Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 676

Digging Through Record Crates to Find that Rare Soul Music from Brazil

Toni Tornado Credit: Fernanda Calfa A new collection of Rare Brazilian Soul, curated by two record crate diggers: Greg Caz and Jeff Swallom. The collection is  available on CD, but also  in a box set of old-style 45s. According to one of the curators  "Many people think the 45 format is kinda dead, no one's every using it, but there really are a lot of nightclubs and DJs throughout the world that strictly play 45s. So I really wanted this music to first off come out, but secondly to come out in the 45 format so those DJs can play it." -- +Public Radio International (PRI) 

Dick Gregory on Bill Cosby + Tiger Woods + Michael Jordan + Magic Johnson

'Comedian/Activist/Author Dick Gregory shares his views on the Bill Cosby Scandal, Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson in this segment from our 2 1/2 hour WISDOM interview session. A Reelblack exclusive.' 

Out There (Afro House Mix) by KamauMau

A mix of African flavored house grooves from KamauMau. 
Out There (Afro House Mix) by Kamaumau on Mixcloud

Visualizing and Consuming Anti-Black Violence

On this episode of Left of Black on The Root, recorded on location at Lehigh University,  host Mark Anthony Neal talks with Jessica Marie Johnson about the media coverage anti-Black violence.  Johnson is an Assistant Professor of History at Michigan State University. 

She Climbs Into My Head (for the 13-Year-Old She) by Mark Anthony Neal

She Climbs Into My Head (for the 13-Year-Old She)by Mark Anthony Neal | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
it took me years to get it; a lifetime, almost for her.   
We often call her Sophia--recalling the Alice Walker character, brought to cinematic life by Oprah Winfrey.  Objects move when She enters a space, and not quite like the whirring that Toomer evokes with  Karintha -- a poem that I read to both of the Daughters when they were young.
That She knows the power and force of her body is not the point, but that She balances it by spending so much time climbing into her head.  She has been conjuring talking dogs, time-traveling Chicas and History detectives since She was a toddler. I don’t know how much She dreams because She always seems to be awake--alert--even when She sleeps.
Her sister was a boundless physical energy; until we discovered swimming for her. She, now a teen-age She? We can’t keep up with her imagination, and that imagination is most put to use in the name of those who can’t or aren’t allowed to imagine.  As her favorite teacher once remarked,  “your baby-gurl” has a thing for justice.”
I know her sense of justice was born out of her own insecurities.  The sister that She thinks is more popular, more attractive--things of the physical realm.  Where She is not insecure is in her conjuring.  She sees what the world would never expect her to see, perhaps doesn’t want her to see--the language arts teacher at a loss of words when the 12-year-old asked her to defend the use of tracking in her school--and has never met a truth that She didn’t think someone should hear. Did I mention that She moves objects when She enters a space.
Her biggest gift to me is that she seemingly understood from the beginning--sitting there conjuring in her carrier while we sat in the Wolf Road Starbucks where I punched the keys on the old Toshiba that produced two books--seemed to understand even then that her Daddy also loved to climb into his head.  
Daddy don’t move objects like She can, but every so often, She ask to climb inside my head, and we conjure.

'We Didn't Wanna Be Anybody Else': A Tribe Called Quest Reflects On Its Debut

'People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm is 25 this year. Phife Dawg and Ali Shaheed Muhammad discuss the group's game-changing first album.' -- +NPR Music  

#TheRemix: 'Outcry!' Pop-Up Art Exhibit Focuses on Police Brutality

'Visual artist Theodore Harris, photographer April Martin, and African American Museum of Philadelphia curator Leslie Guy join host James Peterson to talk about their work and the immediacy of the "Outcry!" pop-up exhibit focusing on police brutality against black men, women and children.'

The Global African: How Brazil’s War on Drugs Replicates Failed Policies in the United States

'In this episode of +The Global African with Bill Fletcher, Jr., we hear from Dr. Carl Hart, neuroscientist at Columbia University, on how the Brazilian government has implemented repressive drug laws that ultimately repeat the same mistakes made in the U.S. - In the second half of the show we cover new changes to the Rwandan Constitution that could mean that President Kagame ends up staying on until 2034.' 

Angela Davis Keynote Address: The Intellectual Legacies of John Hope Franklin

Angela Davis, Distinguished Professor Emerita, University of California, Santa Cruz offers a keynote address at the symposium Global Slaveries | Impossible Freedoms: The Intellectual Legacies of John Hope Franklin .

Sonics + Visuals--Terri Lyne Carrington: "So Good" feat. Jaguar Wright

Sonics + Visuals for Terri Lyne Carrington's "So Good" featuring vocalist Jaguar Wright. From The Mosaic Project: Love and Soul. Video directed by Frankie Leroux.