Creation Rebel Renaissance

ALAFIA: Leaving the Graham Plantation

2011-02-08T21:19:00.000-08:00

The year was 1999, and I was about to send in my script for "Amor d'Exranjeros," later to be called, "Cubamor," to the Copyright office. It was a moment where i knew if i were to change my name, my first feature film would be the right time to do it. I went and met with my village elder, my Babalawo, Ifalashe, with three Yoruba names that i liked; alafia, alabee, and alashe. Alafia was my favorite, meaning "Peace," a shout out to one of my favorite poets, Octavio Paz. Alabee was my second choice, meaning "born of dreams." And alashe was my third choice, "one who walks with ashe." Ifalashe did a divination between them asking about alafia first, and it was most positive. I sent in the Amor d'Extranjeros script as joshua bee alafia, AKA Joshua Bee Graham. From that point on, folks knew me as joshua bee alafia, but i'd always have to clarify that i also had a "government" name when folks were writing me checks or booking a flight for me. It always struck me as a small defeat. I spent a lot of time wondering about what it must have been like on the Graham plantation; would my ancestors want me to carry on the name of their captor?

My grandfather, Johnny Bee Graham is an enigma to me. My grandmother tells me stories of Johnny Bee's ingenuity, how he designed and built a model car by hand that ran, how he owned a pool hall, sold Cadillacs and shark skinned suits, tailoring without a tape measure with his precise eyes. Johnny Bee was a professional gambler and would leave my grandmother for weeks at a time to play high stakes card games with the Black doctors, morticians, and moneyed gamblers throughout the South. He had several patents stolen from him in his engineering ventures with motors, and swore to always be his own boss. I met him twice. The first time as a baby, then as a 7 year old, when i visited my father when he stayed with him in Waycross, Georgia. Johnny Bee asked me to come sit on his lap, gave me a $50 bill, and told me to run along and play. He never shared a word with me. Unfortunately, he died the summer i was going to go visit him when i was 19. Somehow, as independent a thinker he was, i feel like he would have lost his plantation name if it was something folks were doing back in his day.

I googled my grandfather and found nothing. I googled my father and links to "Black Fire," the anthology of Black Arts Movement poets compiled by Leroy Jones (Imamu Amiri Baraka) and Larry Neal.

This is what comes up at the afterward in "Black Fire" to describe my father:

RUDY BEE GRAHAM is a Harvard drop-out. besides writing poetry, he has written several plays, two of which were performed by the New Lafayette Theater. He is published in Negro Digest and Black Dialogue.

Later, Rudy would also be featured in "The Poetry of the Negro," edited by Arna Bontemps and Langston Hughes.

I asked Rudy Bee if he'd change his name to "alafia" and he declined, being happy with the name "Graham," as it's one of Brahma's names, a divine name... He said he'd been "Graham," too long.

On October 8th of 2010, The Civil Court of New York in the County of Kings reviewed my petition and ordered my name to become joshua bee alafia. It was a fairly painless process, a few runs to DMV, publishing the name change in the Canarsie Courier, and the judge Carolyn Wade signed off on my papers, forever liberating me from the Graham Plantation. The clerk saw me as i was making copies of the papers and sang, "A Fanga Alafia Ashe, Ashe..." i smiled. "That song has been in my head ever since I saw your name this morning." She said. "I'm glad i could bring music to you today, angel," i replied. The song, was one of the first african songs i learned while studying drumming my first quarter at UC Santa Cruz. The song goes like this:

Fanga Alafia, Ashé, Ashé.
Fanga Alafia, Ashé, Ashé.

Come and share our drumming space.
Ashé, Ashé.
All are welcome in this place.
Ashé, Ashé.
We are here to welcome you.
Ashé, Ashé.
Young and old, and babies, too.
Ashé, Ashé.

Fanga Alafia, Ashé, Ashé.
Fanga Alafia, Ashé, Ashé.

