Presentazioni di oltre Babilonia Roma, Firenze, Mestre 17-18-19 NOV

. IGIABA SCEGO presenta il suo romanzo OLTRE BABILONIA Dalla Roma multietnica di oggi alla Somalia del colonialismo italiano lunedì 17 novembre - ore 18.00 Firenze - Libreria Feltrinelli - Via de' Cerretani 30/32 Intervengono Clotilde Barbarulli, Domenico Guarino Daniela Lastri e Leonardo Sacchetti Letture di Chiara Brilli martedì 18 novembre - ore 18.00 Roma - la Feltrinelli Libri e Musica - Piazza Colonna 31/35 Intervgono Goffredo Fofi e Alessandro Portelli Letture di Laura Sampedro mercoledì 19 novembre - ore 18.00 Mestre - la Feltrinelli Libri e Musica Piazza XXVII Ottobre 1 Intervengono Luigi Barbieri e Alessandra Sciurba www.donzelli. it Donzelli editore __,_._,___

MIRIAM MAKEBA DIES

Miriam Makeba died this night at Castel Volturno after an anticamorra, anti racists concert in honour of the writer Roberto Saviano, She had a cardiac crisis May her Soul rest in peace. English summary: by Chukbyke Castel Volturno, Miriam Makeba muore dopo il concerto anticamorra CASTEL VOLTURNO (10 novembro) - Miriam Makeba è morta questa notte nella clinica Pineta Grande di Castel Volturno dove era stata trasportata dopo essere stata colta da un malore al termine della sua esibizione al concerto anticamorra e contro il razzismo dedicato allo scrittore Roberto Saviano, tenutosi a Baia Verde di Castel Volturno. L'esibizione e il malore. La cantante sudafricana, 76 anni (era nata a Johannesburg il 4 marzo 1932) si è sentita male dopo essere scesa tra gli applausi dal palco, sul quale aveva cantato scalza per circa mezz'ora, con grande intensità. Miriam Makeba aveva cantato con il suo gruppo di sette musicisti, dopo aver ricevuto dall'assessore Corrado Gabriele una copia in inglese di Gomorra. Dopo l'esibizione ha chiesto una sedia, pensando a un malore passeggero, ma le persone vicine, tra gli altri il nipote Nelson e il manager italiano, hanno subito pensato a qualcosa di serio. Crisi cardiaca. Con una telefonata al 118 è stata fatta giungere sul posto un'autoambulanza, che ha trasferito l'artista nella clinica Pineta Grande di Castel Volturno. I medici hanno riscontrato una crisi cardiaca ed hanno avviato le cure, che sembravano aver dato un buon effetto, tanto che Miriam Makeba sembrava essersi ripresa. Dopo un po', però, è sopraggiunta una seconda e più forte crisi e la cantante è morta. La salma è stata composta nella sala mortuaria della clinica Pineta Grande. Il concerto. L'evento musicale aveva chiuso la tre giorni degli "Stati generali della scuola nel Mezzogiorno", promossa dall'assessorato alla Istruzione della Regione Campania. Il concerto, al quale hanno assistito alcune migliaia di persone, aveva visto le esibizioni di Daniele Sepe e la Brigada internazionale con elementi provenienti da diverse etnie. Poi Sonia Aimy nigeriana che vive a Torino, attrice e cantante di gran voce. Eugenio Bennato aveva scatenato i presenti con la sua musica i 2.000 presenti e prima di lui c'erano stati il jazz di Max Puglia e il sound dei 24 Grana. Non erano mancati momenti di riflessione con letture di brani di Gomorra: applausi per quelli dedicati a don Peppino Diana. http://www.ilmessaggero.it/articolo.php?id=34362&sez=HOME_SPETTACOLO#commenti

ONITSHA MARKET LITERATURE.....NOSTALGIA

Onitsha Market Literature consists of stories, plays, advice and moral discourses published primarily in the 1960s by local presses in the lively market town of Onitsha, an important commercial site in the Igbo-speaking region of southeastern Nigeria. In the fresh and vigorous genre of Onitsha Market Literature, the commoner wrote pulp fiction and didactic handbooks for those who perused the bookstalls of Onitsha Market, one of Africa’s largest trading centers.

Until 1977 my father and uncle had scores of these pamphlets in original copies. We exchanged them a lot among us then in the villages before the 'craze' for James Hardely Chase, Nick Cater etc swept in to destroy everything or take us to other developments?.........Was it GLOBALIZATION ?

In the '80 many youths went into writing short stories in pamphlets but that was short lived as film making has taken the whole stage.Nollywood, Nollywood .....na you biko!! or the real 'ebe-ano' as Enugu people would say.
Do we still write?

I came close to these literatures some years ago during a specialization course in Cultural mediation in the Rome University. An Italian lecturer who has never been to Nigeria but with a surprising knowledge of Nigerian literatures, used these literatures to explain the "understanding of a people in a time space through their literature" One of those days you are proud of Naija. I was the only Nigerian in the (course) and faculty.

