Sound Escapades from the indomitable Pan African Space Station.
Category: Music
Heavens So Far Yet So Near
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In this article I briefly discuss the pros and cons of Afrikan peoples embrace and assimilation into the religion and cultural artifacts and practices of ancient Israel.
I am fully aware that there are many Black people who since the late 50’s began calling themselves African Hebrew Israelites and of the existence of the Lemba of Southern Africa and the Beta Israel, the so called Falasha of Ethiopia. I will later expand on what I think of these peoples and their practice, but this particular article deals with the music of AmaZioni, the Ngoni/Nguni peoples of Southern Africa who are proto-Christians yet retain much of the trances and customary practices of their respective indigenous cultures. Their god is Jehova, and their Messiah is called Jesus the Christ, but much of what they do bears little resemblance to the Judaic conception of God.
It is a continuation from a conversation begun on Facebook by Ndosi Ka Magaye.
The Revelation
a poem for John Coltrane
“To tremble in prayer & trepidation
To tremble against trepidation in prayer
Screech – Scream – Cry
To tremble with prayer
and arch the muscles of my back
in face of trepidation,
transparent beads bubbling from my forehead
Screech – Cry.
Bird of blood with razor-sharp
wings of boiling stone falling from God into my throat
claws my tonsils
sticks its feet way down into my stomach
and I double over trying to vomit
forth this bird
to the rhythms of anklets ashake
in the dance of a black-blue-black blue – black a black blue black African
Witch Doctor wailing wailing –
Scream high out into God.
fall heavily from the pole of light He offers to the snow
of doubt that freezes
all Spirits dancing gallop
to slabs of ice across the tongue.
Father, Father, understands me
Make, Purification, Psalm of Warmth
within Light – understand the reverent
screams of this confused devotee. “
its all natural
There is a sacred relationship between the natural and the spiritual worlds. I want to write about and for Black people. The people of Afrikan descent who are found all over the world. But we are going to use all knowledge and all the language we have inherited through our oppression and subjection to colonialism and imperialism to express some of the colors we exude. To express the way we were, the way we are and the potential we have to become whatever we collectively seek to be in the future. There is a song by Bheki Khoza called The End of The Blues, it is an interesting title for a deeply moving song. Although it is a guitar led instrumental, one can discern the sighs and existential pains of the people who are going through great tribulations. The musician as a prophetic vessel of the spirit has the freedom to paint a picture of a future where All Blues are gone, the proverbial How Long Blues of yesteryear, when the social, cultural and economic death of a people has come to an end. Even though surely the memory shall remain. But it is the nature of all things to change. Nothing really stays the same, even shades of blue can become black or white with the passage of time.
Since what I write emanates from a place of blackness, there will be a lot of Blues, more Blues then Greens, more Sepia, Browns, bloody red and all the rhythmic colours that define us a people. As Amiri Baraka wrote : We are the Blues people. What does that mean exactly, when there are so many colours in the spectrum of life? Beyond the Afrikan Amerikkkan musical evolution, is there anything that can explain why the Blues are so called? Has it anything to do with the colour of the night illuminated by the Moon? Does it have anything to do with the night rituals of our ancestors as they sat or danced around bonfires in the Deep Southern plantations during times of slavery?
Poet and former president of Senegal, Leopold Senghor writes: “Rhythm is the architecture of being, the inner dynamic that gives it form, the pure expressions of the life force. Rhythm is the vibratory shock, the force which, through our sense, grips is at the root of our being. It is expressed through corporeal and sensual means; through lines; surfaces; colours and volumes, in architecture, sculpture or painting; through accents of poetry and music, through movements in the dance. But doing this, rhythm turns all these concrete things towards the spirit.”
This is about Nature. Nature and Music, Music and Sacred spaces in which we make and enjoy or engage with music. There are patterns in nature which parallel the human existence, it is our work to strive to understand or at least find some meaning in the suffering, the joys and the tensions in between.
“Patterns in nature are beautiful. They help create order. The universe possesses such beauty and perfection. It has been the objective of many brilliant scientists for thousands of years to find ways to explain and express the universe using math, geometric shapes and even music. While most of us jazz musicians are not trying to explain the meaning of life in our solos, we are trying to express something meaningful. Improvising a combination of knowledge, technique, thoughts and feelings.” – Ted Nash ( How To Use Patterns to Enhance Your Creativity …)
…
melodious knowledge
sages of the south
a ribbon of rhythm
if you Love Good music
sound dreams and forgetting
these dreams are not sound
purple hued
flirting with disastrous red
yet they are almost blue
and I often forget
how I got there
their naked truth
apparently
is the result of my nervous conditioning
and there is always a part that’s almost true
sisindwa yisisindo semisindo sizukulwane
sikashwele
Bantwana baka Maye Babo
Sifingqwe ngamasonto
sanikelwa ethala sisathwele
Izishingishane ziheleza kuze kuse
imibiko ifika ize iyophelel’emaweni
ngokweswel’izihlwele …
Ake sithule
Mhlwawumbe USimakade Ozwa konke uyoke Asiphendule
encounters with music
there is no inspiration in things
everything is floating in dark space
and when we randomly collide
Light Happens
Life happens …
Close the door
sit down
listen to this silence
where did it go?
before the music, breathe in
and let the sound take you
there is no one but you
in this space
you and the story-filled music
the bow
un-struck
on the eternal present tense
as we begin to write the stories of our lives
the loneliness is shattered by presences
the lessons of life are sustained
by the trauma the pain of the collision of time, space and thought
misdiagnosed sound
the pain
the thud and the grind
the poverty of explanations for the grooves
many find themselves in
the body of work
the toll on the body
the body of water
embodied evidence of mans ignorance
the mishearing
the unseeing
up close and personal with the unsightly
Silence Before and After the music
tree
For Bheki Hyacinth Mseleku
i have heard of that tree
hyacinth
ngiyawazi lowo muthi
ngiyayazi nembali yawo
kepha ngisalibele …
ubuhlungu bempilo nobuhlwempu bomphefumulu
kungenze ngafiphala
Sengaba kude nalowo owangitshala …
Rooted
I met an old man in the garden
And he told me
“Asparagacea”!
It is a flower from old glorious Babylon
Well they call her Iraq
these frail and fragile days
yes, beautiful Hyacinth
“Hyacinths are forever if you know what you’r doing …”
Deathless hue
these howlong blues
we are coloured by
history into names
nations, known unknowns
we are galactic beings
caught in the cruel current of the waves of time
and yet
our hearts melodies
our Souls harmonies
are timeless –
boundless energies bursting from the Source
IThongo!!!
Urging us closer
Closer to the Source.
