You have to give props where due!
Niggy Tardust aka Saul Williams on stage somewhere.
This picture speaks better than words!
mercredi 14 janvier 2009
Best Stage Outfit Nominee...
You have to give props where due!
Niggy Tardust aka Saul Williams on stage somewhere.
This picture speaks better than words!
When despair meets talent.: Dambudzo Marechera (Zimbabwe 1952 - 1987)
Just finished reading "House of Hunger" by Zimbabwean writer/poet Dambudzo Marechera.
Good lord, it actually felt like a punch in the stomach. The paradox of so much violence expressed so beautifully, makes it clear why he called himself the "dopelganger whom, until [he] appeared, African Literature had never met".
The book, written while Marechera had dropped out of university and living in Oxford, was actually awarded the Guardian Fiction prize in 1979 and followed by Black Sunlight, The Black Insider, Mindblast and a couple of unpublished works.
He also said of himself: "My whole life has been an attempt to make myself a skeleton in my own cupboard".
I think that is pretty self-explanatory.
He died practically homeless in the streets of Harare of an AIDS related pulmonary infection at 35. I wonder what he would say about the actual beyond-words situation in his country...
Shut up and Listen to... Anthony Joseph!
Although I've already said it... I love words: poets, writers, lyricists, painters (yes, painters!), grafitti artists, even -some- politicians.So it is only normal that Anthony Joseph knocked me off my feet, on my previous post, I was talking about him being @ Son d'Hiver Festival on the 13th of Feb, and I had only listened to some excerpts of his pieces, but today I was able to listen over and over again to five or six full songs (Vero, Bermudez, River of Masks, Jo Sam meets Bo Nugg uptown and Gnawa poetry...) OhMiLord!
Although he is a newcomer on MY newborn musical universe, he's already accomplished lotsa things: he's written a couple of published essays, books ("The African Origins of U.F.O." -can you imagine?),poetry collections, etc. Looking forward to reading his stuff.
Some may disagree, but I think his poetry resembles Ben Okri's quite a lot: Super creative poetry full of magical/futuristic metaphors... sublime!
He's currently on tour internationally solo and with his Jazz quartet The Spasm Band. Beautiful sound they make together.
And of course... i had to make a very personal comment: VERO, featuring Mr African Music Maverick himself: Keziah "Rugged" Jones (on bass) is a masterpiece.
Maybe I've said it before, but Mr Jones is probably my favorite musician; Hey Keziah Jones, if by any chance you're reading this, you are my favorite musician!
Go Black Britain!
You can check Mr Anthony "Genius" Joseph's myspace up HERE...
And for you lazy friends who cannot google his official websilte, voilà!
Now that you've heard what he sounds/feels like, what are y'all doing on Feb 13?
*: Picture copyright of anthonyjoseph.co.uk
lundi 5 janvier 2009
And another one...
In the end, january does not feel any different from september. Two weeks of almost complete holiday have given us enough time to re-think certain aspects of our lives and some of us have come up with all kind of New Years resolutions, notices to quit and tightly scheduled plans for the upcoming year.
Well I have survived enough scandalous New Year's Eve parties to know that I am not the kind of person to stick to pre-planned agendas.
So this year I will just keep on doing me.
Keep praying for discipline.
Keep giving thanks for the wonderful People around me.
Keep appreciating my wine and all the other pain numbing solutions I have steadily grown familiar with over the past years (and no, it is not THAT bad).
And above all, I will work hard, love harder and take even more risks.
In the end, 2009 will be a continuity of... 2008. Duh.
And this january i have some things that are stubbornly in my mind:
- Herman Deza:
The young "underground" photographer who has been missing for the past week and more. I don't know him and I had never heard of him before MISSING posters of him all around Paris. I am really praying for a happy ending to this story.
- Vegans... I've been a vegetarian for a while now and I'm thinking of taking it a step further ( hey, that reminds me of that wonderful movie/documentary with Woody Harrelson where him and his friends tour the US of A in a hemp fuelled bus to talk in universities about the impact that eanimal eating has on the environmental issue: GO FURTHER. If you have the opportunity you should definetely check it out). There is no reason why i should fail in doing so. I'll keep you posted.
- Where can I get a copy of that dope poster of the Sons d'Hiver festival? I was grinning when I saw it.
