the jazz experience

Hoping For Jazz

I am

Poet getting high on Jazz’s fumes

Bitter-sweet perfume of Blues and Indigo Moods

I am

The Will

I am

Just like Alice & John

Seamless and cyclic

Ecstatic

The end of us and them is we

As Jazz blends spirits colorlessly

But never quite colour-blindly

I am

Neo-Classical Jazz Experiences

Memories of Plantation Lullaby’s

Pushed and dragged so low yet still getting high

Not on coke and sprites

Black tie affairs or BBBEE invites

But on life and stolen moments of lokshin style and ghetto jive

Jazz

Jonas Gwangwa & McCoy Mrubata, Kuti Femi, Anikulapo, Seun, Fela

I walked the smoggy ghetto passage ways

Nodding to Moses Taiwa Molelekwa’s Genes and Spirits

Or Billy Holiday’s Strange Fruit

Wailing, Wailing and Wailing while swinging from these Southern Trees

For reasons beyond us

We are still singing those Weary Blues

Decades after Sobukwe, Dollar Brand & Langston Hughes

Meditated on Stillness, Freeness & Jazziness

The so long, how long Blues

This Jazz shit has made me forget to remember The Good News

Got me walking the tight-line between the life we know and the death we choose

I am

The Jazz-man’s tears appearing perpendicular to a broken note

Which is a seed in the soil

Where grows the fruit of hope …

The joy of Jazz is the most omnipotent dope.

For Kush

Un-entitled - Part two:

Now you are dancing

Oh how you move, move, move

Swirling and curling your serpentine spine

Your locks leap, sway and wave to Abdullah Ibrahim’s Mountain of The Night

And the Sun is shining outside

I am reclining watching your spectral whirl

Shining like the detailed wisdom of humour

In sheer-move-meant

With a semi-serious smile I watch

I record it

In un-translatable ink

Through the windows of my mind

Knowing this moment is just an elliptical blink

Of beauty unhindered by the shades of life’s storm

Your trance-dance is the instantaneous re-birth of a trillion life-forms

In your smile the sunlight is cradled, reflected

As if light has found its home

As Life forms

After coming down from the Mountain

Now we are both reclining

Spiraling into stillness

Listening to Mseleku

Home at Last

War and Peace

The Poet as A Fighter 


Perhaps words will expose
Hidden lines on Father Times contrived face
Seperate the true from the false
Maybe poems will disclose
Just why and what for we fight wars

Some speak of just and unjust cause
Others defend holy wars
Righteous indignation
Condemnation where the chosen condemn nations
For lack of civilization

SOme say Freedom is worth the blood-letting
The tears are grains of sand making the sacred mountain of the infinite
So will we shed no more blood when Freedom comes?

Zealots say we are undone
When we seek ungodly freedoms
And then I open all the holy books
All I see is Freedom sacrificed at the altar of the Unseen

Voices calling from the wilderness
For peace, for stillness, for Grace
For Mercy

"Oh Arjuna!" Lord Krishna cautions the Prince
Reluctant to wage a battle against reactionary forces
Which include family, friends and other loved ones

Perhaps words dressed in wisdoms shimmer
Will erase our bloody history
LIke Ausar (Osiris)
The Still Hearted
Make us one again ...
Perhaps

God is Still White, the Devil is Still Black

Sympathy for the Devil: Fear and Truth in the Imagery of Christianity

29 March 2013

“Where is the black-man’s paradise…?” – song by Morgan Heritage

I have just watched with very little surprise how a new series called The Bible, currently airing in the United States of Amerikkka is making waves at the Box-Office. The journalists were attempting to ascertain how such a laborious and classical theme is still gaining so many fans while there has been a steep decrease of church goers in western society. What made me sit down to write this however, was not the matter of whether the west is losing its religious zeal, but how religion is still an instrument of power and intolerance.

What outrages me is how the character of the Devil is portrayed by a menacing Black person while the Saviour of mankind still remains lily white, blue eyed and victimised. While this is not a surprise, it is disappointing to find that in this new century, when every serious historian acknowledges that ancient Israel or the areas around Jerusalem were populated by people of mixed ethnicity, we still find black evil incarnate and white innocence incarnated. There is so much that one can lament about this type of imagery, but suffice to say that in a world revolving around the supremacy of whiteness, black people have no say, the more Christian they are the more pious and unobtrusive: proper sheep following their hypocritical shepherds.