Hit HERE for the story of the Onitsha market literature phenomenon.

Click HERE to see the bibliography(101) of the pamphlets and HERE for to have access to 21 digitalized pamphlets in a digital library.

Many thanks to the University of Kansas for the archives and all those who put these materials on the net.

Twenty-one pamphlets from Onitsha Market appear here fully digitized and annotated to exemplify styles of expression found in this intriguing form of African popular literature. They are part of a unique collection of 101 pamphlets from Onitsha now held at the Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas.

Charles.O Chukwubike

Nigeria to host arts summit, exhibition in Abuja

Abuja, Nigeria - Nigeria will from 7 September host the first one week of African Regional Summit and Exhibition on Visual Arts (ARESUVA) in the nation's capital, Abuja, PANA reports Thursday. The summit and exhibition are part of the efforts towards achieving rapid cultur al and economic development as envisioned in the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD).

Stakeholders from more than 30 African nations, representatives of international organisations and other parts of the world are slated to attend the event, taking place at the International Conference Centre (ICC).

Minister of Culture, Tourism and National Orientation, Prince Adetokunbo Kayode, told journalists that the summit would give Africa and Nigeria the needed globa l recognition and make the nation a tourist destination.

Kayode said adequate provision had been made to ensure the successful take-off of the summit, which is expected to generate between US$ 50 million and US$ 100 million in foreign exchange earnings.

He pointed out further that the summit was also expected to be sustained through a public/private partnership and the international business communities because of the huge value and the limitless talent in arts work.

According to him, the Nigerian visual arts would soon go on a world tour as a wa y of providing opportunity for Nigerian artists to showcase their talent as well as provide the opportunity to display Nigerian art works because already the ministry is putting in place the framework that would ensure the sustainability of ARESUVA.

On the economic benefits of the summit to Nigeria, the Director-General of the N ational Gallery of Arts Joe Musa said arts was beauty that was appreciated and t h e value of artwork was limitless.

Musa said that was why ARESUVA was put together by the National Gallery of Arts with the aim of transforming visual arts into a major economic earner in Africa i n line with the yearnings of stakeholders.

He said the summit would bring visual artists, arts scholars and other stakehold ers in the arts business together for the promotion of visual arts in Africa and would address the issue of development and setbacks in the arts sector.

According to him, it will also forge a means of providing significant and lastin g global solutions that would ensure the future of visual arts development and s u pport sustainable creative strategy for practitioners and stakeholders in the sector as a tool for economic reintegration.
http://www.afriquenligne.fr/nigeria-to-host-arts-summit,-exhibition-in-abuja-2008090511964.html
Abuja - 04/09/2008

TIMBUKTU'S MANUSCRIPTS

The Rush to Save Timbuktu's Crumbling Manuscripts

By Matthias Schulz and Anwen Roberts

Fabled Timbuktu, once the site of the world's southernmost Islamic university, harbors thousands upon thousands of long-forgotten manuscripts. A dozen academic instutions from around the world are now working frantically to save and evaluate the crumbling documents.

Susan Vogel / Icarus Films

The Grand Mosque at Djenne, Mali. The area's rich cultural heritage is only being slowly discovered.

Bundles of paper covered with ancient Arabic letters lie on tables and dusty leather stools. In the sweltering heat, a man wearing blue Muslim robes flips through a worn folio, while others are busy repairing yellowed pages.

An astonishing project is underway in Timbuktu, Mali, one of the world's poorest countries. On the southern edge of the Sahara Desert, experts are opening an enchanted Aladdin's Cave, filled with hundreds of thousands of ancient documents.

The Ahmed Baba Library alone contains more than 20,000 manuscripts, including works on herbal medicine and mathematics, yellowed volumes of poetry, music and Islamic law. Some are adorned with gilded letters, while others are written in the language of the Tuareg tribes. The contents remain a mystery.

Manuscript hunters are now scouring the environs of Timbuktu, descending into dark, clay basements and climbing up into attics. Twenty-four family-owned collections have already been discovered in the area. Most of the works stem from the late Middle Ages, when Timbuktu was an important crossroads for caravans. It was home to gold merchants and scholars, and it even boasted a university with 20,000 students. The old saying "the treasures of wisdom are only to be found in Timbuktu" summed up the ancient city's appeal.

But the legacy of the oasis, written with ink made from gallnuts, is beginning to fade. Roughly a dozen academic institutions are now involved in saving and evaluating the documents. The French are developing a database, while the United States has donated a device to digitize the damaged documents. The Norwegian cities of Oslo and Bergen are training locals to become conservators. Shamil Jeppie, a Cape Town historian charged with managing the multinational effort, recently published a book, "The Meanings of Timbuktu," in which he describes the current status of the project. European colonialists suppressed the "intellectual history of West Africa," Jeppie writes, and now it is time to rediscover the site that some have referred to as an "African Oxford."

