Video: Jill Scott – ‘A Celebration of American Poetry at the Whitehouse’

Via: Pinboardblog
"Jill Scott recently performed a selection of poetry before a special audience including President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama at a special event entitled A Celebration of American Poetry at the Whitehouse. This is a must watch!

As well as being a three-time Grammy award winning musician, Jill Scott is also a writer whose collection of poems entitled ‘The Moments, The Minutes, The Hours’ became a New York Times best seller. Other artists who showcased the impact of poetry on American culture on the night included Elizabeth Alexander, Billy Collins, Common, Rita Dove, Kenneth Goldsmith, Alison Knowles, Aimee Mann, and Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers.

Jill Scott embarks upon a new stage in her career with the June 27th release of her fourth studio album ‘The Light of the Sun’."

African-American students are increasingly travelling abroad

African Americans are underrepresented in study abroad opportunities, according to the Institute of International Education. But things are changing.

According to Jada F. Smith in The Root, international living is booming among African-American students. “Many of them have expanded their marketability by increasing their number of passport stamps with global volunteerism, education, immersion language training or professional experience.”

“I was one of eight young professionals chosen to participate in a six-month media fellowship for recent college graduates,” Smith writes. “ Résumés were compared, quiet rivalries established and pedigrees picked over.

What scored highest with this crowd was an impressive answer to the question, "So, which countries have you traveled to?" Some had spent semesters studying in Spain or a year teaching in Malaysia, along with the requisite post-graduation excursions through Europe and reporting trips to sub-Saharan Africa. As for me, well, I didn't even have a passport.

The others lived in a global community -- one that I saw as gated and inaccessible.

The problem of an un-globalized population has not gone unnoticed. In 2009, President Obama began the "100,000 Strong Initiative," a $2.25 million program intended to encourage young Americans to travel to and study in China. This past February, first lady Michelle Obama spoke to students at Howard University about the initiative and the importance of having an international perspective in a world that is becoming increasingly less U.S.-centric.

Yes, our widespread lack of international participation is so chronic that it has prompted a multimillion-dollar presidential initiative. But where our white peers may need the push to go overseas, students of color often need a shove. Blacks make up about 4.2 percent of all American study-abroad students, while 81 percent are white, according to the Institute of International Education. …

In the past, experts attributed the lack of international travel among young people of color to financial constraints, fear of racism, parents unwilling to support the decision and a lack of role models.”

Read the whole story at The Root

Janelle monae will be at North Sea Jazz 2011 in The Netherlands

US R&B singer Janelle monae will perform at the North Sea Jazz Festival in the Netherlands, on Friday 8 July 2011.

Welcome to the year 2719. Cindi Mayweather realises that she is the ArchAndroid who must save the city of Metropolis from a mysterious power that is trying to suppress love and freedom.

Welcome to the world of songwriter and singer Janelle Monáe. She tells her epic tale in symphonic, funky numbers. On her album The ArchAndroid (2010) she is assisted in her task by Sean 'Diddy' Combs and Big Boi from Outkast, among others.



When touring with artists like Erykah Badu, she drew inspiration from every corner of the globe that she visited. And she is not lacking in imagination. Monáe mixes together hip hop, soul and traces of jazz and world music into a musical journey that can best be compared to a danceable soundtrack from a science-fiction film. (Source: North Sea Jazz)

Vote for favorite film of Shadow and Act Filmmaker Digital Showcase

The Showcase is an online short film competition where viewers vote for their favorite films and the winning filmmakers receive cash prizes. Each of the 5 (1 every 2 months) qualifying round winner receives $1,000; final round grand prize winner receives an additional $4,000.

Winners will be determined by the number of votes they receive in each round. Among non-winning entries, one film will be announced as the popular winner at the end of the season based on cumulative votes received and awarded $1,000. Crucial submission criteria: films had to feature a protagonist of African descent and themes reflective of the African Diaspora experience.

See all the films here.

Check out the 1st film on the list (in alphabetical order).

Afro-Europe in Black, Brown and Beige or “No, where do you really come from?”

TableTalk: Afro-Europe or “No, where do you really come from?” A conversation with Trina Roach (left on the photo) and her guest Lillian Ogbogoh (right) on blogtalk radio.

