BILLY STRAYHORN

• November 29, 1915 William Thomas “Billy” Strayhorn, hall of fame composer, pianist and arranger, was born in Dayton, Ohio but raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Strayhorn began his musical career studying classical music at the Pittsburgh Music Institute and while still in his teens composed the song “Life Is Lonely” which was later renamed “Lush Life.” In 1938, Strayhorn met Duke Ellington and over the next 25 years they worked together on a number of classic pieces, including “Take the A Train” (1939), “Day Dream” (1946), and “Satin Doll” (1953). Strayhorn died May 31, 1967. Two years later, Ellington recorded a memorial album, “And His Mother Called Him Bill,” consisting entirely of Strayhorn compositions. Strayhorn was posthumously inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame in 1967. The Billy Strayhorn Historical Marker, located at Westinghouse High School in Pittsburgh, was dedicated in 1995. His biography, “Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn,” was published in 1996.

>via: http://thewright.org/explore/blog/entry/today-in-black-history-11292013

NOVEMBER 29TH, 2013

Weekend Music Break 63

Mélissa Laveaux

>via: http://africasacountry.com/weekend-music-break-63/

Munster Literature Center

>via: http://www.pw.org/writing_contests/gregory_odonoghue_international_poetry_prize

Quercus Review Press Book Award

>via: http://www.pw.org/writing_contests/book_award_0

Call for Papers:

Charles Town International Maroon Conference

12/19/2012

Sweet Potato Soup (in a Flash!)

Avocado on top. Chipotle + Citrus.

This easy Sweet Potato Soup is blended in just a matter of minutes so that you can whip it up in a flash. So if you are in the mood for some cozy soup, but do not feel like spending hours slow-simmering some stew, make this! It is made special by serving with some silky cubes of avocado on top. Crumbled jalapeno corn chips too. I season it with my favorite spices and accents like chipotle and citrus. And this healthy blend is loaded with vitamin A! Get my recipe!..

Soup soup SOUP Soup souP. Oh I love soup this time of year. Just hand me a giant bowl of steamy soup with some toast on the side and I am a happy girl. And this sweet potato soup uses my favorite food .. sweet potatoes!

This soup kind of reminds me of THIS! It is like the soup version.

Change it Up. Pumpkin or Squash Too. Not sweet potatoes? Craving pumpkin or winter squash? I actually have two recipe versions for you. One that includes a slow, oven-baked sweet potato as the base – as shown in my photos. Or you can sub in canned pumpkin OR butternut squash puree in place of the potato.

I loved this soup so much that I enjoyed the sweet potato version for lunch and whipped up a canned pumpkin version at dinnertime.

Broth. I used Imagine Foods vegan No-Chicken Broth for my soups. It has a very savory veggie flavor that I love. I bought it at Whole Foods. It is like “vegan chicken broth.” But vegetable broth is perfect to substitute if needed. I know it is easier to find!

Sweet Potato Soup + citrus + chipotle
vegan, serves 1-2

1 cup mashed sweet potato (from a baked sweet potato – all sticky and sweet)
1/2 cup+ No-Chicken Broth (or substitute vegetable broth) — add more to thin out to desired consistency
1/2 cup soy milk*, original or plain or unsweetened flavors (I used Soy Dream)
*almond milk will work too

Add to taste (what I used):
* orange or satsuma zest (a pinch)
* salt (3 pinches)
* chipotle powder (1/2 tsp)

Garnish:
1/4 cup diced avocado
2-3 tortilla chips, crushed (I used red, spicy jalapeno chips!)
dash of seasoned chili salt

Optional: nutritional yeast, canned white beans (blended in), cinnamon, black pepper, cayenne, lime juice (lime wedge served on side), parsley or chopped spinach served over top.

lower sodium note: salt is very important for this recipe! It brings out all the flavors of the sweet potato base! If you need to go light on sodium, however, give lime or apple cider vinegar a try to perk things up..

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Bake your sweet potato until tender.
3. Remove potato skin, add to blender along with the broth and non-dairy milk. Blend on low until smooth. Taste a drop to see that it is slightly bland at this point. Add the salt and spices to taste. I added the zest last and folded it into the poured soup.
4. Serve with garnish or avocado and crushed chips over top.