Curently listening to:
Keziah Jones - Nigerian Funk
mardi 16 décembre 2008
CONCERT
Anthony Joseph and Saul Williams are coming to Paris in February. Lucky us!
I had never heard of Anthony Joseph until last week. I checked his myspace (www.myspace.com/adjoseph), and this trini/british brother and the Spasm Band are beautiful all around!
Saul Williams or Niggy Tardust. The effect of his poetry is Physical. Hypnotic.
I already told you that I love WORDS.
I'll be damned if I miss out. If YOU do, then, as we say in Swahili: KAZI YAKO (your problem!)!
That's Black avant-garde for you. (Keziah Jones where you at?)
Anthony Joseph and the Spasm Band
Saul Williams aka Niggy Tardust
Feb 13th 2009
Festival Sons d'Hiver- Créteil
Fee: 15 euros
J'aime la Seine!
I have butterflies in my stomach everytime I see the River Seine.
Its beauty, mystery, power and serenity bewitch me.If the Seine was human, I think she would be a Woman,
If the Seine was a Man, I know I would be in Love with him.
vendredi 12 décembre 2008
Saul Williams on Meat-Eating. (Preach, Niggy, Preach!)
The whole article is amazing but basically i chose to select the part that inspires/concerns me the most. Although my personal decision to switch to a vegetarian diet was not based on scientifical or statistical facts, these Niggy Tardust aka Saul Williams' words are a tremendous encouragement. All I could say after reading this was: AMEN!
Saul Williams on Life, Meat-eating, Selling Out, Will smith and everything else.
(via his Myspace Blog)
(...)
While sitting on a plane, on my way back from Lollapalooza, reading Thanking The Monkey by Karen Dawn, it struck me that this was the second awesomely inspiring and informative book I was reading this summer without sharing my thanks by spreading the word. I am sometimes hesitant about making a big deal about my vegan diet, as I have considered it a personal choice worth little discussion. Yet more and more, I have found myself attempting to encourage people who ask me where I find my inspiration, or what issues do I find important, or how can we curb warfare and violence to consider what we ingest. A story was recently recounted to me of a popular TV chef who chose to raise little piglets on his show to insure that they were fed organic food and not injected with chemicals (as is the practice on most factory farms), all for the sake of fattening them up for their slaughter and another primetime recipe. Yet, the time that this chef spent with these pigs taught him a valuable lesson (more valuable for the pigs, no doubt). What he learned was how intelligent pigs are. In fact, in recent times, it is common knowledge for most that pigs are arguably more intelligent than “mans best friend” and companion, the dog.
For our chef, this meant switching gears and realizing that he could not consciously kill this intelligent animal, that it would constitute a murder as brutal as slicing your fluffy pets neck and watching it writhe and bleed to death, or sticking an electric prod up its ass and electrocuting it, if the fur or skin is of value…
It may seem like I have just taken a turn to the graphically extreme, I wouldn’t want to make you “lose your lunch”, but these are the common practices perpetuated by the factory farm industry on millions of animals a day, in the name of your breakfast lunch and dinner. And, no, I’m not simply talking about pigs, but also cows, chickens, turkey, horses (that’s right horses. Everyday), and fish. Everyday, our species participates in the mass genocide of other species without care or concern or even questioning whether the violence that we ingest and condone plays any role in our apathetic support of the war machine we have become.
How is it that we as human beings can represent both the highest and most developed and lowest and least concerned forms of intelligence of any living species? Are we simply glued to age-old barbaric traditions that cloud our senses and render us inhumane in our dependence on comfort foods and practices? Is our dependence on foreign oil the only thing we need to curb? What about not so foreign species?
Some might argue that artists are a race or species apart from the common person. Yet we all identify with the teachings of Gandhi, the genius of Einstein, the art of Leonardo Da Vinci, Picasso, Rembrandt and the talent and compassion of living artists like Alice Walker, Will Smith, The Mars Volta, Dead Prez, Prince and countless others. Some of us choose to emulate their styles, their fashion, their career choices, but why not their diets? If our brightest most celebrated stars all have this one thing in common why are we so slow in connecting the dots for ourselves? Perhaps the biggest issue at hand is not what our cars run on, but essentially what do we run on? The fact is that factory farms are the number one users of crude oil, not cars. That’s basically what it takes to kill approximately one million chickens per hour (just in the US). More than half of our water supply goes to feed animals being fattened for slaughter. The methane gases that contribute to global warming are produced majorly by cow farts in factory farms, not to mention the amount of fossil fuels needed to create just one pound of beef.