They discuss issues of national and cultural identity, and compare and contrast how those issues are viewed differently from country to country. Is there one black (European) way to act?

Trina Roach is an African American living in Germany and Lillian Ogbogoh is a British Born Nigerian (as she calls herself) who lives in London and has lived in the US.

Listen to internet radio with Creating Tomorrow on Blog Talk Radio

Some of the topics they covered
• How do you self-identify?
• How do you experience “community” amongst other people of African descent where you live?
• How is that sense of “community” expressed in different places in the Diaspora?
• How does the question of “critical mass” influence the lives of people of African descent where you live?
• What role does day-to-day racism play in your life?
• How well-represented are people of African descent in public life?
• What importance was placed on knowledge of Black/African History during your upbringing?
• What can we do to empower children of African descent living in Europe?

First Black German Convention in Washington, DC (August 19 to 21 2011)

The Black German Cultural Society, Inc. announces its First Annual Convention to be held from August 19 to 21, 2011, at the German Historical Institute (GHI) in Washington, DC (USA).

With the theme of “Strengthening Transatlantic Connections,” the convention will host guests and presenters from the international community in Germany and the United States.

The keynote speaker will be Noah Sow, the acclaimed journalist, musician, producer and author of “Deutschland Schwarz Weiß” (C. Bertelsmann, 2008), who will speak about “Geteilte Geschichte: The Black Experience in Germany and the US.”

The convention will also feature a photo exhibit on "The Civil Rights Struggle, African American GIs, and Germany."

Furthermore, the meeting will offer workshops, round tables, as well as panel discussions on Afro-German history, culture and literature facilitated by the board members, partner organizations, and distinguished academics in the field.

Confirmed participants include, among others:

* Vera Grant (W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University)
* S. Marina Jones (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
* Maria Hoehn (Vassar College)
* Leroy Hopkins (Millersville University)
* Martin Klimke (GHI Washington)
* Priscilla Layne (University of California, Berkeley)
* Yara-Colette Lemke Muniz de Faria (Berlin)
* Sara Lennox (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)


Topics will include “Race and Ethnicity in Postwar Germany,” “Transatlantic Adoption and ‘Brown Babies’,” “Finding and Reuniting Birth Families,” “Black German Jewishness” as well as “Sharing our Stories,” among others.

For more information go to www.blackgermans.us/convention2011

The Image of Black people in Western Art in Europe

I had never heard of the American art project "The Image of the Black in Western Art" until I stumbled upon a presentation of Professor Henry Louis Gates.

According to the website www.imageoftheblack.com the project started in the 1960s, as a response to segregation in the United States by the influential art patron Dominique de Menil. He began a research project and photo archive called The Image of the Black in Western Art.

The Harvard W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research presented an new edition coveted five original books, as well as an additional five volumes.

A presentation of Vera Ingrid Grant about the collection


If you want to see images or more information go to the website www.imageoftheblack.com.

Amsterdam

The American art project reminded me of the exhibition "Black is Beautiful" in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam in 2008 about the attractiveness of black people for artists of the Low Countries. It was an exhibition of roughly 130 paintings, drawings and manuscripts from Dutch and international collections.

Very interesting to check out are the short films and tests on the online exhibition. Go straight to the Short films & View test at www.blackisbeautifulamsterdam.nl

Or go to the main page at www.blackisbeautifulamsterdam.nl

What I find interesting about these images is seeing the faces and expressions of black people of centuries ago. Some of the paintings are as detailed as digital photos. The photo above is of Caspar de Crayer 1584- 1669, study of the head of a black man, from around 1631-1635.


USA

A presentation of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., on The Image of the Black in Western Art.

Warren G "Regulate" live in Paris - R.I.P Nate Dogg

Warren G in Paris France (1995). Although Nate Dogg is not in this version of "Regulate", it's almost impossible not to remember him. R.I.P Nate Dogg.

Show civil courage - Austrian and American Anti-Racism videos

Video: Airplain
Woman: "I can't sit here, it's an affront."
Steward: "It's really an affront that 'you' have to sit here. That's why we have a replacement seat for you in the business class."