Nutrition (per recipe):
Calories: 259kcal, Fat: 3g, Carbs: 47g, Protein: 12g
Fiber: 7g, Vita A: 776%, Vita C: 65%, Iron: 13%, Calcium:23%
also rich in potassium, manganese and B vitamins.

note: The hot potato should warm the soup enough to be served as is – or you can warm on the stove or microwave until hot enough to suit your taste buds.

Pumpkin or Butternut Squash Version: You can use the same recipe, subbing out the sweet potato. You may need less liquid to thin out this version of soup. You will need more salt since the pumpkin and squash are both very bland on their own. 

Craving more vegan soup ideas? Check out my post on Babble: 25 Classic Soups. Gone vegan. Or browse the soups section in my visual recipe index.

Want more chips? Go for it..

 

>via: http://kblog.lunchboxbunch.com/2012/12/sweet-potato-soup-in-flash-avocado-on.html

>via: http://truththeory.com/2013/02/18/last-meals-of-innocent-people-sentenced-to-death/

NOVEMBER 28TH, 2013

The Afropolitan Must Go 

Taiye Selasi

BY  MARTA TVEIT

My first thought when reading Taiye Selasi’s 2005 essay ‘Bye-Bye Barbar’ (or ‘What is an Afropolitan?’) was that this is the kind of sludge that would piss off Binyavanga Wainaina. One quick google and lo and behold: “For Wainaina, Afropolitanism has become the marker of crude cultural commodification — a phenomenon increasingly ‘product driven,’ design focused, and ‘potentially funded by the West.’” My second thought when reading Taiye Selasi’s ‘What is an Afropolitan?’, gesturing wildly at my MacBook in my local coffee shop, is that this is the kind of sludge that pisses me off.

I am angry for different reasons to Wainaina (though if he wanted to hang out sometime I’m sure we could have fun being pissed off together); I am not so much concerned with the commodification inherent in Afropolitanism as I am with the danger of reproducing a reductive narrative, one which implicitly licenses others to reproduce the same narrative because it has been confirmed by an ‘Afropolitan’ herself.

First, in ‘What is an Afropolitan?’ Selasi somehow manages to other her own perceived identity, as well as everyone else with an African parent or two — other, that is, against an original (i.e. a Westerner), as she describes the scene at a London bar:

The women show off enormous afros, tiny t-shirts, gaps in teeth; the men those incredible torsos unique to and common on African coastlines. The whole scene speaks of the Cultural Hybrid: kente cloth worn over low-waisted jeans; ‘African Lady’ over Ludacris bass lines; London meets Lagos meets Durban meets Dakar. Even the DJ is an ethnic fusion: Nigerian and Romanian; fair, fearless leader; bobbing his head as the crowd reacts to a sample of ‘Sweet Mother.’

Besides from adopting the tone of a National Geographic documentary, the text is clearly addressing a Westernised audience, explaining to them the strange ways and particulars of this tribe of ‘Afropolitans.’

Second, Selasi’s representation of Afropolitans in general (a group to which I too apparently belong and for which Selasi has taken it upon herself to speak) is weirdly prejudiced.

Were you to ask any of these beautiful, brown-skinned people that basic question — ‘where are you from? — …They (read: we) are Afropolitans — the newest generation of African emigrants, coming soon or collected already at a law firm/chem lab/jazz lounge near you. You’ll know us by our funny blend of London fashion, New York jargon, African ethics, and academic successes.

But what about the non-affluent African diaspora? What about insanely hideous brown-skinned people? What about white African natives? What about Africans who despise jazz?

“It’s a problematic term because it’s supposed to combine (the words) African and cosmopolitan,” says editor of Afropolitan magazine, Brendah Nyakudya, to CNN:

What it should mean is an African person in an urban environment, with the outlook and mindset that comes with urbanization — people who live Lagos, Nairobi, and have this world-facing outlook.

I agree that the term Afropolitan is problematic, but more than that, I don’t understand why a person with African roots in an urban environment needs a term to set her apart from the rest of the young people in an urban environment. Why separate African urbanites from the rest of the urbanites? How can that be constructive?

