Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 273

‘It’s what I am designed to be:’ Cindy Blackman Santana on Her Musical Journey

'After decades in the business, Cindy Blackman Santana is out with her latest release Give The Drummer Some that defies categorization. PBS NewsHour Weekend Special Correspondent Tom Casciato spoke with the iconic drummer about her musical journey and her collaborations with music legends along the way.'

“You love Black culture, but do you love me?”: Beats by Dr. Dre Presents "You Love Me"

'This film unpacks the question.  Those who touched this piece have seen the world actively love their art or their athletic achievements, while also seeing the world continually oppress the Black community at large. Beats, the creatives, and the cast joined together with the unified goal of inspiring Black youth by highlighting the everyday beauty and rich diversity of their culture. Starring Naomi Osaka, Lil Baby, Bubba Wallace, and Janaya Khan; Narrated by Tobe Nwigwe; Directed by Melina Matsoukas.' -- Beats by Dre

Why the First US Cowboys were Black

'Historians estimate that one in four cowboys were African American, though you’d never guess because the conventional Hollywood image of a cowboy is a white man. Black cowboys have been written out of history, along with the original cattle-raising Native Americans and Mexican vaqueros who taught them. So what are the real origins of cowboy culture in the US? And is there more to modern Black cowboy culture than Old Town Road and Lil Nas X? Josh Toussaint-Strauss talks to some of the Black riders who are keeping the history of Black cowboy culture alive.' -- The Guardian

Mickey Guyton (Home) Concert

'Mickey Guyton recorded her three-song Tiny Desk (home) concert in a warm-hued corner of a friend's studio near her Los Angeles home. Her makeshift desk holds the book that inspired its title, alongside a pair of blue baby booties: Guyton will soon give birth to her first child. Albums by Whitney Houston and Patsy Cline — Guyton's guardian angels — rest on the window ledge. The hands of keyboardist Lynette Williams, who also plays in Childish Gambino's band, are the first sight you see as the music starts. This is country: soulful keyboards, the Afro-Caribbean instruments of percussionist Paul Allen, Jon Sosin's acoustic guitar. Guyton raises the rafters and distills emotion with impeccable clarity. Her high notes thrill, her nuance in storytelling captivates. A star for our times claims her place.'

Crate Digging With Christian McBride: The History Of Latin Bass

'This episode of Jazz Night in America, which kicks off a new series called Crate Digging, is a jubilant celebration of this Latin bass legacy. We'll hear highlights of a 2006 concert by the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, spotlighting four virtuoso bassists: Rubén Rodríguez, Charnett Moffett, the late Andy González, and yes, the mighty Cachao, two years before his death at 89. Jazz Night's host, Christian McBride, who handpicked this concert from the Jazz at Lincoln Center vault, knows a thing or two about the bass himself. But we'll join him in a spirit of discovery with this music — and in conversation with the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra's founder, pianist and composer Arturo O'Farrill. "Even though they all play in the same world," O'Farrill says of the four bassists on the show, "they all have such different approaches to it".'

Uncle Bobbie's Presents: "We Still Here" -- Marc Lamont Hill Book in Conversation with Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

'Uncle Bobbie's own Dr. Marc Lamont Hill is in conversation with Eddie Glaude for the launch of his  insightful, radical and timely book We Still Here: Pandemic, Policing, Protest and Possibility.'

How Black Culture is Embracing its African Roots

'In recent years, Africans on the continent and in the diaspora have become leading voices in black culture – in music, film, fashion, social media, comedy and even our memes. When Grace Shutti was growing up, black culture usually referred to African Americans. But from Beyoncé's visual album, Black is King, to Marvel's Black Panther and musician Diddy executive producing the Nigerian pop star Burna Boy's album, the shift to embrace African art has been seismic. Grace investigates how this came about.'

Georgia’s Black Voters Can Make History Again by Ben Jealous

Georgia’s Black Voters Can Make History Again

by Ben Jealous | @BenJealous | special to NewBlackMan (in Exile)

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris made a brilliant choice in opening her remarks at the Democratic presidential ticket’s victory celebration with a quote from civil rights icon and former Georgia congressman John Lewis, who wrote before he died, “Democracy is not a state. It is an act.”

