senduQ

senduQ http://www.senduq.com mind entropy of the ethiofrican Mon, 08 Mar 2010 04:41:16 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 mind entropy of the ethiofrican no The Uncomfortable Truth: Nneka http://www.senduq.com/2010/the-uncomfortable-truth-nneka/ http://www.senduq.com/2010/the-uncomfortable-truth-nneka/#comments Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:44:23 +0000 Fabay http://www.senduq.com/?p=1837 http://www.senduq.com/2010/the-uncomfortable-truth-nneka/feed/ 17 <a title="Simple Star! by No Balls, No Glory Fana Wägi Story!, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/41880258@N07/4347208593/"><img class="aligncenter" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4031/4347208593_c880d4a59f_o.jpg" alt="Simple Star!" width="562" height="421" /></a> photography and article by Fabay I’m so glad I came across Nneka in 2009. I was instantly in love with her music when I heard the song <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXMTtOS-oKg" target="_blank">“Africans”</a>. I was so impressed to see a young intelligent woman who was born and raised in Africa urging fellow Africans to focus on constructive solutions through her art. Nneka dares to point out that it is no longer acceptable for us to exclusively blame colonial powers for the conflict, death, injustice, poverty, exploitation, and corruption that exists in Africa. She urges Africans to take proactive roles in designing and implementing reform. She sings “you keep pushing the blame on our colonial fathers … it’s up to us (Africans) to gain some recognition.. If we stop blaming we could get a better condition.” Nneka’s genuine message of love, awareness, and her call for action is what attracted me. She encourages the African Diaspora to become active stakeholders, take responsibility, and invest their time, resources, and expertise in Africa’s development. She pleads “you got to wake up, please youuuuu got tooo“. I applaud Nneka for using her talent to share a powerful message. She is among a group of new and rising African artists who give voice to Africa’s new generation. Her music is a medley of sounds, words, and beats morphing and blending with an alluring audacity. Her songs are loaded with moral and biblical references as she reflects on her life in Nigeria and Germany. She touches on issues of capitalism, poverty, war, corruption, and individual and government accountability. <object width="400" height="330"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/5Jlpqew_RY4&rel=1&color1=e1600f&color2=febd01&border=0&fs=1&hl=en&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&iv_load_policy=3&showsearch=0" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed wmode="transparent" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/5Jlpqew_RY4&rel=1&color1=e1600f&color2=febd01&border=0&fs=1&hl=en&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&iv_load_policy=3&showsearch=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="400" height="330" ></embed><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /></object> “There are many of us, Africans, black people that leave Africa for a while go abroad, study etc. and instead of going back home to do something they stay, go overseas and make themselves comfortable. What I am really trying to stress here is that we all carry responsibility. There is so much we can do. If we come overseas to study and learn, it isn’t for no reason because God has given me that opportunity to do so. And I believe if I would have not stepped [...] photography and article by Fabay I’m so glad I came across Nneka in 2009. I was instantly in love with her music when I heard the song “Africans”. I was so impressed to see a young intelligent woman who was born and raised in Africa [...] the horn’s dustyfoot wordisans http://www.senduq.com/2009/the-horns-dustyfoot-wordisans/ http://www.senduq.com/2009/the-horns-dustyfoot-wordisans/#comments Sat, 31 Jan 2009 15:55:23 +0000 tsepeaces http://www.senduq.com/?p=892 http://www.senduq.com/2009/the-horns-dustyfoot-wordisans/feed/ 14 I wrote about the dusty foot philosopher k’naan’s <a href="http://www.senduq.com/2007/the-power-of-words/">wordskillz</a> last year. looks like the emcee-poet-word artist is back with a new album! <a href="http://www.senduq.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/knaan.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1969" title="knaan" src="http://www.senduq.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/knaan.jpg" alt="" width="470" height="273" /></a> a somali wordisan artisan K’naan’s poem ‘<a href="http://www.senduq.com/2007/the-power-of-words/">too well done</a>’ portrays beyond doubt the power of words to relay messages dripping with passion and energy. It does that as it encapsulates an experience within the horn in a unique and touchingly honest way that no other medium could. Words can shake. caress. arouse. repel. expose. provoke. uplift… It’s intriguing how complicated the history of cultures & their wordplays get. Though, simply -- words sculpt a story through a unique writer-orator’s worldview. enter: the horn immigrant K’naan hailing from Wardhiigleey (”The Lake of Blood”), Mogadishu, Somalia, now a rapper residing in Canada. the horn of africa’s wordy history For a region with communities that raised us teaching you must respect the elders without daring to talk back…words weigh a lot. Though the truth -- our stories are not heard in our voices resounding across the world. We hear stories about wars, famine and suffering, no clear and honed voices speaking out in intricate articulation about people of ancient cultures sharing their glorious humanity, until now. The groove of the horn is deep with a lot of treasure within… as K’Naan put it “The horn of Africa has the deepest wells humanity has ever dug