In most places around the world, religion is at the heart of many national conflicts. The paradox of this is glaring. For example, the very word Islam means Peace, but even a superficial look at the countries wherein Islam is the state religion there is massive amounts of corruption, violence and censorship. Religious freedom does not equal religious tolerance at all.

Christianity prides itself on the ‘Love thy neighbour’ rhetoric and it is supposed to be the epitome of charity and  compassion, yet history shows us that so much human suffering has been ‘blessed’ by apologetics, Popes, Bishops and even lay preachers have been at the heart of hideous crimes against humanity. The trans-Atlantic slave trade and the chemical warfare perpetuated by Fascists in Afrika are just one example. 

Perhaps one should find a balanced view, to discover the goodness among the various or at least the most populous religions. Surely there must be a whole lot of positive attributes to Christianity, but for me, I do not see how it helps Afrikan people to determine their own destinies and see the divine within themselves.

 I would really love to simply ignore the whole business of religion since there are so many contradictions, especially since it is a subject teeming with the intangible; what the faithful call ‘the substance of things not seen and the evidence of things hoped for.”

But how can one ignore the continued demonization of the black human being. In fact this character casting works as part of the whole white supremacist project, which Black people support willingly and without any pang of embarrassment.

Most of them are still subconsciously convinced of the godliness and intellectual superiority of the white master, the silky hair of the Barbie doll and the divinely ordained whiteness of his God. Black is emptiness and devoid of any virtues until it is touched by the enlightening light of white civilization. This is a well-planned reality.

It is the year 2013, a time wherein so much has happened to prove to people globally that there should be equality of opportunity and respect for all human rights. Yet women are under severe attack from all fronts, black women are the most long-suffering victims of human (read: white male) recklessness.

Blackness today is not synonymous to humanity despite our forever claiming to be the possessors of Ubuntu/Humaneness. The reality of most black peoples lives is a bleak and hellish one. Our stories are still being told by our conquerors. Many European and Eurocentric researchers, academics and even scientists still view Afrikans as nothing more than an intriguing subject, a spectacle and a charity case.

Even one of the researchers I have quoted, who proves step by step and using Biblical evidence that Jesus and his ancestors were of Horite (worshippers of the sun god Horus)/North and West Afrikan origin is a European woman, still sounds like she is speaking about a scientific project instead of groups of humans. She does tremendous anthropological work on the Afrikanness of many if not all Old Testament figures, the founders of the kingdom of Judah and Israel. The only issue I hold against her is that her narrative has an apologetic Christian bias. But who listens to such stuff?

According to the modern and faithful believer, racial identity does not matter, because as the apostle Paul writes, your race does not matter as long as you have been ‘bought by the blood of Christ’. But then Jesus himself is known to have held his own ancestors in reverence. Yet we are supposed to treat them like demons?

How-long must we endure such insults and for what nefarious reasons have we been subjected to this fraud? As far as I know, our earlier ancestors were coerced into accepting this religion by the missionaries and evangelists who did not spare the rod on them. There is a well-known saying that when the white man came the native had the land and the European had the bible and the gun, today the white man has the land and the black native has the book, yet no significant gun-power. This is painfully true and it is something that most devoted Christians of colour do not want to acknowledge as they deem it simplistic and the talk of hard-hearted trouble-makers.

Many scholars have wrestled with this problem, but the reality is that most Christians, especially the ones who claim to be born again, do not read much of Afrikan literature and those who do, choose only the books that condone or pat them on the back as civilised. Anything that questions the status quo is seen as ‘of the devil.’ And since the devil is depicted as a Black person, it goes without saying that blackness is synonymous with temptation, opposition and evil.

How then shall we redeem the image of the earth’s most wretched group of people? There is a need to do this and sweeping identity politics away will not help anyone. We must act now and decisively since we are the ones we have been waiting for. Yet many battles and revolutions organised and executed by some of the most outstanding intellectuals and writers whose aim was to depict black Afrikans in a positive light. The proliferation of the Christian doctrine along white supremacists lines and negative depictions of Black people continued and as this popular film indicates, it is still being perpetuated.