Hunting for Mali's Hidden Documents

This is an astonishing assessment, given Timbuktu's status as a desert town in the middle of nowhere. In 1825, a European managed to navigate the difficult route down to a bend in the Niger River, south of the Sahara. By the time he reached the oasis, he had run out of water and was barely alive. Shortly after entering the city he was murdered. Timbuktu was taboo -- off-limits to Christians.

Even today, Timbuktu is not an easy place to get to. From August to February, local riverboats called pinnaces bob their way up the Niger River, landing at the port town of Kabara, 10 kilometers (6 miles) from Timbuktu. The landscape is dominated by sand dunes until shortly before the city's suburbs. The desert wind known as the Harmattan is about as pleasant as a dragon's breath.

Harlan Wallach/NUAMPS

Teams digitize rare works in the new studio in Timbuktu.

And yet the old section of the city is blanketed in an odd, heavy magic, filled with mosques topped by bulbous minarets and wealthy citizens' opulent houses, cube-shaped buildings with meter-thick walls made of baked clay.

According to an employee at the Ahmed Baba Library, Mali was overrun by the French colonial army after 1880. "The French didn't want us to have the manuscripts, and they tried to steal them," says the library worker. The documents were hidden to protect them.

But now the hunt is on. The house of Ismael Haidara, a historian whose ancestors include the Visigoths and jungle kings from southern Mali, has proven to be a treasure trove. Haidara, a private citizen, horded more than 2,000 bundles of papers, passed down through 11 generations of his family. "This is our family history," he says, pointing to a leather slipcase from the year 1519.

Albrecht Hofheinz, an Arabist from Oslo, estimates that there are up to 300,000 forgotten manuscripts in Mali. Insect bites have discolored the pages, he says. "The paper disintegrates, is destroyed by mold or eaten by termites." Time is of the essence. Some of the volumes are being photographed using a digital photo studio provided by the University of Chicago. The first of the documents are expected to be available on the Internet by the end of the year.

The contents of astronomical documents are already being analyzed. "So far 112 texts on astronomy have been discovered," explains Petra Schmidl, a historian of science at the University of Frankfurt am Main. They include calendar calculations, astrology and a depiction of the Ptolemaic world system.

Researchers are now looking forward to studying the tattered archives that contain reports on ancient oases and nomadic societies. The manuscripts also include lists of goods transported by caravans. Will the documents finally shed some light on the mysterious caravan trade?

There are many questions on how the trade thrived in the desert. The world's largest desert stretches 2,000 kilometers (1,242 miles) from north to south. How did the caravans make it through? Archaeologists have not even scratched the surface at the caravans' destinations in Ghana and the Ivory Coast.

But they have uncovered new finds in the Sahara, including traces of an ancient infrastructure. Water storage facilities have been found in the middle of the vast desert, as well as places fed by underground wells. Desert palaces once built by the Tuareg were unearthed in the Essouk oasis in northern Mali.

It is now clear that the Arabs were the first to conquer the inhospitable arid zone. While Rome's legions ventured no further than the edges of the desert, they penetrated far deeper into the Sahara.

There is evidence of a Moorish influence in Ghana by as early as 800 A.D. Vast gold deposits were found in the Ghanaian rain forest. Their owners, the Soninke kings, ruled a realm that stretched to the banks of the Senegal River.

Point of Departure for Desert Journeys

According to Arab accounts, the black rulers lived in tents guarded by large dogs wearing gold and silver collars and manacles. According to Arab geographer al-Bakir, one of these kings commanded an army of 200,000 soldiers.

Alyssa Banta

A private family library in the Tuareg village of Ber, 40 miles east of Timbuktu.

The country provided cola nuts, ivory, cotton and semiprecious stones. Local traders loaded their goods onto cargo boats and transported them on the Niger to Timbuktu. The city was the point of departure for journeys into the desert.

Camels stood at Timbuktu's water troughs. Its residents included Arabs, light-skinned Berbers and dark-skinned members of the Malinke tribe. The oasis smelled of lamb dung and fresh spices, and muezzins called out from its minarets. Gold, a form of payment, glistened everywhere -- as dust, nuggets and fist-sized lumps.

In 1324, when Kankan Mussa, one of the kings of Mali, went on a pilgrimage to Mecca, via Cairo, with his ostentatious entourage, he was so generous with the precious metal (he had brought along two tons of it) that gold prices on the Nile plunged. News of the wealthy black monarch even reached faraway Europe. A Catalan map of the world depicts him with thick lips and holding a scepter.

Kankan was so impressed by the palaces of the Orient that he brought home an architect, who created malleable mud-brick imitations of the Arab mosques in Timbuktu. The Djingerber Mosque, with its sugarloaf-shaped towers, still stands in the city today.

DER SPIEGEL

The historical trans-Saharan trading routes.

There is an even larger mosque in nearby Djenne, part fairytale castle and part termite hill. Each year after the rainy season, when cracks have formed in the outside walls, hundreds of workers participate in what has become a national pastime cum religious service. Men climb up along wooden scaffolding in the outside walls, praying as they climb, to apply fresh mud to the structure.

