WildSeed Cultural Group @wildseedculturalgroup - Tumblr Blog

Spent a weekend in Brussels based in the African quarter (Montage, heavy Congolese presence) thinking about the Belgium colonies, and its hand in Rwanda, the death of Patrice Lumumba (who had a whole ass library in my neighborhood featuring Pan African literature), and the role of the CIA in his assasination....all while watching the democratic debate and hearing almost nothing of foreign policy. A global hot mess. I keep coming back to Stuart Hall who often said in response to xenophobic and anti black immigration policies: we are here because you were there. The moral of the story is sometimes American tourists be out here looking like missionary figures on a safari. Europe, no matter how gorgeous the architecture and wonderful the food, is full of black and brown folks faced with the trail of tears in countries that colonists left behind. I have to remind myself to step lightly. Selfies next to colonial statutes and symbols might place me at odds with folks who are here on the daily. All that to say cheers to traveling with questions and curiosity 🙏🏾 (at Brussels, Belgium) https://www.instagram.com/p/BzdGIW3lUnKwbMFyfJn-9JrAI3eu2fsGz6D17o0/?igshid=11ptytmvzxa2p

I completed an MFA degree this month, which is to say I survived an American university. ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ This is my graduation photo. It’s how I feel on the inside. Artist, Makeba Rainey.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ I bought time while in school, cause I was paid to be there. Which is to say the program was fully funded with insurance. Plus I walked in with my own canon. Wasn’t fooled by literary whiteness. ⁣ ⁣ I’m grateful for the rigorous (and humanizing) experiences I had with professors who curated readings by thinkers and theorists who I will cite for the rest of my life. Sampling. Which is to say Diaspora Studies and DJ Scholarship. Afro-Digital Migration and International Localism will still shape my questions. ⁣Thank you Dylan Rodriguez and Shana Redmond. ⁣⁣ ⁣ We’re based in Amsterdam for the summer. Bikes tuned up and ready. Hashish and hummus. Books on the windowsill. ⁣Which is to say peace to the tricksters and spooks in the academy who sat by the door this year⁣. Happy solstice. 🐒🎓 🤘🏾 (at Amsterdam, Netherlands) https://www.instagram.com/p/By-NfujlxCDVHvTEylB6civFpJqmJIlilrEI9A0/?igshid=hv62owmm6kcv

Second Ramadan in solidarity with global Muslims is complete. Coming out of it with reflection and creativity rooted in discipline and restraint is a blessing. Such a calming journey. Seeing more, saying less. And reading poetry (thank you @sham__e__ali and @nayyirah.waheed 🙏🏾). I’ve always been drawn to the beauty in Islam. The rhetoric around Christian supremacy never worked on me. Also, ain’t nothing like breaking fast each day with a medjool date #EidMubarak 🕌 ☪️ https://www.instagram.com/p/BySr9T4l-JOa6fnPacoeqMP-3jRF6iPgDPt4LA0/?igshid=5c31538omhe2

#eidmubarak

Astrology apology for taking up space in Aquarius ♒️, but gotta say thank you for my peoples who went to my wish list and bought up every book/film for my birthday. Thank you to my love @chandrafrank for Sun-Ra, Kwaito, and a much sought after South African memoir, Always Another Country. Love to @meenakshiproductions and (Sabela) for Oral History of Punk and a book on the Black Pentecostal Church, thank you @nrjesq for CL Franklin biography (I’m still learning about Aretha’s brilliance), thank you @lauren.u.mauldin for Heavy and for loving memoirs enough to send the very best! Thank you @center.vision for the biography of Dinah Washington, another pathway to Aretha, Dinah was one of her favorite singers! Thank you @asadullahsaed for not just one but three Akomfrah films on one DVD! And thanks to my pops for even coming through with Losing Ground (independent film by the wonderful Kathleen Collins), and a book on the history of Blues in Houston. All of these works will make me a better student, writer, lover, friend, teacher, and person. Grateful for how y’all circled me by seeing me....now as you were Aquarius, we Capricorns love y’all 🐐✨📚 P.S. who sent me Zora’s Barracoon?! Reveal yourselves so I can send you a digital kiss 💋 👩🏾‍💻 (at Los Angeles, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/BtGs6srlzQvolEuQsEJOWGP21X-EHksUKUY7Bo0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=ak2iyaz2yzhr

