Assange from the highest level, has threatened to bring him down and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates ordered prosecution “should go wherever it needs to go.”
But a US courtroom and prison isn’t the best place to go. “Silencing” him isn’t an option either with such a high profile. Practically speaking, discrediting Assange in the media is the Pentagon’s most viable option to harm him. As a non-US citizen, the Pentagon would create an uproar if it extradited Assange into a federal court to debate a war that 60% of Americans oppose, with few believing Afghanistan is improving. President Barack Obama can’t afford Assange’s trial or punishment to dominate the next year, especially when many Americans felt Wikileaks needed to be released in some form.
The war’s disapproval and timing render legal means ineffective. That leaves propaganda warfare by default. The rape allegations coincided with Assange’s speaking events in Sweden, a diversionary measure and initial warning to what Wikileaks believes will be a long campaign against them.
Said Gavin MacFadyen, director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism, and a friend of Assange, "A lot of us who had any notion of what he was doing expected this sort of thing to happen at least a week ago. I'm amazed it has taken them this long to get it together. This is how smears work. The charges are made and then withdrawn and the damage is done."
He's technically accurate since the women went to the authorities last week.
Gates himself said Assange’s case should go “wherever it needs to go.” Assuming that his CIA contacts are still good, and given that the Pentagon has battled Assange longer than the latest leaks, it’s entirely within possibility to plant women around Assange’s circle and bring them to bloom at the right moment. The US government cannot hide its power all of a sudden, and underestimating the CIA would be wishfully ignorant.
The venom directed at Assange appears to exceed concern for Afghanistan’s trends, which Pentagon officials publicly believe are improving. They're trying to pin Afghanistan’s negativity on Assange even while admitting most of the information is “already known,” which essentially admits to wrongdoing. But instead of addressing the problems described in Wikileaks, the Pentagon is mainly concerned with punishing Assange. This spells trouble for all those in opposition to the war as the December review and July 2011 approaches.
The Pentagon is doing everything it can to limit bad news, as evidenced by General David Petraeus.
A potential rape allegation goes beyond Afghanistan too. Perhaps President Barack Obama would be left out of the loop for plausible deniability, but the order would need to come from the highest level. Gates seems a real possibility, though he’s likely to feign ignorance too. In any event the tactic of rape smearing doesn’t exemplify hope and change, and Assange’s circumstances may prove ominous for future whistle-blowers of any issue - American or not.
Outrage at UN decision to exonerate Shell for oil pollution in Niger delta
• Oil giant blamed for 10% of 9m barrels leaked in 40 years
• Report claims rest of leaking oil caused by saboteurs
John Vidal, environment editor - guardian.co.uk, Sunday 22 August 2010 18.36 BST
Oil pipelines in Okrika, near Port Harcourt. The UNEP denies it has been influenced by Shell, which paid for its $10m, three-year study. Photograph: Ed Kashi
A three-year investigation by the United Nations will almost entirely exonerate Royal Dutch Shell for 40 years of oil pollution in the Niger delta, causing outrage among communities who have long campaigned to force the multinational to clean up its spills and pay compensation.
The $10m (£6.5m) investigation by the UN environment programme (UNEP), paid for by Shell, will say that only 10% of oil pollution in Ogoniland has been caused by equipment failures and company negligence, and concludes that the rest has come from local people illegally stealing oil and sabotaging company pipelines.
The shock disclosure was made by Mike Cowing, the head of a UN team of 100 people who have been studying environmental damage in the region.
Cowing said that the 300 known oil spills in the Ogoniland region of the delta caused massive damage, but added that 90% of the spills had been caused by "bunkering" gangs trying to steal oil.
His comments, in a briefing in Geneva last week, have caused deep offence among the families of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the eight other Ogoni leaders who were hanged by the Nigerian government in 1995 after a peaceful uprising against Shell's pollution.
With 606 oil fields, the Niger delta supplies 40% of the crude oil imported by the US. Life expectancy in its rural communities, half of which have no access to clean water, has fallen to little more than 40 over the past two generations.
Communities accept that bunkering has become rife in some areas of Ogoniland, but say this is a recent development and most of the historical pollution has been caused by Shell operations.