For many years, such customs were all but unknown in Europe (US ethnologist Susan Vogel filmed the annual mud plaster ceremony last year for the first time). In the past, those traveling to Timbuktu had to traverse seemingly endless volcanic plains and rocky plateaus -- at temperatures of up to 55 degrees Celsius (131 degrees Fahrenheit). The area south of Murzuk, an oasis notorious for its role in the slave trade, consists of a vast, shimmering sand bowl measuring 90,000 square kilometers (34,700 square miles, or about the size of Portugal).

Anyone who lost his way there was literally baked.

The Arabs only managed to complete the journey through the desert with the help of camels. A camel can drink 200 liters of water at a time, and its kidneys retrieve large amounts of water after urination. The Arabs also enlisted the help of the Tuareg tribes, which lived on ridges in the central Sahara.

Even there, surrounded by hyper-arid sand pans, volcanic basalt chimneys and pinnacles, life was possible. The Tuareg drilled deep wells, and they had their black slaves excavate long underground canals with slight inclines to bring in ground water.

Archaeologists have shown that an incredible system of underground canals up to 20,000 kilometers (12,422 miles) long once existed at Wadi al-Hayat in Libya. Thanks to such hydraulic marvels, the desert blossomed and crops sprouted in the fields of the Tuareg. In Essouk, they ate gazelles and dried perch, imported from the Niger River, 240 kilometers away. Murzuk, with its large slave market, was surrounded by a massive wall with seven gates -- in the middle of the Sahara.

A Source of African Pride

But nothing worked without the blue-robed Tuareg. They provided provisions for the caravans and led them to the oases. At times, they turned to blackmail and looting, and Timbuktu was attacked several times.

Researchers are anxious to discover more about the haggling between ethnic groups and how they divided up the spoils. In the late Middle Ages, Cairo was sending 12,000 camels a year to Mali. There were plenty of fortunes to be made.

The slave trade was especially lucrative. Guards carrying whips drove the slaves through the hot desert. "Only the youngest and strongest survived the two-month desert trek, and they were walking skeletons by the time they reached the Fezzan region, where they were fattened up," writes Austrian geographer Hans Weis.

The Koran also made its way into sub-Saharan Africa along these torturous routes. In its heyday, Timbuktu had 180 Koran schools. "A large library was built, where the fundamental theological and philosophical works were copied," explains Thomas Krings, an Africa expert at the University of Freiburg in southwestern Germany. The many documents that were penned then are now emerging in Mali as crumbling volumes. "Many people consider Timbuktu to be the end of the world," says Mahamoudou Baba Hasseye, the owner of a valuable private collection, "but it was an important center of Islamic scholarship."

Calligraphers once plied their trade in the desert. Some of the manuscripts uncovered in Timbuktu contain gold lettering, and some are written in the unusual Songhai and Fulfulbe tribal languages.

These treasures are still a long way from being saved. The libraries are filled with bits and pieces of paper, evidence of crumbling manuscripts. The government of South Africa promised to build a library in Timbuktu years ago, but nothing ever came of it.

But at least there are many who have come to Timbuktu to help save its ancient manuscripts. The project, which historian Petra Schmidl characterizes as being on the "extreme fringe of the Islamic academic community," is a source of great pride for Africans.

"Africa has repeatedly been portrayed as culturally inferior," says Essop Pahad, South Africa's Minister in the Presidency. "In Timbuktu, we are proving that the opposite is true."

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,569560,00.html

Shailja Patel

Questa poesia fa parte della performance della bella indo-africana-kenyota Shailja Patel
L'ho conosciuta in Svezia ed è bravissima!!!
Ve l'allego in inglese e nella traduzione di Marta Matteini; nel file prima c'e' l'italiano e poi l'inglese.

SCROLL DOWN FOR THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION

______________________________________

3. La vecchia con il tamburo: un tributo a Bi Kidude

1.

La donna posò il tamburo sull'erba, di fronte a sé.

Si avvolse un morbido telo intorno ai fianchi.

Come se stesse per lavare i panni, tagliare le verdure

legarsi sulla schiena il bambino per andare al mercato.

Nessuno di noi le fece caso.

La donna si imbrigliò il tamburo ai fianchi.

Un tamburo msondo che le arrivava all'altezza del petto, due palmi di diametro

Lo inclinò e se lo infilò tra le gambe.

Si sistemò per bene.

Tirò su la schiena.

Le spalle e il collo, pronti a scattare.

La bocca con le gengive in bella vista.

Dal lembo rialzato del telo spuntano le gambe magre e forti.

I piedi ben radicati a terra

Come se fosse arrivato il momento

Di darsi da fare.

Come se stesse andando

A lavorare.

All'improvviso, ci troviamo

Sul pianeta Kidude.

Dove gli uomini si muovono rapidi sulla stuoia:

piazzano i microfoni, sistemano i fili, si agitano per puntare le telecamere.

E la vecchia non si cura di nessuno.

Perché sono ottant'anni che suona il tamburo

Ben prima che esistessero le telecamere e i microfoni.

