Africa in April

Africa in April Cultural Awareness Festival

                   

The 23rd Annual Africa in April Celebration held in Memphis, TN will take place April 16-19, 2009 in Robert R. Church Park in downtown Memphis. This year’s featured country is The Republic of Mauritania. 

I will definitely be in attendance. I love going out to the festival each year and viewing and purchasing the beautiful paintings, handmade jewelry, clothing, handbags and a host of other rarities. The smell of the delicate incense fills the air along with the great food being prepared by the country’s natives.  The music is vibrant and flowing through the festival by way of the breezes from the Mississippi River. This is an event for the entire family. It is an opportunity for those young and old to get a glimpse of Africa and its major significance to African Americans.

“If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.”
-Margaret Mead

This video has footage of past Africa in Aprica festivals —> Africa in April, Memphis, TN

Here is more information on the featured country of The Republic of Mauritania

National Geographic – Mauritania

Business Africa.net - The Islamic Republic of Mauritania

I also found this blog on Blogger that has good info on The Republic of Mauritania and some beautiful photos of the country –> Saharan Vibe – Mauritania

Music…the good ole days (I♥Music)

I ♥ MUSIC

While blog browsing I came across a picture of MC Lyte and immediately the following lyrics began to flow through my head

You can cha-cha-cha to this Mardis Gras
I’m the dopest female that you’ve heard thus far
And I do get better, the voice gets wetter
Nobody gets hurt (as long as you let her)
Do my thing with an ‘89 swing
The dopeness I write, I guarantee delight

Hot shit wasn’t it? ♥

Sometimes I find myself getting completely lost in music. I put on a David Ruffin cd or maybe some old New Edition and I’m gone…zoning, somewhere back to a time and place where music grabbed a hold of your senses and wouldn’t let go. You had to pry yourself from its grasp because they were so tight and strong that even though you fought back, sometimes you eventually let yourself go to be engulfed by the music.

speaking of David Ruffin…check out this video…classic…

Music like that can’t be replaced. With today’s mixture of drop and shake your booty music and wanna be gangsta’s the quality of music is nowhere near the level it used to be.  Nowadays you have to partake of 99% of the stuff we really loved back in the day and find a few songs out of the 1% left to fulfill your music needs. But back in the day it wasn’t like that. You could throw on some Eric B & Rakim or some Whodini and forget yourself. You’d be jammin’ so hard that you’d be tempted to buy yourself a boom box and carry it on your shoulder like Radio Raheem just so you wouldn’t have to be away from the music for one moment.

The artists enjoyed what they were doing and we enjoyed listening to them and watching them perform. Back when New Edition said they were With You All The Way…it was believable. When LL Cool J said he would Crush You Like a Jellybean…it was believable lol When Whodini asked about Friends the listeners were like hmmm what about my friends, how many of us really have them? When Freddie Jackson crooned Have You Ever Loved Somebody….we got to thinking about real love…..Music used to sweep you off your feet and take you to another level. True enough there are some artists today that can hold their own such as Anthony Hamilton, Common, Kanye West, India Arie and a host of others, but it still doesn’t take the memory of the back in the day music from my heart and my head.

Here’s to us music lovers! Enjoy!

Whodini – One Love

LL Cool J – I’m Bad

(I aint seen shit like this SINCE!!!)

Marvin Gaye- What’s Goin On (live)

Salt & Pepa – Push It

Doug E. Fresh & Slick Rick on Soul Train

Racism Today (Post 3)

I am beginning to sway towards the belief that a blatant racist is better than an undercover, throw a rock and hide your hand racist any day…. Either way a racist is a racist, but if you have this belief why hide behind the camouflage of sarcasm and idiotic comments.

Have you noticed that both undercover and blatantly racist people can somehow throw Barack Obama into any conversation?

It is quite annoying to me that you can be holding a simple conversation about something as simple and nonpolitical as the weather, and somehow these people (who immediately put it on the table that they are not racist and do not support racism) will somehow throw in their distaste for Barack Obama.  Weren’t we talking about the weather?

There are far more people in the “Rush Limbaugh Is Our Hero” clique than we think or would like to believe and honestly it is becoming more and more disturbing by the day how so many people refuse to own up to their racism. If you dislike Barack Obama because of his race…umm that probably means that you are a racist. So when you say things constantly about Barack Obama in clearly unrelated conversations your racism shines through like a shiny new penny.

African American supporters of Barack Obama have been labeled as extremist.  It has been said by many non supporters that black people have deemed Barack Obama as the New Jesus. Somewhere along the lines our confidence in Obama and our pledged support have been scandalized and wrongly reflected as closely mimicking idolism. These people believe that the majority of black people who voted for and support Barack Obama see him as our savior. That somehow we think he is going to take all of our worries away  and deliver us from the troubles of this world which includes our car note, our mortgage, unemployment, depression, flu, money problems, bad relationships, long term illnesses, unpaid doctor bills, dwindling savings, alcoholism, drug addiction, headaches etc, you get the picture.

Much of this nonsense stems from racist people who instead of stating their reasons for not supporting Obama they turn their distaste towards those that do support him and this distaste is often reflected in their idiotic statements and behavior.

Here is a video from one of the greatest douchebags alive, Rush Limbaugh. This video is a classic example of a racist giving his political thoughts which are primarily based on his own personal racist opinion and not the facts. But honestly this kind of behavior is expected of Limbaugh.  He is one of the most racist men alive and unlike some racist people there is no hesitancy for him to open his mouth and publicly display his ignorance and high level of loserism.

In the video Limbaugh talks about his suspicions of Barack Obama. Would he have been so suspicious had Barack Obama been a white, qualified candidate running for President? Of course not!