Last year, Amnesty calculated that the equivalent of at least 9m barrels of oil has been spilled in the delta over the past half a century, nearly twice as much as the 5m barrels unleashed in the Gulf of Mexico by the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Tonight the investigation was accused of bias by Nigerians and environmental groups who said the study – paid for by Shell and commissioned by the Nigerian government, who both have massive oil interests in the region – was unbalanced.
Ben Ikari, an Ogoni activist, said: "Nobody from Ogoniland would be surprised, because the federal government of Nigeria and Shell are the same cabal that killed Ken Saro-Wiwa and others."
Ben Amunwa of London-based oil watchdog group Platform said: "The UNEP study relies on bogus figures from Shell and incomplete government records. Many Ogoni suspect that the report's focus on sabotage and bunkering will be used to justify military repression notorious in the Niger delta, where non-violent activists, including Ken Saro-Wiwa, were executed."
Cowing defended the UN report. In a series of emails seen by the Guardian, he said: "UNEP is not responsible for allocating responsibility for the number of spills being found in Ogoniland. Rather, we are focusing on the science. The figures referred to are those of the ministry of the environment and the department of petroleum resources.
"This is a Nigerian issue, not a UNEP issue. However, I would add that from our extensive field work throughout Ogoniland we have witnessed, on a daily basis, very large scale bunkering operations.
"It's very controversial. We cannot say whether a particular spill is from one cause or another. Our observation is that there is a serious [bunkering ] problem. I am being seen to be siding with the oil companies, but I am not.
"We were provided with the official spill site list. This is given by the oil companies themselves but is endorsed by the [government] agencies. We are not on the side of the oil companies."
He denied the UN was being influenced by Shell or the government. "We believe that it is correct that Shell [Nigeria] fund the study, as this is in compliance with the internationally accepted norm of the 'polluter pays'. No party … will be able to influence the science."
The full report, due to be published by December, is expected to warn of an environmental catastrophe.
"This is not directly comparable to the spills that occurred in the Gulf [of Mexico]," said Cowing. "But we have a serious and profound problem."
Tonight, environmental groups expressed shock at the report. Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends the Earth International and director of Environmental Rights Action, Nigeria's leading environment group, said: "It is incredible that the UN says that 90% is caused by communities. The UNEP assessment is being paid for by Shell. Their conclusions may be tailored to satisfy their client. We monitor spills regularly and our observation is the direct opposite of what UNEP is planning to report."
A June 2009 report by Amnesty International called the damage in the delta a "human rights tragedy", and blamed the government and oil firms, mainly Shell, for years of pollution. It recognised that oil bunkering had caused spills, but said "the scale of this problem is not clear".
The UN report saw more than 1,000 soil and water tests and other investigations carried out, and hundreds of communities consulted. The data generated is the first step towards a massive clean-up.
Oil production in the delta started during the 1950s, but was suspended in the 90s due to unrest. The oil fields in Ogoniland have since remained dormant.
The ‘oil curse’ explains Iraq power struggle better than Sunni-Shiite divide
I’ve wasted too much time over the past couple of decades trying to figure out Iraq by reading about the theological differences between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. I should have paid even more attention to the growing body of fascinating research into the peculiar – and sometimes violent – nature of nations that depend mainly on exporting oil.
In 1997, a remarkable professor at Stanford named Terry Lynn Karl published The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms and Petro-States; since then, she and others have elaborated on her original findings. If the arrogant Bush administration and their cheerleaders in the mainstream press had looked into her work back in 2003, the history of Iraq might have been different.
Professor Karl noticed that even though petro-states earned billions of dollars for their oil exports, almost none of them were able to use their earnings for sustained, balanced growth. Instead, they ended up in chronic economic crisis, with collapsing agriculture, nonexistent manufacturing sectors, very high unemployment, enormous debts to Western banks, growing political instability, and in some cases, ferocious violence. Number-crunching economists like Paul Collier came up with an astonishing finding; most of the oil producers would have been better off if oil had never been discovered on their territory at all.
What is remarkable is that this “oil (or resource) curse” characterizes countries that otherwise appear quite different: Venezuela, a Catholic nation in South America, has many features in common with Nigeria, in Africa, or Islamic Iran.
