 G21 AFRICA:
AFROBEAT
PART 2 OF 2
NTONE EDJABE
 [From Part 1:] "Howzit bru?" I would hear, in that voice of white men who believe Quentin Tarantino is the human face of God.
My eyes would meet his smile. (It's the same smile many white South Africans have when they are about to learn something, anything, from a black person. The grin we gave our mother when she first caught us with the hand in the jar. Shame.) "What's this music bru?"
Once the fatal question is asked, White Boy's face transforms into a notepad and pen, a Dictaphone, a video recorder, a CD writer and every imaginable recording equipment out of Japan. He has clearly been touched by the music. I can tell he would rush onto the Internet to find out more, if only he knew what to ask his search engine. He is even willing to learn the steps. His eyes tell me he never wants to be in this position again. So my ego enjoys the situation for a few seconds before I mercifully lean across the turntables, as if to share a secret, and mouth off the two magical syllables: FE-LA .
PART TWO: He also sang mostly in Yoruba, adorned traditional garb, and his lyrics celebrated Africa and the black aesthetic. Songs such as "Buy Africa, Beautiful Dancer" and "Black Manšs Cry" were written during this most fertile period. But his romance with mother Africa and nationalist politics was brutally ended by the first army attack at the Kalakuta Republic in 1974, and his subsequent imprisonment.... More
G21 EUROPE:
From Bethlehem
BERNARD SABELLA
Saturday, October 27, 2001 5:16 AM - Jerusalem:
Dear All,
The toll of the latest Israeli military incursion in the different towns, villages and localities of the West Bank is both psychological and physical. On the psychological level, hundreds of families were terrorized by the entry of the Israeli forces. Medecins Sans Frontieres (i.e., Doctors Without Borders) has indicated that hundreds of families in the various localities are not allowed out of their homes for basic medical and other necessities. This is likely to affect the status of patients adversely beside the fact that whole families live in fear of going out of their households... More
MY GLASS HOUSE: :
Rod in Love
ROD AMIS
 NEW ORLEANS - 3 November, 2001: Are you experiencing an Extinction Level Event? (Go back and listen to Bustah Rhymes's "Burial Song,")
That's your pop culty tidbit this week before I get heavy again. Lynda used to nail me on that, clever woman that she was. Wait. I guess I should say "girl," since she now says I knew the girl and not the woman. Fair enough. She knew the boy. And the son is the father of the man -- whatever that means.
But back to Lynda. One of her many funny (delightful) traits was to tease me about how serious I am about everything. I still am. But, when faced with my ultra-seriousness, she would sing: "Nobody knows..." from the old spiritual and make me laugh. An adroit pin-prick into my intellectual bubble. Elhamdu'Allah.
The one thing I regret, as we approach the twelfth year of this long enterprise of mine, is that few (very few) of you have been able to see Rod in love. I'm a different person then. I'm nowhere near as maundlin or morose. I actually am joyful and playful. I look back on that Rod wistfully... More
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PREMIERE!!!!GLOBAL*BEAT:
Rockin' with the Rabanes
ROD AMIS
 WARNING: If you have sciatica., rheumatoid arthritis, a weak heart, your dancing shoes are molded, do not -- I repeat,. DO NOT! -- listen to the Rabanes CD I am about to review, spinning it as we speak. And whatever you do, don't show up to see them live. This band is not for you.
On the other hand, if you like a good time, if you still have some "pep in your step," mi amigo. Ai-ai-yiee! Fuse the Caribbean influence from Miami with a hot Latin step and step out! ... More
RECOMMENDED DAILY REQUIREMENT: :
The Quality of Mercy
BILL STEVENS
The Bard wrote that "The quality of mercy is not strainted..." He obviously would have been nonplussed to live in this or the last century. The "New World" was just a twinkle in Sir Walter Raleigh's eye during Shakespeare's era (the afore-mentioned "Bard," for the benefit of people educated after 1970.) So Shakespeare had not idea about America.
For Shakespeare, the notion that we would give numbers to world wars was an unthinkable. Shakespeare could not have imagined a world in which being a refugee was a way of life for the people of many nations. He would have found the tent-cities we relegate them to abhorrent. He was dreaming of a British Empire not yet extant. We live in an American Century tainted by a galloping recession, lots of people jobless worldwide, and bombs dropping like pigeon-quano on the most devastated nation on the planet Earth... More
RDR 10.29.01: RADIO RAHEEM is back to say, "Welcome to Hard Times"
RDR 10.22.01: THOMAS HART joins punk cult musician Wesley Willis in saying "F--- With Me and FIND OUT!"
RDR 10.15.01: ROD AMIS turns to the foreign press to get logical analysis of America's Vendetta "War & Hell"
IRISH EYES:
The Slopes of Sweet Cloonee
MATTIE LENNON
What follows is my own version of the story of William Geary ( who is living in New York aged 103). He was sacked from the Irish police force in 1928 but cleared of all wrong-doing, by the Irish Government in 1999. I hope my ballad tells at least some of his story.
Mattie.
THE SLOPES OF SWEET CLOONEE
I was born near Ballyagran
In eighteen ninety-nine.
My childhood lacked in nothing,
And happiness was mine
I'd Master Quill as teacher,
Idyllic times for me
Preparing for a lifetime
On the slopes of sweet Cloonee... More |
We plan on taking you places you've never been before.
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