The video is from the Austrian Anti-Racism organisation ZARA, which I spotted on the FB of Black Germans. ZARA wants to enhance civil courage and promote an Austrian society free of racism. The next video is also from the organisation.

Video:Muslim woman

Men: "Can't you speak German, go back to your country."

But the 'victims' in the Zara videos look a little bit passive.

The next videos are American videos.

This video is entitled "What Would You Do? Racism In An Upscale Store". ABCNews shot a video in a Soho boutique where a racist clerk and security guard harassed a black shopper. They wanted to see if fellow shoppers would do anything to stop the harassment.



And maybe this is what you should do.

Lily Golden, the Russian African-American social activist, has died

Lily Golden, the prominent Russian African-American social activist, scholar and mother of Russian TV-star Yelena Khanga, has died last year on December 6th 2010 at the age of 76, reported Africana.ru.

As the daughter of Oliver Golden, an African American expatriate and agrarian activist of the early 1900's, and Bertha Bialek, youngest daughter of Polish American emigres of Jewish descent, Lily Golden has a special place in history.

Lily Golden was born (1934) in Uzbekistan and educated in the Soviet Union at Moscow State University, where she later worked in the Institute of African Studies and eventually became its director.

During the 1950s she also became a nationally ranked Sovjet tennis player, competing in tennis matches in Central Asia.

In 1988 she moved to United States and in 1993 she became a distinguished scholar in residence at Chicago State University.

Dr. Golden was also the author of the book My Long Journey Home, where she wrote about her life as a dark-skinned Russian surviving in and struggling against turbulent changes.

Lily Golden by Ali Nassor "A golden example" (2009)

We may have to look towards Russia as the only white homeland left, says the American Renaissance, a white supremacist organisation which eulogises their Russian comrades-in-hate for waging a violent campaign against racial minorities in Russia in the years between 2002 and 2007.

But the life and family history of Lily Golden, a 75-year-old Russian African-American professor, still active in the intellectual and racial rights world, have proven the supremacists in both America and Russia wrong.

A third-generation member of a Black-Native/American-Jewish-Russian family which settled in the Soviet Union in 1931, Golden's life is a challenge to historians who limit the history of black people in Russia to the confines of the Moscow International Youth Festival in 1957.

Thanks to the British writer, Hugh Barnes, we know that the history of black people in the Soviet republics goes a long way back. Barnes made the groundbreaking research on the black Russian poet, Alexander Pushkin's great-grandfather, Ibrahim Petrovich Gannibal, who had seven children but whose progeny's whereabouts are shrouded in mystery.

Barnes revealed in his book, Gannibal: The Moor of Petersburg, that Russia's pre-Pushkin black communities had made an immense contribution to nation-building. It is no surprise therefore that Lily Golden, a legend in her own right, has followed in their footsteps.

"By the time of Catherine the Great, negro slaves were a common sight in St Petersburg," Barnes wrote. "In the grand saloons of Millionnaya Street, they appeared in a variety of roles, such as pets, pages, footmen, mascots, mistresses, favorites and adopted children."

Golden, with her unusual combination of African, Native American, Jewish and Russian ancestry, has become a tower of strength for those fighting against racial bigotry. She says: "I belong to all races. I am African-American, a Polish Jew and a Red Indian who became Russian in everything but blood."

Her grandfather, Hilliard Golden, was an African slave freed in Mississippi in 1865 who married a Native American (or Red Indian) woman and had 10 children with her. Hilliard soon became one of the wealthiest black landowners in Mississippi, but had to flee the notorious Ku Klux Klan who twice burned his home and crops.

One of Hilliard's sons, Oliver John Golden, Lily's father, was an African-American communist and an agronomy expert who specialised in cotton growing. He married a New York-based Jewish woman of Polish origin, Bertha Bialek, also a communist, who stood condemned by her parents for marrying a black man. Oliver and Bertha moved to the then Soviet republic of Uzbekistan in 1931.

Lily now looks back on her mixed ancestry with pride and dismisses racial supremacists as "myopic buffoons playing on a stage they know nothing about". Illustrating her point, she says: "My daughter, Yelena's identity is even more complicated, because she is me plus an African father from Zanzibar, himself a mixture of different kinds of blood."