Personally I cannot for the life of me see what would justify grouping these people together, other than that they all happen to have one or more parent who define themselves as coming from a country in Africa, and that is not enough. What does a lawyer born and raised in Belgium or London or Inner Mongolia have to do with Africa? He may have one African parent. He may have been there this one time when he was seven. He may be brown-skinned. He may be interested in his African heritage. But shouldn’t the extent of that interest and how much it means to his identity-formation be left solely up to that individual himself?

For fun, imagine applying what Selasi is doing with Afropolitans to a group from another continent — for instance, everyone with one or more parent from Europe. Half of America would be “Europolitans! Coming soon in a country-music joint/blue-collar job near you, a group whose beautiful skimmed-milk skin and subdimensional booties…”

Third, exclusivity and the socio-economic dimension. Selasi discovers her African roots in her 2013 op-ed piece for the Guardian. This sentence caught my eye:

A waitress, passing me, nodded with meaning and I nodded equally meaningfully back, in that gentle way in which brown people often acknowledge each other’s presence. The instant’s exchange reminded me of what I often overlook: my minority status.

Ah, the gentle nod.

How many times have I sat nodding along for hours to one of President Obama’s speeches or Tiger Woods’ scandals. Or nodded down at the brown beggar in the street and then (gently) passed him by. Or rushed on to the Broadway set of Lion King to nod at every character in turn.

Just to make it clear; this is not an article about Taiye Selasi as a person. Neither is it about her background, her fictional work or whether or not she is on hugging terms with Binyavanga Wainaina. Yet, two implied suggestions balloon out of the above quote.

First, that there is some sort of inherent connection between all brown-skinned persons. We know something. We necessarily connect. As one of my critics has rightly pointed out, all group identities are constructed. However some group identities run away with us. Some become harmful, or even work against the purpose they were created to defeat. This article argues that the “Afropolitan” is just such a group identity. It is exclusive, elitist and self-aggrandizing.

The second intimation furthers the point; Taiye Selasi suggests that she has minority status. That she, as a brown-skinned person, has minority status. That she, as a brown-skinned person, in her personal, soaringly educated, well-off, dominantly white social circle feels sometimes like she has minority status. Fair enough. Race-based judgment is always bad.

But I can see an elephant in the room, and he has dollar-signs for eyes. She goes to Africa; “I could see myself in these African cities: a designer in the vibrant clothes, a screenwriter in the desert scenes, a poet in the rhythms. I began to say that I wanted an “I ❤ Heart of Darkness” T-shirt, and only half in jest.” This experience may have been an interesting personal journey. And “I ❤ Heart of Darkness T-shirts” would be cool. But it tells us something about the socio-economic status of the “Afropolitan”, at odds with her implied marginalization, as she earlier on in the same piece levels herself with the brown-skinned waiter.

The Afropolitans Selasi describes belong to a narrow class; one that economist Guy Standing would perhaps call the “technical middle class”. What is most appalling is that Selasi excites this class to take up battle on behalf of the rest of Africa (Bye-Bye Barbar). “And if it all sounds a little self-congratulatory,” (yes it does), “a little ‘aren’t-we-the-coolest-damn-people-on-earth?’ — I say: yes it is, necessarily. It is high time the African stood up,” (Stood up to whom? For what? How?); “There is nothing perfect in this formulation; for all our Adjayes and Achidies, there is a brain drain back home. Most Afropolitans could serve Africa better in Africa than at Medicine Bar on Thursdays.”

This type of call to action takes me back a few decades (or is perhaps an indication that the discourse has not moved forward) to the first wave of African intellectuals as described by Simon Gikandi in his ‘African Literature and the Colonial Factor’. This wave of intellectuals distinguished itself by attempting resistance but using the colonial language, feeling strong affiliations to the colonisers’ structures and institutions. A call to arms of African intellectual diaspora, of a certain socio-economic class, educated in the West, and ready to charge off and save Africa is, in this light, unsettlingly familiar.

That is not to say a doctor or lawyer is not needed in most countries of sub-Saharan Africa, and that there is not much to do by way of development. Yet the way in which we phrase this call to action is important. It needs to be precise, concrete, thought-out, sustainable, collaborative. It needs to be divorced from any notion of racial determinism, from lofty, vague rhetoric. These things recreate the structures that are a big part of the problem in the first place.

