Monday, October 12, 2009
From The Streets of Dakar
Zebulon was barely a third full when we strolled in, happy to escape the cold, rainy night. The bar’s jet black walls lent it a cave-like feel. Lit candles on small round tables cast flickering shadows on patrons’ faces. Ten or so White people occupied rickety wooden chairs, just a few inches from the tiny stage, and drunkenly cheered on an uninspiring band. My companion and I looked at each other, the same question on our minds: how long do we have to put up with this noise before Meta and the Cornerstones takes the stage?
An agonizing thirty-five minutes later, Meta Dia, his band of five and their well worn musical equipment filled the stage and, suddenly, almost out of thin air, a large crowd materialized, primed and ready to move from the first note of music. At once Meta’s satisfyingly raspy and soulful wail filled that tiny bar and the drummer heralded a salute in response. The audience began to sway and jump as if in conversation with every lyric, every strum of the guitar. The socially conscious lyrics transported them to a different land where harsher realities abound. Meta launched into Somewhere in Africa, warning about the repercussions of greed and corruption, and called for an Africa free of western meddling. In Cornerstone he crooned, “His whole life/Sitting on the cornerstone with his pipe/Trying to get away from this broke life/Playing hide and seek with the cops/Make money or die,” telling the story, in griot-like fashion, of a life with limited or no options and opportunity – a life of despair.Your browser may not support display of this image.
The sound was reggae, but not exactly. It spoke to the front man’s Senegalese roots, yet it pulled from the West African, Trinidadian, and Middle Eastern backgrounds of the other band members. As Meta himself aptly put it in the June, 2009 edition of Afropop Live, “a lot people say ‘that’s a reggae band’ I’m just going to say, yeah [we’re] a reggae band, but to me its modern music because I just like to combine things together like the Bossa Nova with the African vibe with the Spanish vibe.” Meta’s musical journey, from being a staple in the Dakar hip hop scene to co-creator of one of the hottest, and most unique soulful reggae sounds in NYC’s live music movement, seemed to be the backdrop for every song. According to the band’s blog (metaandthecornerstones.blogspot.com), at the tender age of 14, Meta began his career as an MC on the streets and, later, stages of Dakar. A dream to move to the US, learn English, and achieve success as a rapper, brought him to New York City. Upon arriving, he discovered that the subway stations were essentially training grounds for innumerable artists and performers. This sealed his fate. As far as he was concerned, New York was the place to be if one wanted to grow and make it as a musician. After learning English, he came to understand and really appreciate the socially conscious and poetic lyrics of the Bobs (Marley and Dylan). As he states in the same edition of Afropop Live, “those people just inspired me big time and I just put it [poetic lyrics] in this reggae rhythm. I would put it [poetic lyrics] in any rhythm. I don’t mind. I just want to say how I feel.
After having a successful stint with his first group, YALLA SUUR EN (God Bless),a band that garnered a Best Hip Hop/Reggae nod from the NYC French Cultural Center in 2000, he went on to form Meta and the Cornerstones in 2002. Along with fellow members Adrian Djoman (bass), Andre Daniel (Keyboards), Daniel Serrato (Guitar), Ian Joseph (Drums), and Shahar Mintz (guitar), the bands has reached local celebrity status, and have played to packed houses all over the city. They have also performed alongside some of the biggest names in reggae including legends Steel Pulse and Luciano. In 2007, at the request of international superstar Youssou N’Dour, they performed at his Annual ‘African Ball’ concert at the Nokia Theater in New York City.
Ghanaian American Straddles Both Worlds
Review of Bronx Princess
Bronx Princess is a documentary most 1st generation African immigrants can identify with. It tells the story of a young Ghanaian American who tries to straddle both worlds, while forging her own identity and independence. Rocky Otoo, a feisty 18-year old woman, has to contend with multiple cultures: a powerful mother who struggles to maintain control of her, as well as a busy school and social life. Moreover, she is intent on strengthening ties with Ghana, where her dad, a Ga Chief, resides.