Born in July 1934 in Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan, Lily had to adapt herself to the local conditions in order to cope with racial hostilities in the Soviet Union then played down by the Kremlin.

Later, as a brilliant young woman, she won the affection of the Soviet leadership and became the "brain behind" (according to Western propaganda) President Nikita Khrushchev's policy of exporting revolutions to Africa. "At least, this is how the capitalist world thought I was," Lily now says.

In those days, Western newspaper headlines such as "Lily Golden, the brain behind Khrushchev's revolution exports" were typical of what she now calls "hostile headlines in the late 1950s and early 1960s".

Lily had been influenced by her association with renowned African-American pan-African activists such as W.E.B. Du Bois, singer Paul Robeson and others; her alliance with the Kremlin, and her involvement with the emerging leaders of independent Africa.

Interestingly, she had survived repression by Josef Stalin's government which, among other things, had cut all communication with about two million Americans then settled in the Soviet Union. They, like Lily's parents, had made the transatlantic journey to help build a nation they idealistically thought had championed racial equality and freedom for the subjugated and downtrodden.

"Some white and black Americans had to go back home, and those who stayed had to adopt Russian names and later became assimilated, following Stalin's decree in 1937 mandating foreigners to either apply for Soviet citizenship or quit," says Lily, adding: "Obvious American names would have sounded suspicious in an anti-capitalist regime."

Born as Lily, her name was later twisted to Liya Oliverovna Golden to sound less American. She did not know her relatives left behind in America until 1985 when she had the opportunity to travel abroad for the first time.

When she appeared on a television talkshow in Chicago, 150 relatives of hers showed up to help solve the identity puzzle, which made it possible for her to trace her roots back to Mississippi where the family of her grandfather, Hilliard, had settled and made a fortune as landowners.

Lily made several trips to America thereafter and in 1988 decided to stay. For the next 15 years, she became famous as a black Russian activist, fighting for minority causes and racial harmony.

She went back to Moscow in 2003 to be close to her then newly-born granddaughter by her daughter Yelena, who, in the intervening years, had become Russia's most popular black television host.

A distinguished scholar in residence at Chicago State University, Lily is an active member of the board of directors of both the Russian-African Business Council and the San Francisco-based Centre for Citizen Initiatives. She is also the vice-president of the International Charity Foundation in Chicago, and a member of the New York-based International, Intercultural Black Women's Studies Institute. She has represented these organisations several times at the UN.

Her father, Oliver Golden, was educated at the Tuskegee University, one of the first academic institutions for the children of former slaves. He became a student of the renowned professor of agronomy, George Washington Carter.

"My father would leave no stone unturned in search of freedom," says Lily, citing his enlistment with the French Army in the Second World War. It is from there that as a young man he found his way to the Soviet Union in 1924 where he enrolled with the prestigious Communist University for Oriental Workers in Moscow that recruited revolutionaries from Asia and Africa.

Years later, after Oliver had settled with his wife in Uzbekistan, he recruited 16 other African-American cotton growers in the quest for freedom in a "country of the coloured people". According to Lily, Uzbeks were considered coloured by the then standards in America.

Lily herself graduated from Moscow State University in 1957 as a historian majoring in African-American History. She later worked at the African Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences.

Her pan-Africanism was aroused by several factors, including the Soviet policy of communist internationalism, the Cold War, the Soviet attempts to win hearts and minds in Africa, an exposure to Du Bois' Global Negro Rights Philosophy, the Harlem Renaissance Ideological School in New York, and Marcus Garvey's Negro Rights Philosophy.

She says by the time she was travelling across the Soviet Union in the late 1960s attending conferences and lectures given by Du Bois and Robeson, newspapers in Africa had been influenced by the "capitalist world" to publish articles against her. In Ghana, one newspaper ran a story alleging "I was a secret agent for China", while another claimed "I had been deported following suspicions of involvement in treason-related activities in Kenya, a country I had never set foot in when it was still fighting for independence from Great Britain".