Open hearts to every care.
Ashé, Ashé.
Open minds to learn and share.
Ashé, Ashé.
Open doors in drumming space.
Ashé, Ashé.
All are welcome in this place!
Ashé, Ashé.

Fanga Alafia
Ashé, Ashé.

It's a song of welcoming. "Fanga" means "Welcome"; "Alafia" means "Peace"; "Ashé" means "So be
it, or Amen". I felt welcomed by the ancestors as I walked out of that courtroom with my name legalized, and the legacy of slavery liberated from my namesake for the prodigy. I've left the Graham plantation, and will continue to decolonize my mind... one day at a time. This i know is true... one day soon, we will all be free.

Remembering the Magnolia

2010-07-18T08:05:00.000-07:00

Remembering the Magnolia teaser from joshua bee alafia on Vimeo.

In January of 2010, Shantrelle P. Lewis, Art Curator and Director of Programs & Exhibitions at the Caribbean Cultural Center called on me to work on a documentary about the Magnolia Projects in New Orleans. Since then, we've been collecting past residents' accounts of their days living there. The story really reflects the larger story of the criminalization and ghettoization of public housing coinciding with the influx of heroin during the Vietnam War through the distribution of crack cocaine among the impoverished urban sector. Our team has included historian Dr. Yaba Blay and photographers Jati Lindsay and Abdul Aziz. Our next trip down will be for the 5th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

Billie's Understudy

2010-01-19T21:47:00.000-08:00

Skeeder stumbled into the small flat and knocked over the tiny dining room table, the little plant on it crashing to the floor.
"Man, what's that matter with you, you high? Or do I even need to ask," she said. Annie May was only 19, but she had an older woman's voice. I guess that's why she took to singin' the Blues. Guess that's why she went with Skeeder, he could play the drums like nobody's business.
Skeeder collapsed into their bed with his shoes still on.
"Damn it, Skeeder, take off them clothes and have some sense! What you on?"
"I'm high, woman, what it look like?"
"You smell like, African Violet, you got high with Billie?"
"You got nose of a blood hound, woman."
"Skeeder. You didn't."
"You know I'm not here to tell you no lies."
"No. Skeeder... No. Get your alley cat, good for nothin', horse ridin' ass out my bed, fool!" She yelled, and pushed him onto the floor. She got up and closed the door, which was still wide open, withe the light from the hallway pouring in. She turned on a light and took a look at Skeeder laying on his back. She walked to the sink and grabbed a long kitchen knife and walked over to him.
"Skeeder, of all the two nickel whores and show girls you could of stepped out on me with, why you choose my teacher? Why you take her away from me? How am I supposed to listen to her now? How am I gonna learn from her now?" She held the knife tightly behind her back and shifted her weight from right to left slowly.
"Woman, I was so high I didn't know where I was. I thought she was you. She didn't know me from nobody either. I called your name, though, when I reached that promise land, I called your name. She slapped me silly... She slapped me and threw me out the door... can you believe that. I had to go back for my damn shoes. She threw my clothes in the hallway. I called your name, Annie May, and you can believe that."
"I took this knife so I could cut the life out of you Skeeder, but you ain't worth my time. Now get out. You can get used to women kicking you out of they life because you have no decency. You have no shame, and you have no decency."
She threw the knife across the room and grabbed his leg and dragged him to the door. Annie May was a little, pear shaped woman with short curly hair. Pretty when she smiled, but she didn't smile too much. Had too much of that blues in her. She pulled Skeeder into the hallway and went to close the door but he stopped her.
"You know I love you more than life itself, don't you?" He said from his knees.
"Let go of me, " she growled.
"You know I love you like a bee love honey and a fish love water, Annie May. Come on now."
She began to sink. Like a ton of bricks she came down with no bones in her, she came down. She came down and cried like she just lost her Mama. And Skeeder held her close, how he usually held her. Like a man who loved hard but too late. She let him hold her there, and searched for the dreams inside her that had died prematurely of unnatural causes. She searched her heart, and she searched his eyes. His eyes were red, but tender... a real puppy dog... What hurt her most is she couldn't stop loving him. No matter what.