Anni e anni in cui ha trasportato il suo tamburo

incespicando tra la polvere

in tutta la Tanzania da cima a fondo

Per suonare.

Anni e anni in cui ha affrontato

La paura, gli insulti, le beffe

Il silenzio che ti distrugge l'anima

Sopravvive soltanto il fuoco più resistente.

Anni e anni in cui si è spinta sempre più nel profondo

Fino a toccare il centro del suo ritmo.

Questa è Bi Kidude.

Una virtuosa di musica Taraab, iniziatrice di Unyago.

Una donna che a novantacinque anni

Ha percorso più miglia a piedi

Di quante ne abbia fatte chiunque di noi in macchina.

Rivendica un lignaggio

Musicale radicato

Nelle vite di chi non ha niente

Storie raccontate nel linguaggio della strada e del mercato

Poesia sepolta nei corpi delle donne.

II.

Non ho mai visto una donna a cavallo del tamburo

Come una dea che cavalca la tigre

Come la creazione che cavalca il cosmo.

Non ho mai visto una donna a cavallo del tamburo.

Non ho mai visto un artista

Né uomo né donna

In nessun posto al mondo

Possedere il proprio strumento

Come se uscisse dal suo ventre

Come se fosse saldato

Alle sue cosce.

III.

Poi arrivano le danzatrici.

Le danzatrici si muovono lentamente.

Posano i cellulari, scuotono i loro teli.

Gioielli d'oro alle orecchie, al collo, ai polsi;

l'oro luccica nelle loro bocche.

Le danzatrici risucchiate dal movimento

Come un pezzo di verdura scivola nell'olio bollente

Poi risale in superficie

E inizia a friggere.

Adesso le danzatrici muovono i fianchi

Con precisione ed equilibrio, controllano

la propria forza, ogni singolo muscolo

gli atleti olimpionici morirebbero d'invidia.

Ondeggiano i fianchi

Per tutte noi

A cui è stato insegnato, imposto

Di rinnegare i nostri corpi. Per tutte le donne

Che sono state

Derubate del proprio corpo.

Spingono i sederi spumeggianti all'indietro

con democratica generosità.

Si burlano di un'anziana avvolta nel buibui nero.

Scherniscono il turista bianco con i dread locks

Che si finge distaccato

Dietro gli occhiali scuri

Mentre vedo che il collo gli diventa rosso

E si riga di gocce di sudore.

Le danzatrici agitano i fianchi

Per le cameriere

Dell'Africa House Hotel. Intrappolate

In disgustose, orribili, scadenti e soffocanti

gonne nere e camicie bianche

di un tessuto che fa sudare

mentre servono cocktail alle turiste in short e bikini.

Perché non sia mai detto che chi serve

senta la brezza leggera sulla pelle

non sia mai detto che chi serve

possa muovere i fianchi e il busto

in abiti comodi

di colori che vibrano.

Dimenticheremmo che sono personale di servizio.

Potremmo

Accorgerci di loro.

Le danzatrici agitano i fianchi per le donne

Quelle cameriere intanto servono. Turiste

In bikini dalle facce slavate

Sul bordo della piscina del Serena's.

Donne che controllano i loro corpi quotidianamente

A caccia di un po' di grasso in più

Di un'abbondanza da condannare.

Donne che condividono la tragica sorellanza

Della liposuzione, della chirurgia estetica

la silenziosa epidemia delle morti da anoressia.

Donne a cui hanno insegnato che essere belle

significa cancellare se stesse.

Queste danzatrici ruotano i fianchi

Per le seimila bambine che oggi stesso

Sono state tenute ferme, con le gambe divaricate, le mani legate,

imbavagliate, bendate, torturate

oltre ogni sopportazione, violentate

oltre ogni limite, circoncise

per colpa

di un clitoride.

Agitano i fianchi per ogni donna

Che ha preso il virus dell'Hiv

Da un uomo che ha dato più valore al suo piacere

Che alla vita di lei.

Queste donne che circondano Bi Kidude

Come pianeti intorno al sole

Le si agitano intorno come le vipere dello Snake Temple

Come pantere sinuose

Intorno alla primigenia fonte del suono;

si agitano per riportare nel mondo

la generosità

dei corpi femminili.

Con i fianchi e i sederi dicono SÍÍ!!!

SÍ

All'abbondanza che non si vergogna.

SÍ

Al potere, alla conoscenza

Che non si mascherano più.

SÍ

Al piacere,

rivendicato e conferito

ai nostri bei corpi mortali.

IV.

Non ho più paura di invecchiare

Dopo aver sentito Bi Kidude

Cantare forte

A novantacinque anni

Senza microfono

Onde sonore macchiate di tabacco

Cartavetrate fino a diventare sottili come la fibra di cocco

Più resistenti dei cavi d'acciaio.

Non ho più paura di invecchiare

Dopo aver visto Bi Kidude –

un viso non mai sfiorato da

Una crema antirughe,

da un peeling antiage con acido glicolico,

un viso che trangugia whisky e sigarette

per ogni grammo di idratante che uso io –

ipnotizzare centinaia di telecamere.