“I’m so excited for this summer. I’m going to grow up and be independent for the first time in my life,” she proclaims, in anticipation of her summer trip to Ghana. She has spent the final year of high school putting up with her loving, yet stern, mother’s demands. Yaa, a strong Black Ghanaian woman with quirky sense of humor, does not fully understand her American-born daughter, who laughs in the face of custom and tradition. Rocky, on the other hand, wants to be free to find her own way. While she recognizes her Ghanaian connection, she’s also been in the Bronx, NY her whole life. Her socialization process is vastly different from her mom’s, and as a result they are often like two ships passing in the night.
The summer in Ghana represents a chance to spend more time with her father, and live the good life as the daughter, a.k.a. princess, of a well known and respected Chief. In a particularly funny scene she jokes with her father over the phone, claiming that as Ga royalty she is entitled to certain amenities, such as the best bed in the palace and police escort. “I want a Jacuzzi. You said you’re a chief I should get one,” she demands. Her mother, hanging out nearby, lets out a small laugh. She knows her daughter is in for a reality check. "Is she that beautiful that she can be saying those things?” dad playfully asks a few moments later, after Rocky has handed mom the phone. "You can say that again," she retorts, her voice tinged with pride.
However, in Accra, the good and cushy life Rocky had envisioned ends up being merely a pipe dream. As she becomes more familiar with dad’s stricter side, she comes to see her relationship with Yaa in a whole new light. After returning to the States, life at college also falls far short of her expectations. On her first trip home, she hungrily scarfs down her mom’s cooking, relieved to be reunited with her family. Yaa simply smiles lovingly, happy to have her daughter home once again.
Bronx Princess authentically conveys the identity conflict 1st generation immigrants typically experience. “I want young people who are first-generation American in their family to gain a more cohesive sense of identity from the film,” explains now 19-year-old Rocky Otoo in the April 4th edition of the Daily News. She is now a sophomore and gender studies major at Pennsylvania’s Dickinson College. “I would hope that the film will illuminate their internal struggles and show them that so many people experience the same feelings and that they are not alone,” she goes on to say in the same article. The 38 minute documentary, produced by filmmakers Yoni Brook and Musa, premiered to rave reviews last spring, and has since appeared in a number of film festivals around the world, including the NYC African Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival, Dokufest (the main documentary film festival in the Balkans), as well as various other venues in New York City and beyond.
Film Trailer
The Contemporary Dance Movement in Africa
What struck me was the level of ingenuity evident in all the pieces featured. The choreography was like nothing I had ever seen. Clearly, here were Africans also bursting free of stifling stereotypes about dance and expression, and on a quest to tell our stories through dance, while critiquing racist expectations and perceptions of how African bodies move. As much as these artists honor dance traditions and legacies, they are also intent on essentially making something new out of the old. “As African dancers I think we have the common things in terms of showing people that we’re not only doing the old tribal dances but we’re also doing things that are affecting us in this present moment,” explains Sello Pesa. Pesa is the creator of “Break Shadow”, a type of choreography that incorporates lighting, and adds an eerie and surreal effect to the movements. “Try to understand what [contemporary African dance] is,” Beatrice Kombe, a choreographer from Cote D’Ivoire, and cofounder of Company TchéTché, urges. “Don’t say ‘ah this is African dance.’ No. It’s not ‘African dance.’ It’s a new expression.” Her piece, Geeme, depicts the dual roles African women are supposed to occupy, as both mother and warrior. In a particularly poignant moment during Geeme, two muscular women stand side by side on a bare stage. Light shines on them from above, casting a glow on their caramel (one), and dark chocolate tones (the other). They are clad in black and the clothing clings, emphasizing their toned stature. One’s hair is woven into multi-colored braids, blond and several hues of brown. She clasps her palms and holds them out in front of her. Her palms become a mirror that she brings close to her face. She stares and suddenly becomes aware of herself. Her partner forms her own mirror and leans into her palms, surprise registers on her face. The pantomime goes on for a bit, until one breaks it by flaying her arms in the air. The other follows suit and together they glide into a synchronized swaying movement, taking with them the knowledge gleaned from the previous pas-de-deux.