to find the truest sentiments that describe the world and what it contains.” I’ve been reading ‘<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Notes-Hyenas-Belly-Ethiopian-Boyhood/dp/0312289146">Notes from the Hyena’s Belly</a>‘, an interestingly written book seeping stories about cultural rituals and traditions through the eyes of a grown man remembering his childhood in Jijiga, eastern Ethiopia -- a cultural crossroads between the interior of Ethiopia and the interior of Somaliland. And I came across a section that described the role of poets in times past, of highland kingdom kings and noblemen, feudal lords and warriors… <blockquote>The key to the kinae lies in the contradictory nature of the Amharic language…Generations of oppression, without freedom of speech, gave birth to this tangling of meaning and intentions. If a man had been mistreated by a feudal lord or local chieftain, he would compose a kinae to read at a social event, a poem that was sweet and heart-rending to the untrained ar, but quite biting to the lord- one of the intended audience. The peasants, by and large, were illiterate and unable to put together a recondite kinae, so the poets did it for them. A poet might compose a kinae to inform the lord that the taxes he had levied on his subjects were expensive, about the brutality of his son, who raped and plundered the locals, or as a plea for forgiveness on behalf of the man he had recently thrown into his private jail. The feudal lord was often trained in the interpretation of the kinae, but if he doubted his own judgment, there were always one or two monks beside him to shed light on the [...] I wrote about the dusty foot philosopher k’naan’s wordskillz last year. looks like the emcee-poet-word artist is back with a new album! a somali wordisan artisan K’naan’s poem ‘too well done’ portrays beyond doubt the power of words to [...] Wayna & Dinaw: Slums of Paradise http://www.senduq.com/2008/wayna-dinaw-slums-of-paradise/ http://www.senduq.com/2008/wayna-dinaw-slums-of-paradise/#comments Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:21:04 +0000 tsepeaces http://www.senduq.com/?p=659 http://www.senduq.com/2008/wayna-dinaw-slums-of-paradise/feed/ 9 The African immigrant experience within the U.S. …complex, diverse and ridiculously chaotic! Which experience isn’t, eh? A friend recently told me we are ‘transplants’… Surely there is no way that can be less-than-a-chaotic experience! A chaotic experience that’s gotta be told… Why Stories? Stories are powerful and profound… They are ways to …share the most beautiful parts of ‘me’ and ‘us’: stories of sincere, vulnerable, honest, contradictory and complex humanity…(<a href="http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/chris_abani_muses_on_humanity.html">great video on that</a>)…a way to confirm my & our presences in this world, in our own voices…I love stories, always have for some reason. My mum told me, when I was a little girl and wouldn’t eat food, she used to tell me stories so my mouth would unconsciously gape open and she’d slip the food in! We should tell each other our stories to share each other, and to build/reaffirm our commonality – or humanity. Stories make & relay meaning, share, connect, inspire, uplift, persuade, shape thought, teach, transfer history, bring together, affirm culture, enable self-reflection…they confirm ‘you are not alone in your experience’ and describe common narratives of communities. From the political-historical angle…written stories hold weight as Virginia Woolf once said; “Nothing has really happened until it has been recorded.”…and as long as the victors tell the prevalent stories, they would have the upper hand. Stories are paths to peacemaking, just as they are to the absence of peace. ‘Stories fill our lives in the way that water fills the lives of fish.’ Stories are as all-pervasive as culture. Wayna’s Slums of Paradise Below are sublime original sounds by Grammy nominee <a href="http://www.wayna.net/new/">Wayna</a> Wondwossen. ‘Slums of Paradise’ holds her description of experiences as an Ethiopian-born immigrant in the US with parents filled with expectations about her future. She is an incredible neo soul musician wonderfully deserving of her Grammy nomination. Listening to her live rendition of Bob Marley’s ‘Redemption Song’ last March, I literally had tears in my eyes and goosebumps! Her voice has a clarity and beauty that is just uplifting. No wonder the incredible Stevie Wonder himself said “She is Incredible!” Slums of Paradise – Wayna Desparate Days – Wayna ft. Tewoderos Taddesse <a href="http://www.senduq.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/waynamain.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-668" title="waynamain" src="http://www.senduq.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/waynamain.jpg" alt="" width="515" height="344" /></a> Dinaw’s “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Things-That-Heaven-Bears/dp/1594489408">The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears</a>“ Also been reading a very engaging novel by Dinaw Mengestu, an Ethiopian Immigrant, winner of the 2007 Guardian First Book Award. The story is about a man, Sepha Stephanos, who flees a communist junta as a teenager to become a transplant immigrant in the US, making attempts to grasp the ‘beauty that heaven bears’- the American dream. The book captures the loneliness, and internal angst involved in the immigrant experience- it is so bare and honest… The best parts of the book, to me, circulate around the [...] The African immigrant experience within the U.S. …complex, diverse and ridiculously chaotic! Which experience isn’t, eh? A friend recently told me we are ‘transplants’… Surely there is no way that can be less-than-a-chaotic experience! A [...] wayna, slums of paradise, r&b, jazz, soul