Ho sentito la forza del collo di questa donna,

i muscoli delle sue spalle

un tuono che si innalza

e il braccio che scende e poi la mano sul tamburo;

scatena più elettricità

di dieci Madonne

di cento Fela Kuti accompagnati da sedici musicisti

ci riporta al centro della creazione

dove nasce il suono.

V.

Credo in Bi Kidude

Come non credo in dio.

Ma se dio fosse una donna di novantacinque anni, nera come l'ebano

Una donna swahili

Che dice di avere centoventi anni,

con la bocca piena di denti rotti e di buchi

con le mani percorse dalle vene come i tronchi di banyan

il tamburo in mezzo alle gambe

la sigaretta tra le labbra sagge e insolenti

una banconota che sventola dalla scollatura;

se dio cantasse versi taglienti e maliziosi

sui pericoli del rotolino di tabacco

che tiene in bocca;

se dio fosse anche ironia, lussuria, contraddizione

sofferenza, imperfezione;

se dio sbandierasse le sue battaglie come un mantello di velluto,

se orchestrasse gli atomi dell'universo

secondo il ritmo del suo ventre

allora forse sì crederei in quel dio.

Quel dio che è solo il nome

Del genio che sta dentro tutti noi

Che fa di noi il nostro imam e il nostro profeta

La nostra divinità.

Esorterei i fedeli a pregare:

Sia lode a Kidude! Kidude urrah!

E loro risponderebbero: Urrah!

Risponderebbero: Urrah!

Risponderebbero: URRAH!

E tutti noi diventeremmo

dio.

Shailja Patel, 2006

Drum Rider: A Tribute to Bi Kidude

I.

The woman planted a drum on the grass before her.
Twisted a soft worn khanga round her hips.
As if she was going to wash clothes, chop vegetables;
hike a child to her back to go to market.
None of us really paid any attention.

The woman harnessed her hips to the drum.
Chest-high, foot-in-diameter msondo drum.
Rocked it aslant between her straddled legs.
Settled into position.
Sunken chest erect.
Shoulders, neck, at the ready.
Mouth set over gaping gums.
Khanga hiked up skinny strong legs.
Feet grounded in the earth
like it was time
to do business.
Like she was going
to work.

Suddenly, we are on
Planet Kidude.
Where men scurry across the mat:
place mics, arrange wires, jostle for camera views.
Where the woman ignores them all.
Because she did this for eight decades
before there were cameras, mics.
Decades she hoisted her drum
trudged rich dirt
the length and breadth of Tanzania
to perform.
Decades she fought off
terror, insults, mockery
the soul-destroying silence
only the strongest fire survives.
Decades she t ravelled deep and deeper
to the heart of her own rhythm.

This is Bi Kidude.
Virtuoso of Taraab, Unyago.
Woman who at ninety-five,
has walked more miles
than most of us have driven.
Claimed a lineage
of music rooted
in the lives of the powerless
stories unfurled in language of street and market
poetry buried in the bodies of women.

II.

I have never seen a woman ride a drum before
like a goddess rides a tiger
like creation rides the cosmos.
I have never seen a woman ride a drum like this.
I have never seen an artist
male or female
anywhere across the globe
own their instrument like
it grew out of their belly,
like it was welded
to their thighs.

III.

Then, there were the dancers.

The dancers moved lazily.
Dropped their cellphones, shook out their khangas.
Gold at their ears, their necks, their wrists;
gold gleamed in their mouths.

The dancers slipped into movement
as a bhajia slips into hot oil
rises to the surface
starts to sizzle.

Now the dancers work their hips
with a precision of balance, control
a potency of strength, of muscle isolation
Olympic gymnasts would envy.

They shake their hips
for all of us
who have been taught, coerced
to disown our bodies. For all women
whose bodies
have been stolen from them.

They thrust their succulent buttocks out
with democratic largesse.
Tease the old woman in the black buibui.
Taunt the white-boy, dreadlocked tourist,
who feigns coolness
behind his wraparound sunglasses,
while I watch his neck turn scarlet

drip with sweat.

The dancers work their hips
for the waitresses
at Africa House Hotel. Caged

in the most godawful
ugly, cheap, confining
sweat-producing black skirts, white shirts
to serve drinks to tourists in shorts and bikinis.

Because heaven forbid those who serve
should ever feel breeze on their skins
heaven forbid those who serve
should move their hips and torsos
freely in clothes that flow
colours that hum.
We might forget they are servants.
We might
see them.

The dancers shake their hips for the women

those waitresses serve. Waxy-pale
bikini-clad tourists
at Serena's poolside.
Women who check their bodies daily
for criminal fat
outlawed abundance of flesh.
Women of the tragic sisterhood
of liposuction, surgical alteration
silent epidemic of anorexia deaths.
Women taught that beauty
equals self-annihilation.