It comes as no surprise that, like Geeme, most of the other choreography weave in narratives highlighting the beauty and ugliness of African life. Young Africans today are essentially “product of disillusionment”, one of the choreographers argues. Unlike our parents who were either active, or swept up, in the revolutionary struggles of the 1960s and ‘70s, this current generation of Africans has witnessed the emergence of the African “big man”, i.e. the former freedom fighter now turned greedy and power drunk politician.
Zimbabwean born Nora Chipaumire, a self-exiled NYC-based dancer/performer, proclaims, “I’m a child of struggle!” She explains that for too long Africans have been defined by outsiders, therefore the contemporary dance movement is an opportunity for Africans to (re)discover ourselves and create art that speaks to who we truly are, adding, “I’m African, regardless of whether my pieces are abstract or not abstract, whether they use percussion or not.”
Societal problems, such as genocide, were recurrent themes. “The [Rwandan] genocide was happening during the World Cup and so no one knew what was happening,” laments Germaine Acogny, the famed Senegalese choreographer and powerhouse behind Fagaala. Her dance piece examines the fickleness of human emotions, and shows how quickly emotions change, transforming people into monsters capable of immense brutality. During Fagaala, in a flash, one of the performers turns into a lecherous fiend, violently raping an unseen woman. He bares his teeth, flicks his tongue in and out of his mouth, and wears a vile expression on his face. In the blink of an eye he has lost any semblance of humanity.Similarly, Faustin Linyekula’s Triptych Untied, explores the aftermath of civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where over three million people died. Linyekula still struggles to feel connected to DRC, a site of enormous pain. He wonders how Africans can foster connections that go beyond shared nationality or ethnicity, but are instead founded on a shared desire to heal. “Perhaps my body is my only country,” he says resignedly.
Movement (R)Evolution Africa, produced by filmmakers Joan Frosch and Alla Kovgan, complicates western notions of African dance. It is full of creative and politically astute performers, who urge us to abandon stereotypes of how Black bodies move. Besides the percussion-fueled and highly energetic movements, African dance is also serene and statuesque, full of poses that transcend description and time. Our movements are fast and slow. We ‘bend down low’ to touch the earth, yet we also glide up to kiss the sky.
Film’s website - http://www.movementrevolutionafrica.com/
Caster runs for me
Her victory was so astonishing that all the whisperings about her gender were suddenly amplified. A few other runners who thought the title was rightfully theirs, grumbled publicly. The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) stepped in, refusing to believe that someone so young, new and, some would argue, so black and poor, could win. They did the unimaginable: forced Semenya to undergo a battery of ‘gender tests’. Most female bodied people often dread that annual visit to the gynecologist. Many shudder at the thought of laying on the examination table, legs stirruped, and a medically trained individual studying away in between them. What Caster went through at the hands of supposed gender experts, psychologists, endocrinologists, gynecologists, and internal medicine specialists, makes the routine Pap smear exam look like a nice, peaceful stroll on a sandy shore.
As a Nigerian who defies gender categorization, Semenya’s story is all too familiar. I decided to interview other New York City Africans who, in some way or other, are gender ‘outlaws’ like me. I wanted to learn about what aspects of Caster’s story they strongly identified with, their analysis of how Caster has been treated, and what the entire world can learn from this moment. I asked NCK, an African man who wanted to maintain anonymity, why there was such furor around Semenya’s gender expressions. “[It’s] not only how dare she put herself within the arena of woman, but how dare she come out of those trappings [of poverty] and run the race, cross the finish line, wear the[gold] medal and the South African flag.” He connects the athlete’s experiences to the legacy of colonialism in Africa, stating that this is the same way labels like “colored” and “indian” were used to impose and uphold apartheid in South Africa. Words are not meant to impose limitations, he explains, yet words and phrases like “masculine” or “hermaphrodite”, have been used by other athletes, IAAF officials, and mainstream journalists, to dehumanize Caster, in spite of her win.
Kagendo Murungi, a Kenyan woman who identifies as gender non-conforming as an act of resistance against society’s two gender system, argues that African women’s successes are constantly devalued because of pervasive racist and sexist stereotypes. “There is a long history of the most private aspects of our physical anatomies being paraded around the world for the pleasure of the European elite. The spectacle and outrage of the Hottentot Venus might be the best known example of this phenomenon,” she declares. Similarly, Fly Yvonne Etaghene, a self identified Nigerian-dyke-poet, argues, “If Caster can be someone who is not fitting into a socially prescribed gender role, then that means our genders demarcations are not real.”
