Our Schomburg partner has come through again with some advice on Fair Use in this very quick Power Point. This information is particularly important for those of you adding non-Schomburg content (like music) to your projects.
Also available in Courseworks and here for download
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1zHpH0SbpsZL0W0qB5O38N3J8UOjp47mR4X-0LqKAmXs/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=10000
“if the move to monolignualize this country is a push for the homogeneity of our foods as well. Once we read American will e cease to recognize ourselves, our delicacies and midnight treats?” (5)
“The recovery of the people is tied to recovery of food, since food itself is medicine—not only for the body but also for the soul and spiritual connection to history, ancestors, and the land.”
“black-eyed peas and rice or ‘Hoppin John,’ even collard greens and pig’s feet, are not so much arbitrary predilections of the ‘nigra’ as they are symbolic defiance; we shall celebrate ourselves on a day of our choosing in honor of those events and souls who are an honor to us” (6-7).
“Dem belly full, but dey hungry/ A hungry man is an angry man.”
In if I can Cook/ you KNow God can, Ntozake Shange makes reference to the experience of Brixton, London. “When the sun comes out in Brixton, a heavily West Indian working-class neighborhood, all kinda miracles comes about. Colors challenging visions… winter’s mists and rains dance up and down… the heat remind[ing] everyone of home (23).” In a later paragraph she describes the music, “our music” that would blast from the vegetable stands. The two artists she mentions are YellowMan and Youssour N’Dour.
In the process of searching for ingredients of a American type dinner, Zake and her daughter, Savannah, are thrusts into the intricacies of the Brixton market. They experience this transcontinental, transcultural refiguring through people, food, and most importantly music.
Hearing Zungguzungguguzungguzeng by King YellowMan, a Jamaican reggae DJ, completes the experience of food shopping at brixton. The simple rhythm is easy to sway to and calls upon the minds of those listening in order to bridge the now and the then.
“Seh if yuh have a paper, yuh must have a pen
And if yuh have a start, yuh must have a end…
Jump fe happiness and jump fe joy
Yuh nuh fe call Yellowman nuh bwoy…
All a dem, dem have yellow children
Some live a Kingston and dung a Maypenn”
When I researched the music of the other artist Shange mentioned, Youssour N’Dour, I was immediately struck by the song Souvenirs.
What’s perfect about the music video of this song is that the singer himself is caught in this continual moment of recollection. He’s present in the land that his body is physically in (the house/ the pool), but his mind is engaged with a distant location. He can’t shake the thoughts of this place and takes the viewer and listeners through the process of reimagining/ revisiting homeland. What I love is that this act is celebratory and demands the right to be historicized (i.e. when the singer captures a selfie with someone from his vision). That selfie breaks international bounds. Later on in the video the protagonist sings as he looks at photo albums, dvds, and other items that remind him of the place he is deeply connected to. This same process is similar to that of Ntozake when she cooks, writes recipes that call to her ancestors, and pulls the knowledge her daughter will inherit closer by exposing her to these foods.
* Date of this post corresponds to my music presentation in class.
I am really grateful for having the opportunity to meet Shange in such an intimate setting. I think the most stimulating of many pleasant moments were hearing Shange talk about the thoughts and stories behind the creation of some of her major works, realizing she literally lives a choreopoem, and getting to speak to her about i live in music.
I titled this post after the words Shange used to encapsulate her novel Sassafrass, Cypress, and Indigo. The simplicity of her synopsis lends to the idea that explication isn’t always necessary—a point that I think is central to Shange’s work. Although the statement is simple and accessible, it also proves complex and in need of dissection. Cooking and making spells are two sides of the same creative coin. While her sisters cook, Indigo makes spells—collectively their crafts render them creators, historians, and even personal archivists.
In thinking of the class’ discussion on the significance of women of color telling and recording their own stories, I am inclined to consider the way Shange communicated throughout the class meeting. While speaking, Shange often tapped her foot on the floor to a rhythm that was in conversation with the swaying of her arms. At some point, I realized that I was listening out for these taps. Not merely out of curiosity, but rather out of necessity. Her stomping music and dancing arms served as means for me to grasp her thoughts, completely. They functioned as beginning, ending, and accent of her ideas. Her life truly is choreopoem in practice.
At the dinner’s conclusion I spoke with Shange about her poem, i live in music and asked about the motivation behind it. Not only did Shange recount that the poem’s creation was an improvisational act—the result of having a band cancel their performance last minute during a radio show she was hosting (?)—she also explained that the line “I got 15 trumpets where other women got hips”—a line that I had to inquire about because of its particular importance to me—came out of the genuine and literal desire to have 15 trumpets playing during her show. The line also spoke to the functionality of horns, like trumpets, as tools for heralding things and people of great importance. Furthering this idea, Shange spoke to the horn and trumpet being analogy to women as heralds of the miraculous—the creation of art and life, for example.
This is a short playlist of some of the songs that got me over hurdles while writing this post. Hope you enjoy!