These dancers swivel their hips
for the six-thousand girl children who today
were held down, legs spread, hands tied,
gagged, blindfolded, tortured
beyond screaming, violated
beyond horror, circumcised
for the crime
of a clitoris.

They move their hips for every woman
infected with HIV
by a man who valued her life
less than his gratification.

These women who circle Bi Kidude
as planets orbit the sun
circle like temple snakes
sinuous panthers
the source where sound begins;
they are shaking the bounty
of women's bodies
back into the world.

Their hips and butts are saying: YESS!!
YES
to largeness that does not apologise.
YES
to power, knowledge,
that do not disguise themselves.
YES
to pleasure,
claimed and vested
in our mortal beautiful bodies.

III

I will never fear aging again
because now I have heard Bi Kidude
belt out
at ninety-five
without a mic
tobacco-stained waves of sound
sandpapered down to coconut fibre
stronger than cables of steel.

I will never fear aging again
because now I have seen Bi Kidude -
whose face has never touched
an anti-wrinkle cream,
an age-defying glycolic acid enzyme peel,
who knocks back whisky, cigarettes
for every ounce of moisturizer I consume -
hypnotise a hundred cameras.

I have felt the power of this woman's neck,
her shoulder muscles
surge thunder
down arm to hand to drum;
generate more electricity
than ten Madonnas
a hundred Fela Kutis with sixteen-piece bands
take us back to the center of fertile creation
where sound begins.

IV.

I believe in Bi Kidude
the way I don't believe in god.

But if god were a ninety-five-year old, ebony black
Swahili woman,
who claims to be one hundred and twenty,
with a mouth full of broken and missing teeth
hands veined like banyan trees
a drum between her legs
a kijiti at her defiant, all-knowing lips
a shillingi-mia-kumi note flapping out of her neckline;

if god chanted wickedly satirical shairi
about the dangers of the very deathstick
she sucks on;

if god embraced irony, lust, contradiction
heartbreak, imperfection;
if god flaunted her struggles like a velvet cape,
rearranged the atoms of the world
with the rhythm of her gut

then maybe I would believe
in that god.
That god who is only a name
for the genius in all of us
that makes us our own imam and prophet
our own divinity.

I would call the faithful to prayer:
Bomba Kidude! Kidude Saafi!

And they would holler back: Saafi!
They would holler back: Saafi!
They would holler back: SAAFI!

And we would all be

god.

- Shailja Patel, 2006, www.shailja.com

Glossary:

taraab - traditional music of Zanzibar
unyago - Swahili women's drumming and music, used to educate young women into adult sexuality and prepare them for marriage
bhajia - deep fried batter-dipped lentil / vegetable dumpling
buibui - head-to-toe black garment worn by conservative Muslim women on the East African coast.
kijiti - cigarette
shillingi-mia-kumi - ten thousand shillings. In the taraab tradition, audience members tuck money into the clothing of musicians as a tribute
shairi - swahili lyrical poetry
saafi - literal translation is 'clean' , but the word is used as a public accolade, shout of audience approval

-

__._,_.___

Zebrudaya - Happy Bad day

ENJOY THIS AND FOLLOW THE LINKS TO OTHER RELATED ZEBRUDAYA'S SHOWS OF THE '70S AND '80S

Madonne nere

Nell'arte italiana troviamo diversi esempi di madonne nere.
Le maggiori "Madonne Nere" sono:
Maria Mater Gratiae Santissima Vergine di Oropa a Biella,
il Sacro Monte di Santa Maria Assunta di Serralunga di Crea,
Nostra Signora di Loreto a Graglia (Biella),
la Madonna Nera di Groscavallo "Santuario di Forno" Alpi Graie (Torino),
la Madonna Nera di Rivoli (Torino),
la Madonna Nera di Sampeyre (Cuneo),
la Madonna Nera di Trana (Torino),
Nostra Signora di Celle a Trofarello (Torino),
la Madonna del Sasso Malesco a Finero (Verbano);
in Lombardia: la Madonna del Sacro Monte a Varese,
la Madonna Nera di Rogaro a Tremezzo (Como),
la Madonna di Loreto a Chiavenna (Sondrio);
la Madonna Neradi Tresivio (Sondrio);
in Veneto: la Beata Vergine Nicopeja - Venezia,
la Madonna Neradi Pralongo (Treviso);
in Friuli Venezia Giulia: la Beata Vergine di Castelmonte a Cividale (Udine);
in Emilia Romagna: la Beata Vergine di San Luca a Bologna (simbolo della città e dell'affetto mariano dei bolognesi),
la Madonna Neradi Carboniano a Gemmano (Rimini);
in Liguria: Nostra Signora delle Grazie a Sori (Genova);
in Toscana: Santa Maria Cortelandini detta "Santa Maria Nera" a Lucca,
la Madonna del Monserrato a Porto Azzurro–Fosso di Riale (Isola d'Elba);
nelle Marche: la Madonna Nera di Loreto – Ancona,
Beata Vergine della Tempesta - Tolentino (Macerata);
in Abruzzo: la Madonna di Monte Tranquillo a Pescasseroli (L'Aquila);
in Lazio: Maria Santissima di Valverde a Tarquinia (Viterbo),
la Madonna Nera della Civita di Itri (Latina),
Maria Santissima di Canneto "Santuario di Canneto" in località Settefrati (Frosinone),
la Madonna Nera della Chiesa Santa Lucia Vergine Maria a Fontechiari (Frosinone);
in Campania: Maria Santissima del Carmine a Napoli,
Maria Santissima la Bruna a Puccianiello (Caserta),
Santa Maria Assunta a Positano (Salerno);
in Puglia: Maria Santissima del Soccorso "Santuario del Soccorso" San Severo (Foggia),
Maria Santissima Incoronata "Santuario dell'Incoronata" (Foggia),
la Madonna Nera di Rovereto a Terlizzi (Bari),
Maria Santissima di Carpignano Salentino (Lecce);
in Basilicata: la Madonna del Sacro Monte a Viggiano (Potenza);
in Calabria: la Madonna Nera dei Carbonari a Longobucco (Cosenza),
la Madonna della Lettera a Palmi (Reggio Calabria),
Maria Santissima di Patmos a Rosarno (Reggio Calabria),
la Madonna Nera di Capocolonna di Crotone,
la Madonna Nera di Seminara a Reggio Calabria;
in Sicilia: la Madonna Nera di Tindari a Messina;
in Sardegna: Madonna Nera di Cagliari.