Karl and the others have worked to explain the paradox of plenty, and a short summary cannot do justice to their theory. It does turn partly on how governments finance themselves. Over the centuries, European governments, and later the United States, consolidated power by taxing their people, (at first largely to pay for wars). It took time, but the people who paid the taxes insisted on their governments being accountable. Governments gradually grew responsive, even eventually democratic.
In some of the third world, the same halting process is underway. But in the oil producers, the relationship between governments and people is quite different. Petro-states do not have to tax their citizens. Instead, nearly all their revenue comes from oil companies – 95 percent in Iraq’s case. The petro-state is what professor Karl calls a “honey pot” – an external source of money to be raided, not the site of genuine, long-term political bargaining.
So small ruthless groups (like Saddam Hussein’s fragment of the Baath party) seize control of the petro-state, much like pirates boarding a fleet of gold-bearing galleons. Saddam’s rise was parallel to the Shah of Iran consolidating control across the Persian Gulf, or the succession of generals who ruled Nigeria. Saddam’s (mis)use of Arab nationalism, and later of Islamic symbols, was not altogether irrelevant, but the source of his income was more important than ideas in shaping Iraq’s political system.
At first, the petro-dictators thrive, particularly when oil prices are high and they can buy off some of their people with populist spending, including grandiose infrastructure, and repress the rest with a lavish military/police apparatus, with many thousands of informers. On the surface, Saddam Hussein appeared to preside over a terrible but effective totalitarian state. In the international arena, his control of big strategic oil reserves, along with billions of well chosen arms purchases from big Western manufacturers, earned him immunity from criticism, including that warm visit on December 22, 1983 from Donald Rumsfeld, Ronald Reagan’s special representative.
Over time, though, this iron control weakens. In the Introduction to Oil Wars, professor Karl and two colleagues, Mary Kaldor and Yahia Said, point out that by the 2000s the Saddam Hussein regime was starting to disintegrate from within, following the same pattern as other petro-states – in part because the world oil price had fallen. They explain, “. . . there were important indicators of loss of government control, even before Saddam Hussein’s removal, including underground movements and parties, efforts to create new public space, and especially the growing resistance of both Sunni and Shi’ite mosques, which began to develop a strategy of ‘quiet strangulation’ of the regime reminiscent of the Catholic Church in Poland and Chile.”
Of course, the American invasion interrupted all this. Karl and her colleagues do not speculate, but it is possible to imagine an Iraq transforming itself from within, not entirely unlike the collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellites in eastern Europe. Any change in Iraq would certainly have included terrible violence, but it would not have been complicated by the American invaders, who found themselves in an impossible situation as both the targets of certain Iraqi factions and as prospective allies – in some cases by those very same factions.
It is possible that Iraq would have been less violent if Iraqis had been left to make their own history. At least one thing is certain; thousands of young American service men and women would still be alive, and thousands more would be uninjured.
(Karl and her colleagues also remind us of an enormous truth, conveniently forgotten today by those who cheered on the invasion; the hawks promised that Iraq’s oil would pay for the war!)
Today, Iraq is still under the oil curse – which helps us to understand the endless, tedious articles about political factionalism and the failure to form a new government there. Karl, Kaldor, and Said argue: “Public debate is less about the long-term future of Iraq and more a competition for access to oil rents. . . This rent seeking cannot only be explained by the removal of an oppressive ruler. It is in part a result of the disappearance of any unifying idea – a commitment to a shared commons – combined with the belief that Iraqis can get rich both from oil and from the influx of billions of dollars of donor monies.”
The oil curse theory is not precise, and some critics, although recognizing its value, say it tries to explain too much. But the theory is clearly more helpful than all those Orientalist analyses that try to explain Iraq today as the consequence of the Sunni-Sh’ite schism more than a millennium ago. We don’t try and explain the recent Conservative victory in Britain by bringing up Henry VIII’s split with Rome, do we?