Many of those who would lay the foundation of the first and second aspects of the

Tradition, (the tradition of speaking and writing as independent minded Afrikans) pan-Africanism and the antiquity of African civilization and thought, were simultaneously influenced by the revolution in Haiti and European/American thought,

particularly as it was propagated through Christianity.

 According to Rosalind Cobb Wiggins, prior to the 1730s most Africans in America were not Christians. It was not until the “Great Awakening” of the 1740s that not only European Americans but Africans held in various forms of bondage (certainly so-called “free” Africans during these times were in such a state of precariousness that such a term would hardly apply) came fully into the church.16

 In fact, after 1776 the unified states began passing legislation that used taxation as a means to enforce the teaching of Christianity.17 (Still Speaking: An Intellectual History of Dr John Henrik Clarke)

So how can an enforced religion become the salvation of humanity? How can it give people the tools to liberate themselves from various forms of mental chains? I say that it cannot. This is the reason why I would rather be persecuted as ‘confused’, heathen or heretic rather than join in on the festivities of Easter holidays and Christmas cheer. All these are imposed upon me by the dominant and predominantly white male institution called the church and its God is a blue eyed white male who does not resemble any of my ancestors nor my father of mother. Yet my mother is totally devoted to this super-elevated human being, all based on the unquestionable ‘rightness’ of what they call the Word of God, which to them means The Bible.

We need a resolution,a new heavens and a new earth, or else a new humanity devoid of religion. Let is tell our own stories before our real identity forever perishes in the narratives of others.

 

Menzi Maseko (c)

 

The End Of Politics

How to Deal With Unrepentant Thieves

“The oppressed and the exploited of the earth maintain their defiance: liberty from theft. But the biggest weapon wielded and actually daily unleashed by imperialism against that collective defiance is the cultural bomb. The effect of a bomb is to annihilate a peoples belief in their names, in their languages, in their environment, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in their capacities and ultimately in themselves. It makes them want to identify with that which is decadent and reactionary, all those forces which would stop their own springs of life. It even plants serious doubts about the moral rightness of struggle.” – Ngugi Wa Thiong’o in his Introduction to Decolonizing the Mind (1986)

South Afrikan society is under a double or triple threat of dilemmas. There is the massive backlog of scarcely delivered electoral promises: everything from the ‘stolen’ or ill begotten land, to regular delivery of basic services and guaranteeing that the resources of the land are adequately distributed; there is the matter of social cohesion, a project that cannot be realised while there is so much wealth disparity and general psycho-social division. Well the leading government easily and affectively blame apartheid and even neo-colonialism for most of the above. But then there is the matter of power, or to put it strictly, the sharing and proper exercise of political and economic power.

While South Afrika boasts the ‘best’ constitution where everyone’s rights are guaranteed by law, the reality is that there is increasing violation of this constitution by the very ones that are meant to uphold it. The thing that confuses many people is this very naïve assumption that a ‘black government’ is guaranteed to deliver in everything that it promises. Nothing could be more suicidal that to give a person power and then expect them to share it fairly with you. But this is exactly what a lot of Southern Afrikans have done and the political elites, the business over-class and all those who blindly aspire to emulate them are laughing all the way to the bank and some are even helping themselves with large hectares of lucrative land.

We basically are living at a very volatile time and we have allowed ourselves to be ruled by a thievery corporation. What Ngugi said in 1986, is nightmarishly prophetic and even though he may have been focussed on the East Afrikan or Kenyan problem, it is quite clear that both the intellectuals, civil society and even the political class have learned nothing since then. Our people appear to have no appetite for common sense and we seem to have a pathological aversion for actual Revolution. That word again. Ever-since it re-appeared on our TV screens it seems to have been patented and repackaged by AlJazeera, CNN and all the other major broadcasters and media houses. For better or for worse, Revolutionary zeal has been placed on the spotlight since the so called Arab Spring. But the nature of peoples struggles appear to have stayed the same. There is not much clarity of analysis or an ideological campus among ‘strike leaders’ and community based organisations ( if they really and truly exist).

While ‘service delivery’ protests, police brutality are vehemently condemned by sections of our communities, the real culprits and the source of the problems is ignored. But there is hope. A show on the embattled RSA state television channel SABC2 called The Big Debate seems a huge step in the right direction. By placing politician, opinion makers and other people in power in the same room with civil society, the public and of course a global audience, it allows for some direct ‘commentary’ and the much needed transparency. But even though the show is in its infancy, I have noticed that so many people are planted by their respective organisations in the audience in order to drive their own agenda’s.