Lily's political star shone the brightest during the 10 years between 1957 and 1967, through a mixture of myths born of the Western media propaganda against her and internal Soviet realities.

When her husband, the Zanzibari nationalist, Kassim Hanga, became one of the masterminds of the January 1964 coup in Zanzibar (which was branded a revolution), the Western media alleged that Lily was somehow involved with the coup.

Time magazine reported on 24 January 1964 (12 days after the coup) that Hanga had been made "vice-president, a bitter Zanzibari with a Russian wife, a Moscow education, and a violent hatred of the US. Last November, when the Parliament moved to express formal regret over President Kennedy's death, Hanga walked out in protest".

Hanga had been a short-lived parliamentarian in the pre-independent Zanzibar Sultanate, then a British protectorate. He had met his future wife, Lily Golden, for the first time during the 1957 Moscow International Youth Festival. They married three years later when he went back to Moscow to study for a degree in economics at the then newly-opened Peoples' Friendship University, named after the assassinated Congolese prime minister, Patrice Lumumba.

Hanga cleared the five-year university programme in one year, but stayed for a while. He returned home and took part in writing Zanzibar's independence constitution in London.

And then the coup happened and Hanga was appointed vice-president of the "revolutionary" government. He later became minister for union affairs in the interim union government of Tangan- yika and Zanzibar following the merger between the Republic of Tanganyika and the People's Republic of Zanzibar on 26 April 1964.

But then Hanga mysteriously disappeared soon after. Lily had seen him last in Moscow, when he had gone there straight from London after helping write Zanzibar's independence constitution. Lily says, "though we maintained occasional correspondence, it was the last time I saw him, reportedly due to political tensions at home".

As Lily was then barred from travelling abroad, she had to engage herself in the arduous task of searching for her husband through acquaintances such as Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Yosefna.

Svetlana herself was searching through KGB files for what lay behind the death of her Indian husband, a politician whose relationship with her as Stalin's daughter had been frowned upon in Moscow.

Through the help of her acquaintances, Lily later found out that Hanga was languishing in prison after crossing swords with his former comrades-in-arms in Zanzibar. He had been taken to task for allegedly betraying the ideals of the "revolution".

In 1968, news reached Lily that her husband had died, after months of brutal persecution in jail. Later, "top secret" files revealed that Hanga had been shot at close range. His dismembered body was shoved into a sack attached to a sinker and dumped in the Indian Ocean.

Lily has never been to Tanzania, but her TV-star daughter, Yelena, visited Zanzibar 10 years ago in search of her roots and met scores of relatives, including her paternal grandmother.

Yelena had earlier taken a similar journey to America in search of her relatives on her mother's side. According to her, her Muslim grandmother in Zanzibar and her Jewish grandmother in New York had at least one thing in common. They were both shocked by the negative answer to their first question of whether Yelena was married.

Copyright 2009 Gale, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.


Lily Golden, rest in peace.

S&A Filmmaker Challenge Winner “Black Swan Theory” By Nikyatu Jusu Debuts!

The US film blog Shadow And Act shows the completed 1st film of the Shadow And Act Filmmaker Challenge series. It's brought to you by Shadow And Act Films LLC; Nikyatu Jusu’s Black Swan Theory. See the post on Afro-Europe about the competition here.

Synopsis: A psychiatric casualty of war, recently returned to the US, Sonya’s imagined sense of normalcy crumbles around her; she must hunt or become the hunted.

To view the film go to Shadow and Act here and CLICK THE IMAGE to play the 12-minute film. You will need a broadband connection to view the film.

Meet Miles Marshall Lewis - An African-American writer and music journalist in Paris

Miles Marshall Lewis is an African-American writer/editor in Paris France. He has published books a few books and has written for top magazines & newspapers like Vibe, Rolling Stone, and the Village Voice.

And he also has a great blog with stories about his live in France and with interviews with American black people in France.

Check out his blog at www.furthermucker.com, and his stories 'French like me' on his blog here.

Miles Marshall Lewis in his own words. "I was born in 1970, the year Toni Morrison wrote The Bluest Eye and Afrika Bambaataa started to deejay.



My writing life began eleven years later, when Marvel Comics published my letter to the editor of Captain America.