What is more, it needs to be recognised that having brownish skin and a gap between the front-teeth does not necessarily mean a person possesses a deep understanding (or any understanding) of any particular African culture, complexity, needs, ways of thinking, ways of thinking about thinking etc.

Fronting a constructed group identity such as the ‘Afropolitan’ backs-up a (still) reductive narrative of Africa and the African, which in turn continues to be an important part of neocolonial soft power structures. Afropolitanism may have been a useful construct at some point, but I feel it is time to outgrow it, for everybody’s sake.

As an individual who happens to have one parent from the African continent I am offended at being put in a group and perceived to have certain interests and affiliations because of the nationality of one of my parents.

I do not have a drum beating inside me. The motherland is not calling me home. “We” are not a one-love tribe, yearning for the distant shores of Africa, or indigo or whatever one imagines the African continent as these days. “We” are a random sample in a huge pool of disembedded, modernised, travelling global citizens who each carry with us a personal, unique jumble of cultural inputs and influences from a range of places.

In other words, we are like most people.

And the most equity-promoting, barrier-breaking, racism-fighting thing “we” can do is see ourselves as just that — part of the noble and most ancient tribe…of Most People.

* This is an expanded and updated version of a post that first appeared on Think Africa Press.

November 28, 2013

5 Reasons Jamaican Culture

Is the Most Popular Per Capita

Prince Harry in Jamaica

Jamaican Patois becoming the youth language of choice in larger countries

In some parts of England and Toronto Canada, a dialect heavy with Jamaican and Afro-Caribbean inflections is being spoken by a significant portion of the youth population. British linguists are calling it “multicultural youth English,” or MYE.  Jamaican Creole, or JamC , what the academics are now calling the patois native to Jamaica, has become the dialect employed not just by the children of Jamaican immigrants, but also by second-generation West Indians of other national origins (i.e. of Trinidadian, Grenadian, Guyanese, etc. parentage) and simultaneously by Black youth of various African heritage. For British-born, urban Black people, JamC became a code used as a marker of Black identity withsociolinguistic functions similar to African-American vernacular English in the United States.

Soon after, even young white people of local, English origins started adopting JamC into their linguistic practices. Reportedly, many of those urban British-born adolescents who showed the highest levels of JamC competence had no Afro-Caribbean family background at all. The same phenomenon is being observed among the youth in Canada, primarily in the city of Toronto, which has a large Jamaican population.

Paul Kerswill,  a professor of Lancaster University, has  studied MYE—and says it is no passing fad. ‘There is evidence that this new type of English is spreading outside London around the big urban centers of England—some young people in Birmingham and Manchester use local versions of it, for example, says Kerswill. He added: “It is already in many people’s ordinary speech and will stay with them into adulthood.”Many experts also project  the Jamaican-influenced dialect will usurp some traditional regional dialects, such as Cockney in London, within the next 20 years.

Sources:
dailymail.co.ukv, telegraph.co.ukv, academia.edu

Rastafari In Colombia

Rastafari Religion 

Rastafari is a worldwide Africa-centered cultural way of life and political movement that was founded in Jamaica in the early 1930s by Leonard P. Howell, a student of Marcus Garvey. After learning of the injustices to Black people around the world, Howell established the Rastafari movement and  was arrested more than 50 times in the process. A pivotal point in Rastafari is when Howell was imprisoned for two years for sedition after publishing his book “The Promise Key.” Thereafter, the Rastafari movement grewinto large numbers in Jamaica, as the British colonizers turned Howell into a political prisoner.

By the late 20th century, awareness of the Rastafari movement had spread throughout much of the world, largely through interest generated by reggae music, especially the major international success of Jamaican singer-songwriter Bob Marley.

Today, according to one estimate, there are more than one million Rastafari faithful worldwide, with Rastas dwelling in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America.

Source:  wikipedia.org

Jamaican Cuisine

Jamaican cuisine includes a mixture of cooking techniques, flavors, spices and influences from various different cultures brought to the island.

The foods include jerk chicken, curry goat, fried dumplings, ackee and salt fish—the national dish of Jamaic —fried plantains, steamed cabbage, escovitched fish, rice and peas and much more.