It is obvious that there is so much work to be done. There is severe cultural erosion that is taking place in Africa and the blame cannot all be laid at the feet of governments. What is important to consider is that we all have a responsibility to develop a distinctly pan-Afrikanist democracy here, beginning in Southern Afrika. Yet to even speak of pan-Afrikanism is seen as counter revolutionary among die hard ANC members. There was even a specific state of the nation address where the state President Jacob Zuma made fun of the name Azania by rubbishing it as a dream of an ‘imaginary country’. He has even been charged with not understanding the basic principles of democracy by categorically stating that what the majority party says or does or says is irrefutable since they are the majority. Clearly that was a kindergarten understanding of what the democracy they claim to uphold really is.

This is not another criticism of a single person and his party, it is rather an indictment on how we the citizens of a Southern Afrikan country have capitulated to state dictatorship and mediocrity. We appear to not have a clue how to mobilize ourselves effectively towards co-creating a better country for ourselves and coming generations.

There is a painfully accurate poetry-song by the infamous Last Poets; it’s called ‘Niggers Is Scared Of Revolution’; nothing could be truer and yet nothing can be more ironic. We as a Afrikan people have had so many revolutionary leaders during and before colonialism, and even now in the neo-colonial setting we can count many truly intelligent and transformative speakers, motivators and revolutionary writers, but their impact hardly seems to trickle down to the ones who suffer most from today’s imperialism.

While poor and mostly black people are continually under siege from what is increasingly becoming a police state, from economic uncertainty and global chaos, there are those in power who still feel the need to screw around with blatantly reckless promises and destructive policy decisions.

At a time like this, even a peace loving Rastaman such as myself finds himself fraternising with communists, socialists and even anarchists, all in pursuit of the right formula to ending this unrighteous world. Civil disobedience is a well-known revolutionary tactic, yet the recent socio-political realities in Egypt and other volatile areas clearly shows that neither violence nor change of heads of state is still no guarantee to state repression. Freedom remains just as elusive as it was yesterday. To make it even worse, the technological implements that are supposed to help us become more aware, more secure and communicative are the very instruments used by governments to ensure that every conceivable city is a policed state. Yes BIG Brother is watching us via our chosen tools, the Internet is being used for Cold War era types of spy-wars. No one is safe.

Re-Definition of Education

Our Story

“Education intensifies natural gifts and ability, but mere education unless founded on a historical and cultural framework, will bear no fruits. This is why you should at all times reinforce your learning with the cultural heritage of your forefathers – a cultural heritage you should REVIVE.

Above all Ethiopia is dedicated to the principle of the equality of all men, irrespective of differences of race, colour or creed.” – The Teachings of HIM Hayle Selasse I

In dealing with the history and the eternal influence of Kush, it is apt that we should begin with a brief review of what, who and where this Kush really is.

The truth of the matter is in this day and age, anyone interested can simply Google the word and a lot of information is offered there. But the African reality is that not everyone has the ability, opportunity or chance to go online and search. 

So for the purpose of promoting interest and knowledge of an excellent; eventful and great African past, let us focus on searching out and developing our present according to Our own narrative and not from a history told to us by oppressors.

As they say, “A people without knowledge of their history are like a tree without roots, they cannot bear the proper fruit.” So as much as we have a large number of various nations in Africa, we start with Kush and the reasons for this will still be self evident. So here we go:

The Kingdom of Kush was an ancient Nubian state centred on the confluences of the Blue and White Nile (North Africa) and the Atbara Rivers in what is now called the Republic of Sudan.

Kush was established after the collapse of the Bronze Age and the disintegration of the New Kingdom of Egypt, it was centred at Napata in its early phase.

After King Kashta (‘TheKashite/Kushite’) invaded Egypt in the 8^th Century BC, the Kushite kings ruled as Pharaohs of the 25^th dynasty of Egypt/Kemet. For 100 years until they were expelled by Psamtial in 656 BC. During Classical Antiquity he Nubian capital was at Meroe.