Soweto is Baltimore is Kingston is Detroit is New Orleans 🇿🇦 (at Soweto, Gauteng) https://www.instagram.com/p/BsJMmPwlatqrqSl3qzRMU_KGfMgDEmOgrZHJ-s0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=iavoca8jaeu

Fourth New Year’s Eve in South Africa 🇿🇦 I leave y’all with the most impactful quote of my year by mother poet Lucille Clifton... * * They ask me to remember but they want me to remember their memories and I keep on remembering mine.✨ * * Wishing everybody the strength to have those courageous conversations that make us face ourselves, readjust our vision, and forgive each other for the less than helpful narratives we’ve created to hold grudges or survive guilt. Human being shit. New stories for the new year 🙏🏾 No more holding healing hostage. (at Johannesburg, Gauteng) https://www.instagram.com/p/BsDyeQFliQNN6oHii_22clRbmC2TkoTItpP55E0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=17q83dbhzf6l4

We picked up a few books from the Durban Shaka Zulu airport on our way to Jo’burg, an airport with an entire section on African nonfiction ✊🏾That’s where I found Winnie resurrected by the tender care of a Black South African woman named Sisonke Msimang. Every sentence is an honoring of Winnie’s radical complexity placed squarely between the history of apartheid, the making of Jo’burg and the demonization of Winnie’s unapologetic use of violence to match the regime’s. The book is a weaving together of justice and truth, not to be confused with reconciliation and blind forgiveness. She confronts the global media’s malignant coverage of Winnie following her death and speaks candidly about the ANC’s gendered refusal to embrace her approach to freedom. Winnie’s story is in good hands. You can rest well Zanyiwe Madikizela. We are International Locals, not American tourists. Learning as travel. (at Johannesburg, Gauteng) https://www.instagram.com/p/Br8VA0LlyPi4Mc43Io2Waw75HwRswezLW0MbJc0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1qjjanu4pw7n8

Road trippin’ through the southwestern desert as gay godparents with this little special creature. Send us love on this journey. Heading to my mama’s for National Negro Cooks day and honoring the sacred land of Nevada and Arizona for Indigenous Peoples Day...Los Angeles 🚗Las Vegas🚗Phoenix 🐶👨🏾‍🌾👩🏽‍🍳oh yeah and middle finger to these hostile borders and Columbus 🖕🏾🖕🏾🖕🏾 https://www.instagram.com/p/Bqci4UhlOcUfKpt11IPRFm7j9pnLYCqUNVzXFs0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1jk32ipo02qw7

Lot of folks ask me about my approach to the grant game, so let me say this. One of the very first grants I received was from an incredible queer institution called the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice. “It’s the only philanthropic organization working exclusively to advance LGBTQI human rights around the world,” they sent my ass to South Africa 🇿🇦 in 2013 to do my work. Thursday, November 8, Astrae is hosting an event “honoring frontline activists and cultural changemakers, one of whom is Chani Nicholas. Raise your hands if you’ve turned to Chani looking for socially responsible astrological answers 🙋🏾‍♂️🙋🏾‍♀️ And how many organizations have been aware enough to honor this kind of work? The legendary Joi will perform and both Madame Ghandi and myself will provide music for the evening. Plus the lovely Alana Devich Cyril’s film “My Life Interrupted,” will be screened and her partner Malkia, who taught us millions of new ways to care for loved ones with cancer, even after they transition, will also be honored. The fierce Alicia Garza (Capricorn!) and Jeanne Córdova will be honored as well. It’s going to be a powerful and healing event, so show out Los Angeles. My hope is that after the push for voting today, we’ll have a little more to celebrate Thursday night. Jimmy Baldwin said the least we can do is vote to slow down the machine and buy a little more time to resist in all the many ways possible. I trust that wisdom. (at Los Angeles, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bp1_GU_lrPTWLhTZR8X7dW4G0m7qlyqfrHDDwg0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1ahdimrgyzhyy