Yep. You doing the math? Basically if we shifted our compassion towards animals, the domino effect would heal the planet. We’d no longer be cutting down rain forests to create more space for cows to graze, we’d stop depleting the ocean of the necessary (keyword: necessary) food chains that our eco system depends on, diseases including many cancers, heart disease, obesity, and others which find their root in the food/toxins we ingest would slowly disappear as would our taste for violence.
Which brings me to the other book I read this summer that inspired me to reevaluate every aspect of what I’ve been taught through the news and media, especially concerning the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. That book is The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.
So what are you reading?
I know what you should be listening to,
Niggy.
(via his Myspace Blog)
(...)
While sitting on a plane, on my way back from Lollapalooza, reading Thanking The Monkey by Karen Dawn, it struck me that this was the second awesomely inspiring and informative book I was reading this summer without sharing my thanks by spreading the word. I am sometimes hesitant about making a big deal about my vegan diet, as I have considered it a personal choice worth little discussion. Yet more and more, I have found myself attempting to encourage people who ask me where I find my inspiration, or what issues do I find important, or how can we curb warfare and violence to consider what we ingest. A story was recently recounted to me of a popular TV chef who chose to raise little piglets on his show to insure that they were fed organic food and not injected with chemicals (as is the practice on most factory farms), all for the sake of fattening them up for their slaughter and another primetime recipe. Yet, the time that this chef spent with these pigs taught him a valuable lesson (more valuable for the pigs, no doubt). What he learned was how intelligent pigs are. In fact, in recent times, it is common knowledge for most that pigs are arguably more intelligent than “mans best friend” and companion, the dog.
For our chef, this meant switching gears and realizing that he could not consciously kill this intelligent animal, that it would constitute a murder as brutal as slicing your fluffy pets neck and watching it writhe and bleed to death, or sticking an electric prod up its ass and electrocuting it, if the fur or skin is of value…
It may seem like I have just taken a turn to the graphically extreme, I wouldn’t want to make you “lose your lunch”, but these are the common practices perpetuated by the factory farm industry on millions of animals a day, in the name of your breakfast lunch and dinner. And, no, I’m not simply talking about pigs, but also cows, chickens, turkey, horses (that’s right horses. Everyday), and fish. Everyday, our species participates in the mass genocide of other species without care or concern or even questioning whether the violence that we ingest and condone plays any role in our apathetic support of the war machine we have become.
How is it that we as human beings can represent both the highest and most developed and lowest and least concerned forms of intelligence of any living species? Are we simply glued to age-old barbaric traditions that cloud our senses and render us inhumane in our dependence on comfort foods and practices? Is our dependence on foreign oil the only thing we need to curb? What about not so foreign species?
Some might argue that artists are a race or species apart from the common person. Yet we all identify with the teachings of Gandhi, the genius of Einstein, the art of Leonardo Da Vinci, Picasso, Rembrandt and the talent and compassion of living artists like Alice Walker, Will Smith, The Mars Volta, Dead Prez, Prince and countless others. Some of us choose to emulate their styles, their fashion, their career choices, but why not their diets? If our brightest most celebrated stars all have this one thing in common why are we so slow in connecting the dots for ourselves? Perhaps the biggest issue at hand is not what our cars run on, but essentially what do we run on? The fact is that factory farms are the number one users of crude oil, not cars. That’s basically what it takes to kill approximately one million chickens per hour (just in the US). More than half of our water supply goes to feed animals being fattened for slaughter. The methane gases that contribute to global warming are produced majorly by cow farts in factory farms, not to mention the amount of fossil fuels needed to create just one pound of beef.
Yep. You doing the math? Basically if we shifted our compassion towards animals, the domino effect would heal the planet. We’d no longer be cutting down rain forests to create more space for cows to graze, we’d stop depleting the ocean of the necessary (keyword: necessary) food chains that our eco system depends on, diseases including many cancers, heart disease, obesity, and others which find their root in the food/toxins we ingest would slowly disappear as would our taste for violence.
Which brings me to the other book I read this summer that inspired me to reevaluate every aspect of what I’ve been taught through the news and media, especially concerning the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. That book is The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.
So what are you reading?
I know what you should be listening to,
Niggy.
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