Growing up in the Bronx during the 70s endeared me to hiphop culture from the start, hearing Kool DJ AJ spin records in St. Mary’s Park outside my grandma’s South Bronx window.

Penning magazine cover stories about Erykah Badu, Mos Def, A Tribe Called Quest and Nas, I’ve also assumed positions at XXL (deputy editor), Vibe (music editor), BET.com (deputy music editor) and Russell Simmons’ Oneworld (literary editor) from 1998-2004. ...

As a native New Yorker, I felt the city change post-September 11 — NYPD backpack searches on the train, armed guards patrolling Grand Central Station — and pissed off over a Bush-misled America, I moved to Paris in the spring of 2004.

For over a year, I wrote about my experiences as a postmodern bohemian B-boy in a 21st-century City of Light for PopMatters.com, a column called “Paris Noir.”

My encounters with French hiphop and black culture in Paris, in addition to marrying a Martinican woman and helping raise our two sons, have led to my next book, as yet untitled.

With one foot ever in NYC, I founded Bronx Biannual in 2006 as an urbane urban literary journal full of essays and fiction from celebrated and unsung writers who share the hiphop aesthetic. "

Read the whole story at his Blog www.furthermucker.com

see a recent interview with Lewis here

Bonus
Video of a winter tour through Paris (BlackAtlas/Nelson George)

Video: Mamouland African-American women vs Black European women

"Why do Black European people comment on African American videos as if they know what are problems are about," asks African-American cartoon figure Denise Black British Alisha.

An interesting video. But what I missed in the dialog is how African-Americans and Afro-Europeans look at race relations. Most Black Europeans live in in a different racial situation. Because I can only speak for myself, I know that if I forget the race issue in America I sometimes draw the wrong conclusions on certain social issues.

See the video and judge for yourself.

Film: "For Colored Girls" - In UK Cinema Dec. 10th + Review

"For Colored Girls" is the new film of Tyler Perry. The film brings to the screen Ntozake Shange's Obie Award-winning play, a poetic exploration of what is to be of color and a female in this world. The film opens in the UK on the 10th of December.

According to the UK webmagazine Catch a Vibe one of the criticisms about the film was that the male characters had no redeeming qualities. Michael O’sullivan’s review in the Washington Post pretty much described For Colored Girls as male-bashing galore ‘It paints a bleak picture of masculinity as the domain of liars and thieves, paranoid alcoholics, unemployed moochers, adulterers, sex addicts and paedophiles.



The magazine expects that For Colored Girls will polarise UK audiences. "You’ll either love it or hate it, there really is no middle ground here. Perry’s latest endeavour isn’t perfect and could benefit from a more experienced director and a well-developed script, but—if given a chance—For Colored Girls might surprise you in a good way or maybe not."

About Tyler Perry the New York Times wrote. "Tyler Perry has been led out to critical slaughter so many times, it might seem a wonder that he continues to make movies. Except that Mr. Perry addresses his movies to black audiences and, until recently, has shown relatively little interest in crossing over. His enormous commercial success with a mainly black audience and the often ferociously hostile reviews from mostly white critics might seem symptomatic of an insurmountable racial divide. Black people love him and white people don’t get him, and that sort of thing, which might be somewhat true but ignores that another important dividing line runs along taste and not color."

But Perry does know how to pick his cast, the film stars Janet Jackson, Loretta Devine, Michael Ealy, Kimberly Elise, Omari Hardwick, Hill Harper, Thandie Newton, Phylicia Rashad, Anika Noni Rose, Tessa Thompson, Kerry Washington, Whoopi Goldberg and Macy Gray.

Must See Video: "Influencers" - A webdoc about New York influential creatives

INFLUENCERS is a short documentary that explores what it means to be an influencer and how trends and creativity become contagious today in music, fashion and entertainment.

The film attempts to understand the essence of influence, what makes a person influential without taking a statistical or metric approach.

Written and Directed by Paul Rojanathara and Davis Johnson, the film is a Polaroid snapshot of New York influential creatives (advertising, design, fashion and entertainment) who are shaping today's pop culture.