Le più visitate -fra quelle menzionate- sono: Loreto, Oropa, Crea, Foggia, Tindari, Viggiano.

Black Jesus

blackjesus
Originally uploaded by Chukwubike Okey C

A SET OF BLACK ARTS AND SOME ARTISTIC PICTURES WILL BE COMING YOUR WAY ONCE IN A WHILE WAY THOUGH THIS BLOG

NENWE....Amaka Oforbuike

Love for the poor drove me to music – Amaka Oforbuike, gospel singer
By NGOZI ECHENDU and LAWRENCE NWALI

Fast-rising gospel singer, Amaka Oforbuike, has every cause to show gratitude to God for her latest effort, entitled: Chidimma. The consummate artiste and a graduate of English from the University of Lagos, earlier in the year, came out with her debut album, Chidinma (God is Good).

Speaking with Daily Sun at her album presentation last weekend, the artiste spoke on her new album, the menace of piracy, inspirations, and other challenges of the industry.

Background
I hail from Nenwe in Agwu Local Government area of Enugu State. I'm the second in a family of five. I attended Housing Estate Primary School, Abakpa, Enugu following which I proceeded to Girls High School Awkunanaw Enugu for my secondary school education. I also attended the University of Lagos where I obtained a B.A (Hons) in English Language. At present, I'm pursuing a Masters Degree in Public Administration at Esut Business School.

Inspiration
God inspired me by giving me a good voice. I believe that the only place my voice can be useful is when I sing for God. I started singing from primary school. Over the years, I have nurtured myself in music ministration and I know that the sky is my limit.

Career choice
I had wanted to be a lawyer because I feel for the oppressed. I hate seeing people's rights being trampled upon. For me to fight back, I told myself that I would love to be a lawyer, so that I could defend the poor. But considering the fact that my God-given talent is to sing, I had sacrificed my law ambition for music.

Album
I have produced two albums, the first one is entitled: "Chinaza" (God answers Prayer), while the second album is Chidimma (God is Good).

Hit track
The most thrilling track on my second album is I will not shed tears anymore. It is actually a message of consolation and encouragement. It connotes that there will be no more suffering, sorrow, untimely death and sickness among others.

Nigerian music industry
I thank God, the industry is growing but I believe if we are more devoted to it, it will grow bigger in the future.

PMAN
I am not a member of PMAN because the Church has been part of me. I am a chief singer in my church, Household of Love Church, where I perform regularly but I believe I will join PMAN and other relevant bodies soon.

Challenges
First, there is the Nigerian factor, whereby people would not want you to outshine them. The second one is finance. But with God on my side, the sky is my limit.

Message
My albums are actually produced to correct the ills and some erroneous beliefs in the society. The message in Chinaza connotes that God answers prayer. So, whatever you do in life always believe that God is the only one who answers prayers but not the devil. The second album, Chidimma, also maintains that God is good no matter the circumstance.

Piracy
Pirates are enemies to Nigerian music industry because they reap where they did not sow. Ordinarilly, artistes are not supposed to go hungry because Nigerians love music and they patronize it. I pray that God will intervene for Nigerian artistes, so that they can smile again.

Advice to other upcoming artistes
First, they should trust in God and remained focused. Second, they should be consistent in what they are doing without listening to anybody but God the sky will be their limit.

Impact of music
My music is the type that heals the soul both physically and spiritually. It is a kind of music that brings in favour and blessings to those who listen to it. Then, in response to that, they call me on daily basis on how my music has changed their lives.

http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/features/showtime/2007/dec/28/showtime-28-12-2007-003.htm