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
1 August 21, 2010 at 5:07 pm
it’s the age-old story: when the few hoard the wealth misery for the many follows
the solution is so simple – spread the wealth and enshrine it in a nation’s founding articles
2 August 22, 2010 at 9:31 am
Oil is not necessarily a curse, as I think UK and Canadian, even United States, experience shows. Riches attract predators and factions, of course, but I wouldn’t blame the riches themselves that much. When factions see themselves as standing for all that is best against all that is worst in humanity the resulting conflict is usually very terrible and intractable. The Germans tore themselves apart in the seventeenth century without any great prize at stake, just for ideology. The United States did endure a civil war but after that the opening up of the staggering riches (oil very much included) of ‘the West’ created only minor violence among the white population – the ‘County Wars’ etc. – and indeed produced an enormous sense of national pride and unity. Iraq is more like Germany c.1640.
(Karl and her colleagues also remind us of an enormous truth, conveniently forgotten today by those who cheered on the invasion; the hawks promised that Iraq’s oil would pay for the war!)
Which is strikingly similar to the recent “discovery” of $2 trillion in natural resources in Afghanistan, which was promoted to a weary nation as justification for our continued presence in that country. The spoils of war — apparently, if we invade a country, we’re entitled to strip its natural resources to repay ourselves for the price of invading said country.
via mondoweiss.net
I was born in London in 1973 to South Indian parents. My family moved to Australia when I was very young and were eager to keep our Tamil culture alive. I grew up singing South Indian classical music and began giving recitals at an early age. As a teenager I branched out into more blues-based music, which demanded quite different voice techniques. The question then was how to bring these streams together. In 1995 I went to India to study with Shruti Sadolikar, one of the greatest living Hindustani vocalists. This was a challenging experience as I had to let go of what I thought I knew and find a new, more insightful approach to my craft.
Returning to England in 1997, I started to work with Sam Mills who had made a record called Real Sugar with a Bengali singer named Paban Das Baul. This record inspired me because it bridged a gap and found common ground for Indian music to be expressed to a new audience. Sam’s work with West African group Tama also opened a whole set of musical contact points.
We spent three years developing this record. In addition to writing our own material, we discovered new and exciting ways to adapt the Carnatic songs I had sung when I was younger, particularly the work of the eighteenth century songmasters Tyagaraja and Dikshitar.
SALT RAIN was recorded between October and December 2000 (exceptMamavatu which was recorded the preceding February for the Real World GIFTED album). We were lucky to collaborate with some unique musicians who live mostly in London and Paris but are of diverse origins: Guinea Bissau, Cameroon, India, Romania, France, Greece, Egypt, Kenya, America, and Spain. Any record is a meeting of many minds and, now more than ever, it is networks of people, not just individuals, who spark new and exciting work. Everyone brought their own special energy to the music and I am very proud of what we all worked together to create.
"Ganapati"
<br /><b>Susheela Raman - Ganapati</b><br /><i>Uploaded by EMI_Music. - Watch more music videos, in HD!</i>
"Like A Rolling Stone"
<br /><b>SUSHEELA RAMAN LIVE @ LES BOUFFES DU NORD - LIKE A ...</b><br /><i>Uploaded by lesgrandsmanitous. - Watch more music videos, in HD!</i>
"Love Trap" Live in Ethiopia, pt 1
SUSHEELA RAMAN & GETACHEW MEKURIA - "Love Trap" (Live in Ethiopia)
<br /><b>SUSHEELA RAMAN & GETACHEW MEKURIA - Love Trap (Live in Ethi</b><br /><i>Uploaded by bbpradi0. - Watch more music videos, in HD!</i>
SUSHEELA RAMAN & GETACHEW MEKURIA - Love Trap (Live in Ethiopia)(Ethiopian Music Festival 2004)
http://www.susheelaraman.com/
via dailymotion.com
3 responses:
RE: " "The charges against Assange is of course not orchestrated by either the Pentagon or anyone else."
Why did she even mention the Pentagon?
I hope he is not "accident prone".
Very weird stuff. But he can't disappear now. They have to find some other way to silence him, and they don't have many options.
The first smear tactic of the spooks was to plant disinfo to the effect that Wikileaks was nothing but one of their own black ops. I could list half a dozen would-be underground investigative maverick bloggers who have fallen for this.