"Influencers" belongs to the new generation of short films, webdocs, which combine the documentary style and the online experience.

The music in the beginning of the video is from the Robert Glasper Trio.

The Robert Glasper Trio - No Worries

Great Jazz music from Robert Glasper. The track "No Worries" is from his album Double Booked. Glasper was a sideman with Hip-Hop artists such as Mos Def, Q Tip and the Roots.

His music was also used in the webdoc Influencers.

Video: John Legend and The Roots – "I Can’t Write Left Handed"

John Legend & The Roots teamed up for the album "Wake Up!", which was released by Sony Music on September 21, 2010. The album features soulful music from the 60’s and 70’s all with an underlying theme of awareness, engagement and consciousness. Themes we need in Europe today!

The song "I Can’t Write Left Handed" was written by Bill Withers in 70’s. It's a song about a soldier who returned from Vietnam.

Teaser Trailer For “Black Swan Theory” By Nikyatu Jusu (Filmmaker Challenge Winner)

In August the film Blog Shadow And Act announced Nikyatu Jusu and her screenplay "Black Swan Theory" the winner of the Shadow and Act film Challenge. Here’s a first look teaser trailer.

The synopsis again for the 12-minute film: a psychiatric casualty of war recently returned to the US, Sonya’s imagined sense of normalcy crumbles around her; she must hunt or become the hunted.

All Sharpton goes to France in response to French designer Guerlain’s use of “N-Word”

French perfume designer Jean-Paul Guerlain’s use of the “n-word” during a recent interview on French state TV sparked an outcry from anti-racist groups, capped by the American civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton’s announcement of plans to travel to Paris to speak to the groups in November.

“The fact that Jean-Paul Guerlain felt comfortable enough to use the ‘n-word’ in public, coupled with the recent United Nations report showing that racism is on the rise in France, illustrates the depth of racism not only in France but throughout Europe and around the world,” Sharpton said in a statement Oct. 23.

“We will be joining with the fair-minded people across the Atlantic Ocean to further internationalize the struggle for fairness and respect. We cannot tolerate such affronts to our basic humanity,” reports Afro



French perfume designer Jean-Paul Guerlain created a firestorm after his racist statements in a TV interview on France 2.

He was talking about how the perfume Samsara grew out of a discussion he had with his wife.

“One day I told her – and I still call her Madame (0.12) – ‘What would seduce you if one was to make a perfume for you?’ and she told me, ‘I love jasmine, rose and sandalwood.’” Guerlain continued, “And for once I started working like a nigger. I don’t know if niggers really worked that hard.”

Patrick Lozès, of France's Representative Council of Black Associations, said the French word "nègre" used by Guerlain was an "extremely pejorative" and "racist" term equivalent to "nigger" in English.

But Patrick Lozes not only attacks Guerlain. On his Blog he also attacks the interviewer Lucet, who laughed after Guerlain made his racist statements.

Although Guerlain has apologised by e-mail, it’s clear he knew exactly what he was saying.

Also read: French perfume house Guerlain faces legal action over racist comments

Soul singer Solomon Burke dies at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport

Soul singer Solomon Burke (70) has died at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, a Dutch police spokesman has said.

Burke, who wrote the hit Everybody Needs Somebody to Love among many others, was both a Grammy winner and a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

He had been due to perform on at the well-known club Paradiso in Amsterdam on Tuesday.

The singer was born in Philadelphia in an upstairs room in a gospel church.

"Many artists claim to have their roots in the church, but few go back this far and run this deep," he said on his website.


Live UK performance from Solomon Burke on Top of the Pops with his classic signature tune "Everybody Needs Somebody To Love"

He started recording when he was 14 with his first song "Christmas Presents From Heaven" into a million seller.

The man who Tom Waits called "one of the architects of American Music" counted Mick Jagger among his many fans.

The Rolling Stone admitted trying to imitate Burke's style of phrasing when he was starting out.

The singer was busy to the end, having run up more than 130,000 frequent flier miles this year alone, with concerts throughout the UK and Europe. (Source Sky)


Live performance of "Proud Mary" on the Dutch Pinkpop festival in 2003

Solomon Burke Rest in Peace.