These Jamaican dishes are available throughout most parts of the world. In North America, the United Kingdom, Canada and other countries there thousands of Jamaican restaurants in metropolitan areas.

In the U.S., Golden Krust Caribbean Bakery and Grill, is a popular Jamaican restaurant that was started in Bronx, NY  by Jamaican immigrant Lowell Hawthorne in 1989.  As demand grew for Krust’s Jamaican food, a number of restaurants opened. The company eventually became not only the largest Caribbean restaurant franchise chain, but also the largest Black-owned restaurant franchiser in the United States with 120 restaurants in several states.

Sources:
eatjamaican.com, blackenterprise.com, wikipedia.org

Reggae Music is global movement.

Reggae music is a multi-billion dollar industry, and with well over 100,000 albums released during the last 50 years, Jamaica produces the most music per capita of any country in the world.

Jamaican reggae often incorporates local instruments, while fusing with other genres. Many people are familiar with reggae’s influence in the formation of hip- hop in the U.S., and lovers rock, dubstep and drum and bass in the U.K.  However, from the Caribbean to Southeast Asia, there are many sub-genres of music that can claim roots spawned from Jamaican reggae.

In the 1960s and 1970s reggae arrived in places like Panama and Puerto Rico and eventually became reggae en Español. The music eventually made its way through Central America and continued morphinguntil reaching prominence in Puerto Rico as “reggaeton.”  This version of the music is an adaptation of Jamaican dance hall reggae to the Spanish language and other cultural elements from Panama and Puerto Rico. Samba reggae originated in Brazil as a blend of samba with Jamaican reggae.

Since the early ’70s reggae has been in Africa, but after musician Bob Marley’s visit to Zimbabwe in April 1980, reggae’s popularity exploded and fused with local music all over Africa, including Ethiopia, Mali, Sudan, Nigeria, Malawi, Ghana and Ivory Coast.

During the years of apartheid in South Africa, the music bonded people from all demographics. Lucky Dube recorded 25 albums, fusing reggae with Mbaqanga. The Marcus Garvey Rasta camp in Phillipi is regarded by many to be the reggae and Rastafarian center of Cape Town, South Africa.

Reggae music is also big business in Japan, and Jamaican musicians are in demand more than ever. In the Philippines, several bands and sound systems play their version of reggae and dancehall called Pinoy.

Aside from the reggae music and Rastafarian influences seen frequently on Thailand’s islands and beaches, a true reggae subculture is taking root in Thailand’s cities and towns. Reggae music is also quite popular in Sri Lanka. For decades, Hawaiian reggae has had a big following on the Hawaiian islands and the West Coast of the U.S.

Australian Aboriginals have been listening to reggae since the 1980, are now performing what’s called Desert Reggae in their own traditional languages.

Sources:wikipedia.org, news.bbc.co.uk

Track & Field

By all accounts, Jamaica is the most popular country globally when it comes to track and field. Though it is a small country with a population of only 2.7 million, Jamaica’s impact globally has been significant in the past two Olympic Games.

Countries like the U.S. and China are Olympic medal producing powerhouses as they have many resources, including a large population from which to develop Olympic medalists. However, in a comparison of  medal winnings to population size of the country, Jamaica blows both the U.S. and China away.

In the 2008 Olympics, Jamaica was ranked No. 1 for total gold medals won per capita with six, in addition to three silvers and two bronze. That means Jamaica earned 2.2 medals per million people that year. The United States was 31st, China was 45th, and Russia topped at 26th.

In the 2012 Olympics, Jamaica was ranked No. 4 for total gold medals won per capita with four, plus four silvers and four bronzes. That year, the United States ranked 28th, Russia was 25th and China was 47th.

In terms of the most successful countries based on the total medals won  per capita all-time, Jamaica is ranked 10th. That is amazingly efficient for such a small country compared to larger countries such as the U.S.A, which ranked 33rd and China’s 47th ranking.

Sources:
topendsports.com, freakonomics.com, simon.forsyth.net, news.xinhuanet.com

>via: http://atlantablackstar.com/2013/11/28/5-reasons-jamaican-culture-is-the-most-popular-per-capita/

AFRICAN DIASPORA, PH.D.
September 2, 2013 ·