IAAF officials demanded Caster essentially prove she is a ‘traditional’ woman. “Well, what is a traditional woman? What are traditional women’s bodies,” queries NCK. “They are trying to say that this is one body that we can exclude out of the corpus of bodies labeled as women, as opposed to examining the label of woman, and seeing that the experience is so much larger and this person has transcended all of it.” Transcending, in Caster’s case has involved being a natural born athlete, refusing to obey gender norms in terms of how to dress or act, training endlessly, and developing a muscular body that many, regardless of gender, vie for (Linda Hamilton’s muscular build in Terminator 2 was the only reason I went to the gym in the ‘90s). Masculine women are nothing new, so why are Caster and gender nonconforming people in general, demonized by mainstream society? Etaghene blames it on people’s inability to accept gender expressions falling outside the socially-prescribed two gender system enforced in practically every sphere of life. “People don’t know how to deal with athletic bodies unless they are attached to people who have penises. [They are] not able to deal with ways in which women can be and are masculine.”
Gender nonconformity, Etaghene argues, is a vital part of the tapestry of African experiences and expressions. “If you look at African cultures and others from the dawn of time, there have always been masculine women and feminine men, and people who have traversed the gender spectrum, whether it be in a spiritual ceremony and someone who is biologically a woman is possessed by a masculine spirit, and is acting in a way that is [perceived as] masculine. That is gender revolutionary.” The dark-skinned ‘fro-hawk sporting poet has often been vilified for her identity. “I can relate to people poking at you and making a spectacle out of…you. Whether it be what I have to say, or how I look, or being a Nigerian dyke, people make that a spectacle like ‘oh my god you’re a Nigerian dyke, there’s only one of you and you’re so weird.’” Etaghene uses art as a way to heal from such experiences. “It’s about staying grounded and focused and knowing that I am my own normalcy. I am not left of center. I am my own center. I don’t look at, for instance, heterosexual white femininity as who I should be.”
What has been encouraging is how South Africans, sensing the racist and sexist underpinnings of IAAF’s actions, resolutely stood up for their ‘home girl.’ Etaghene, Murungi, and NCK think this presents the perfect opportunity to increase visibility of, and respectful dialogue about, the interconnectedness of African women, lesbian, gay, bisexual, gender nonconforming, transgender, and intersex experiences. “If nothing else at least, perhaps, the mainstream press will report on intersex people and leave [the offensive term] ‘hermaphrodite’ in the past where it belongs,” adds Murungi. Similarly, Etaghene feels hopeful that more people will ardently support intersex rights, thereby placing intersex issues on a more global scale. Additionally, according to Murungi, mainstream media’s “irresponsible, outdated, knee-jerk racist, sexist, transphobic, exotifying” portrayal of Caster has been repeatedly challenged by an outpouring of D.I.Y. journalists and social networking enthusiasts.
People post affirming messages on websites like Caster Runs For Me and For Caster Semenya. Others upload videos on YouTube expressing their solidarity in a multitude of ways, for example a creative one minute long piece, also titled Caster runs for me, urges people to question gender roles and defy any attempts to police gender expressions. In Etaghene’s case, solidarity was expressed through the creation of a love poem to honor Semenya as a survivor. In an excerpt from her poem, Caster Semenya: Praising Your Name, the poet looks to the past and prophesizes about the future:
but it hurts to be a visionary sometimes, to be brilliant, to be excellent / sometimes it hurts in / ways we could never have imagined / the trailblazers often get yelled at / misunderstood and demonized—from Jesus to Tupac / Audre Lorde to you, Caster / anyone who is different or exceptional / feels the brunt of unexpected pain & criticism / the children of your critics / will praise your name / rock t-shirts with your face on it / have posters of you on their walls to inspire them to be great.*
*The rest of the poem can be found on her blog, A Dyke of a Certain Caliber.