In Early Greek Geography; the Meroitic kingdom was known as Ethiopia, the Nubian kingdom at Meroe persisted until the 4^th century AD, when it was defeated in a war by the Ethiopian kingdom of Axum (situated at the border between Eritrea and present day Ethiopia).

The Kingdom of Kush was established around 1070 BC.

The Capital moved to Napata in 780 BC

The Capital Moved to Meroe in 591 AD

And it was broken up by Assyrian and other forces around 350 AD.

Kushites spoke Meroitic and Nubian languages. Their religion was a mixture of indigenous knowledge systems and Ancient Egyptian Religions.

Among the present day Kushites (the Oromo of Southern Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea and some parts of Northern Kenya and Sudan) there is still a large number of them who worship God as Waaqefaana an Ancient form of God which means The One.

Waaq as It is known is said to be the Creator of all living things but IT is a Black God whose visible form is the symbolised by the Sun.

Although a lot of Kushites in the Oromia region are Muslims, Christians and Animists, there has been a huge revival of the acknowledgment of Waaq or Waaqa as the Original God.

The Kushites also built burial mounds and pyramids and shared some of the same gods (Neteru) worshipped in Egypt/Kemet, especially Ammon/Amun/Amen, Osiris/Asar/Ausar and Isis/Ast/Auset.

This is why in ancient times the Kushite rulers were regarded as the guardians of the State religion and were responsible for maintaining the Houses of the Gods/Temples.

It should be noted that the Temples in ancient African countries were also used as centres of education and initiation.

Note that the concept of Initiation and other rituals which regulate the coming of age of young people is what All African nations have in common. But this knowledge is getting lost through the ravages of Globalisation and unchecked Eurocentricism.  Afrikan/Kushite people have suffered what could be called a holocaust. Most of our parents take for-granted the knowledge of Afrikan customs and history, thus every generation loses itself through the corrosive impact of urbanisation driven by white-supremacist capitalism.

They now must realise that what we require today is not more knowledge about Israel and its well known gods ( El, Elohim, Al Shaddai and Jehovah ), neither do we require the blood of Jesus to save us from the abyss of neo-colonialism and other forms of mental and spiritual slavery, what we need is a holistic knowledge of Who We Are and Where we are from and What is Our Destiny. There is no doubt that the Ancient Egyptian forms of initiation have all the paths we require to achieve this knowledge that has the power to resurrect us.

In Ancient Egypt, Libyan princes had taken control of the delta under Sheshonq I in 945 BCE, founding the so called Libyan or Bubastite dysnasty that ruled for more than 200 years.

Sheshonq also ruled Southern Egypt by placing his family members in important priestly positions.

Thus the family of King Sheshonq served not only as knowledge keepers, but as teachers and initiators of generations of an otherwise gradually defeated people.

The 25^thKushite Dynasty was based at Napata, in Nubia, what is now The Sudan.

Alara is universally regarded as the founder of the 25^thKushite dynasty by his successors. It reached a climax under King Piye and Emperor Taharqa.

Taharqa was the son of Piye and the first 17 years of his reign were very prosperous for Kush. During this period, Writing and advanced mathematics was introduced to Kush in the form of the Kemetic( Ancient Egyptian MdwNtr ), the Meroitic script was also used especially at the Royal Court and in the Major Temples.

This is just a brief I-story of where we come from and when and how did we lose sight of who and what we are. I am grateful for the many people who have collected all this data and some of whom are putting this knowledge into proper use.

Today we are faced with many challenges all over the world, especially in Afrika which has become the most pitiable place to exist. Countless churches and sacred groves, witch-doctors and mosques have not been able to raise us up from our wretched state.

But the answers to all our questions and all our socio-economic dilemma’s have always been Within and among us, but we have spent all our time distracted by everything from the media to the incorrect spiritual practices.

TBC

Menzi Maseko (c)

Living Under The Influence

The Influential 

Everyone is influenced by someone and each one is influenced by something. There is no better way that the power of influence gets blatantly expressed than in the Art-form called Hip-Hop. They may call it everything from Sampling, Interpolation, Cross-pollination or plain old Jacking. Even as I write this, I am listening to one of Hip-Hop’s underground most celebrated new groups, Pacific Division or Pac Div to the steadily growing young fans. It’s the Blend Tape; and this being one of their pre-album tapes, there’s typically plenty of their influences ‘sampled’ for good measure. Some of the most creative tunes are the resuscitated Reflection Eternal song Definition and the ATCQ classic Bonita Apple-bum, now tentatively called ‘Put Me On’. 