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Monday praise break. Grateful for a life where I can present on Aretha’s legacy one night, then spin a house mix of one of the greatest songs she’s ever touched the next day...and give thanks when you’re invited to celebrate the life of Miss Ollie, a Caribbean grandmother whose granddaughter opened up a restaurant in her name, set up an altar to honor her life, invited the Oakland community to come and get free food to celebrate six years in business and then brought her ass from the kitchen, cut a rug to the decks, and gave life to a tambourine. That’s Sarah Kirnon. Meanwhile another person suggested we get baby powder for the dance floor 🤷🏾‍♀️. That’s the color of Diaspora. Barbados 🇧🇧 stand up. Detroit 👏🏾 stand up And thank you @mariaajudice @h2orange @missolliesoakland @beingkhalilanthony @soul_nubian @sandraxdavis @babywasu @patticake76 and all the soulful people who welcomed me back home. Atetha keeps us together. (at Oakland, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/BpzURJBFzJJMU3Z043YwhjNG8u3158eI7ecYxU0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1c05cyilpd114

Dropping by to share the fact that my work will be in two different parts of the world at once this weekend. First, I’m honored to be presenting my ongoing work on Aretha Franklin in Oakland this weekend as a guest of the @matatu festival and my work on Black people as survivors of the music industry, a piece I call State Funeral, will premier in London this week with the support of @paperworkmag. This work saves me from the weight of what we’re seeing. I stay tuned to black music as a form of misery resistance. https://www.instagram.com/p/BppZhhIFPoag1OQnEMu9CP6-vyoUIwboZrvio00/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=3cb35i3zl1fn

Beautiful night in New Orleans. Thank you @amistadresearchcenter and @yorubarecords for bringing me out of my DJ sabbatical and for being willing to take our conversation on a local global journey... (at New Orleans, Louisiana) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bo17xWfnsBME7VjgBU54OTcXZEniuVj8Cqx3GM0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1xx0nqlff8699

I hated reading as a child, now I’m reading my words in a book. I’m so grateful for Dream Hampton for pushing my writing hand and for introducing me to the fabulous editor that @msladyevelyn has been! Check out this amazing anthology Women Who Rock! It’s documenting the musical contributions of brilliant women. That said, the book weighs more than your infant 👶🏾 child. Plus being a black woman writing about Björk was politically important to me and writing about Santigold with my inner punk voice was necessary for playing with fixed notions of identity. Check it out soon! https://www.instagram.com/p/BohMHZknVqzxd9s5lu957OXOUZEi7EMoQqB_Pw0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1shukzyvf7bcv

I appreciate when black folks find homes in the academy and then bring in ‘organic intellectuals’ and black women music scholars to hold up the lives of our legends. Adams Banks invited me to deliver a DJ Scholarship praise dance in the name of Aretha. I’m excited to talk about her brilliance, but also committed to humanizing her by discussing the way her Aries mean streak informed her approach to the microphone and to the piano. And shout out to people who decided to use this image of Aretha as an elder...she was an active from 1956-2017. Sit with that...then get up and go do your work. (at Stanford University) https://www.instagram.com/p/Boec83wHz6GjX4ZyXnHHl55fJblasowfRJwWzc0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=qgw09dpb43rh

I appreciate when black folks find homes in the academy and then bring in ‘organic intellectuals’ and black women music scholars to hold up the lives of our legends. Adams Banks invited me to deliver a DJ Scholarship praise dance in the name of Aretha. I’m excited to talk about her brilliance, but also committed to humanizing her and discussing the way her Aries mean streak informed her approach to the microphone and to the piano. And shout out to people who decided to use this image of Aretha as an elder...she was an active from 1956-2017. Sit with that. (at Stanford University) https://www.instagram.com/p/Boec83wHz6GjX4ZyXnHHl55fJblasowfRJwWzc0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=16muc7ky02wnj

Just started reading this, another title from the Baldwin 70s (73). I’m interested in how Barry Jenkins will hold the story through film. Come on somebody and read it with me 📘📝 https://www.instagram.com/p/Bnol4yMH_Vph7nlD0UF60fh2iLkBQpDK3r-mfs0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=uzjvwn98yl4l

Today I attended the funeral of a bright black boy name Elijah “Trueboy” Clayton. He was the son of Erin Reid, a woman I grew up with here in Cali. He was snatched from his family by another white child who couldn’t hold losing at a gaming event in Jacksonville, Florida. This reptilian in office has unleashed something we’ve known all along, which is that at the core of white supremacy is envy. We circled around Erin and celebrated his brilliance. Cheers to @fancyrida showed up up so hard as a friend and the entire family stood in front of the nation and protected their suffering from the white gaze. Love to you @brandijoie and @quitchacrynhefa for holding so much care. https://www.instagram.com/p/BnXDZ7HHZDRsH-YKht8NCbjDVUSjjefnFEbBmI0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=116kckud25lg9

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