Lewis, who was nearly killed by racist police on the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama, knew better than most of us that taking action to defend democracy can be dangerous. But he also knew, as Harris reminded us, that there is joy in the struggle.

 

Brothers and sisters, defeating Donald Trump was an occasion for great joy. I loved seeing people post videos of a dancing John Lewis to celebrate. But we have more actions to take, more bridges to cross, more elections to win—right now, and right in John Lewis’s home state of Georgia.

Georgia was in the rare position of having two U.S. senate races on the ballot in the same year. Both races had more than two candidates, and both races have now gone to runoff elections, according to Georgia law, because no candidate got over 50 percent of the vote.

 

That means that on January 5—actually for early voters starting December 14—Georgia voters have the power to decide whether the U.S. Senate will have a majority willing to work with the Biden-Harris administration on behalf of the American people, or whether we’ll be stuck with a Republican majority led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who brags about turning the Senate into a graveyard for legislation coming from the House of Representatives.

McConnell is the reason American families and small businesses suffering from the economic fallout of the pandemic have had no relief for months. McConnell is the reason Trump has been able to pack federal courts with the worst, most unqualified, most anti-civil-rights judges we’ve seen in a long time.

On the Democratic side, we have two Senate candidates we can be excited about.

Rev. Rafael Warnock is the senior pastor of Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr. and his father pastored.

Rev. Warnock has embraced the responsibilities that come with that historical legacy. He led a sit-in at the Georgia capitol to try to convince lawmakers to expand Medicaid under Obamacare, which would have brought health care coverage to hundreds of thousands of low-income people in the state. From 2017 to January 2020, Rev. Warnock chaired Stacey Abrams’ New Georgia Project, which has registered hundreds of thousands of new voters.

 

It would be remarkable, in the year that we lost John Lewis, to send Rev. Warnock to Washington.

In the other Senate race, Atlanta native John Ossoff is challenging incumbent David Perdue. He has been a journalist and director of a company producing documentaries on corruption and war crimes around the world.

While he was in high school, Ossoff interned in John Lewis’s congressional office. Lewis and Abrams endorsed Ossoff in his first run for Congress in 2017, when he took on a battle for a seat that was considered solidly Republican—and made it a close race. 

 

The far right and the parts of the Trump operation that are not still trying to deny and overturn Trump’s rejection by voters are all focusing on winning the Georgia elections so they can prevent the kind of change Americans just voted for.

People For the American Way, the group I lead, is one of many organizations working to reaffirm the importance of Black voters staying engaged in every election—and turning out to support Rev. Warnock and Jon Ossoff. So there are a lot of different ways you can get involved in this fight.

Georgia’s Black voters have already made history once this year. Let’s help them do it again. And again. 

***

Ben Jealous serves as president of People For the American Way and People For the American Way Foundation. Jealous has decades of experience as a leader, coalition builder, campaigner for social justice and seasoned nonprofit executive. In 2008, he was chosen as the youngest-ever president and CEO of the NAACP. He is a graduate of Columbia University and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and he has taught at Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania.

Independent Booksellers Write a New Chapter During COVID-19

'The Strand Book Store is a New York institution, with four floors of books, and 93 years of tradition. But while it survived a Great Depression, World War II, 9/11 and Amazon, it has struggled during the era of COVID-19. New Yorker contributor Kelefa Sanneh talks with the Strand's owners, and with the owners of EyeSeeMe, an African-American children's bookstore in St. Louis, about how independent booksellers are finding ways to cope during the coronavirus pandemic, and about the community of readers that wants them to survive.' -- CBS Sunday Morning

THE BAPTISM: A Tribute to John Lewis and C.T. Vivian | Written & Performed by Carl Hancock Rux; Directed by Carrie Mae Weems

"The Baptism" -- A Tribute to John Lewis and C.T. Vivian.  Written and Performed by Carl Hancock Rux. Directed by Carrie Mae Weems.  Commissioned by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.