Of course this is not a new thing in Hip Hop, in fact there Art-form thrives on bringing back to life all types of beats, melodies and even concepts that ordinary folks wouldn’t imagine having anything to do with Hip-Hop. It is a tradition that goes back to the foundations of Hip Hop, from the pre-Hip Hop days of Jamaican Sound Systems where DJ’s/Selectors and Singer/Toasters would simply play breaks and Versions from famous songs and sing whatever came to mind just to move the crowd.

But then moving the crowd meant something quite different to what it means today. What it meant then denoted both having a sense of fun while still being conscious of the pro’s and cons of your immediate environment. Hip Hop has evolved in many ways from the Kurtis Blow and Sugarhill Gangs anthemicparty movers into a universal multi-billion dollar industry replete with its posers, imposters and yet the true Influencers still manage to maintain the respect they deserve. 

A clear example was during this year’s Grammy Awards, when MC’s Lupe Fiasco and Common tore through the stage alongside their influencers Sugar-Hill Gang and they effectively brought the whole auditorium to their feet. It was both entertaining and educational, especially for those who think that Hip Hop begins and ends at Jay-Z and Kanye West’s proverbial throne.

Back to the Pac Div phenomenon,I do dig the youthful freshness of these guys and its fun too, which has become the crucial missing element in the music. 

They clearly are not obsessed with materialism or over zealous about women in that misogynistic manner in which the Art-form has been mistakenly imbued.  But then again that might still change as they gain more fame and they pockets get filled with ‘wads’ as one of them puts it in the song ‘Syc&Mibbs’, clearly a braggadocios ode to all things fresh, including styles.

But then again, the question is will they be able to influence the next generation after them? I can bet a trillion Zim-dollars that they most probably won’t. But this has very little to do with their raw talent, but much more to do with the nature of the Networked society in which we live. One has really got to either Shock and Awe us in order to make a lasting impression, yet again to use the phrase a lasting impression may not suffice since it is also clear that no much really lasts these days. True influence and longevity is something that can depend on a multitude of factors, ranging from a rigorous work-ethic, being at the right place at the right time. But all these factors are not only immeasurable, they are unpredictable. Hip Hop itself is the very epitome of unpredictability. Who knew that an art-form born out of the slums where Black people were meant to languish and not amount to much more than what was pre-planned for them, would elevate itself into the boardrooms of Marketing, Advertising and Public Relations firms all over the world?

Today, one is able to get all types of Hip Hop, from the Ebonics and mystical hard-core sounds of the Wu Tang Clan, Afu Ra, Killah Priest, Poor Righteous Teachers and T-Love, to the super charged and materialist posturing of Cash Money/Young Money and Bad Boy Entertainment and it is a global phenomenon with distinctive styles in every language and form.

But Hip Hop is also facing the same challenges that confront art in the networked world. Products are becoming much more difficult to differentiate, to diffuse and to sell. Yes, one can simply post their best work on Myspace, Reverb-nation, Google, and into millions of internet radio stations and portals, yet this cannot guarantee the ultimate success of their product, In fact it can be the most original work of art but if a significant number of users does not pick it up and repeatedly play it and pass it on, it becomes just another dot in the vast abyss of pseudo-significant data in cyberspace.

This brings us to the power of ideas. The Malcolm Gladwell books The Tipping Point, Click and most recently The Outliers have become worldwide best-sellers. Interestingly when I finally read these publications and listened to the audio-tapes, I did not find anything truly remarkable about the ideas postulated there, the other was surely a well read and consummate researcher and was able to scientifically come to the conclusions that there are phenomena that can be predictable and also unpredictable which influence the decisions of a consumerist society.

In Outliers he also shows how certain sociological factors can result in specifically measureable outcomes so that certain people are able to achieve much more than others. Without diminishing Gladwells hypotheses I must say that ultimately, nothing influences people more than what has been called the gut-feeling or the intuition and that is what was also meant by the Rastafarian Jamaicans when they said ‘Who Feels It Knows It.’

Menzi Maseko (c)