Brother Blue: Boston Griot

2009-11-08T21:02:00.000-08:00

brother blue: boston's griot from joshua bee alafia on Vimeo.

Dr. Hugh Morgan Hill aka "Brother Blue" was one of the great American storytellers. I grew up watching him perform in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in Brattle Square, at Cafe's, the Children's Museum etc. I loved listening to his colorful and often transcendental stories, and I credit him as being one of my chief inspirations to make films. Here is a short clip of the footage from the documentary I started last year. Brother Blue passed over in his sleep November 3rd, 2009. He was 88 years old. I hope to finish the documentary in his honor by the time we have his memorial in the Spring of 2010. His wife Ruth Edmond Hill was his rock of reason, and the librarian that captured his heart and gave him the support needed to be his freeflowing creative whirlwind self.

Guz: Portrait of a Baller as a Young Man

2009-09-24T08:31:00.000-07:00

Guz: Portrait of a Baller as a Young Man from joshua bee alafia on Vimeo.

The Reelworks filmmaker mentorship program approached me with a special project a few months ago. They wanted to do a portrait of a young father to be who was aging out of the Fostercare system named Chris Guzman as part of a series of joint collaborations with Youth Communications. Chris writes for Represent Magazine, and impressed the editors of the magazine with his man up attitude in being dedicated to being a good father, even as he was going through a break up with his pregnant girlfriend. I ended up spending several days with Guz, shooting him in his environment, interviewing his homies, and going up to the Bronx to shoot him in his first apartment, his first experience of being on his own after many years of group homes. He told me about his dreams of playing in the NBA and I've recently shot him meeting up and playing some hoop with Jaime Peterson, a professional basketball player who plays for Grupo Begar Leon in Spain. That will be part two of the video above.
Funny how the gig came in synchonicity to where a lot of my energy is directed these days, from The Seed to Let's Stay Together, I've been really thematically drawn to envisioning the strong family unit, celebrating parenthood as we currently are in a real crisis when it comes to bringing up the youth in safe, nurturning environments. The youth have been abandoned by society on a planetary scale... but we can still step up and invest energy into their blossoming potential.

The Seed is coming to DC

2009-08-17T10:00:00.000-07:00

Black Harvest Film Festival in Chicago last week and Boston the previous week have been great screenings. Chuck D of Public Enemy came out and supported at the Roxbury Film Fest.
I've been screening the Seed as a work in progress because it has to be a premiere when it hits the larger film festivals that have a large film market. If you're in the Washington DC area, please come out and support. We're raising funds to take the film to Ethiopia this Fall so we can really start raising funds for the homeless youth of Addis Abeba.
Screening as follows:

Thursday, August 20, 2009 at 7pm
Sankofa Cafe
2714 Georgia Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20001
202 234 4755

Friday August 21, 2009 at 7pm

Jamaica Jamaica

348 Victory Drive

Herndon, VA 20170

Call : 703-481-8641

Sunday August 23rd at 8pm

Busboys and Poets@ 14th and V

2021 14th st NW
Washington, DC 20009
(202) 387-7638 -

Hope to see y'all! I'll be there for Q n A following each screening and selling DVDs of Cubamor.

BLK JKS... the sound of our time.

2009-07-23T14:40:00.000-07:00

blk jks july 5 rebel soul at weeksville from joshua bee alafia on Vimeo.

South Africa's luminous band BLK JKS plays Bed Stuy's rootsy music festival Rebel Soul at Weeksville on July 5th, 2009. On July 4, 1827, New York state declared emancipation from slavery for Africans. Unable to celebrate openly on Independence Day due to threats of violence, the black community honored newly won freedom publicly July 5. So the day was one of liberation in commemoration of our Independence with BLK JKS offering liberted sounds that conjured the Ancestral Spirits of Jimi Hendrix, Fela Kuti and King Tubby and framing them within traditional South African and Zulu sensibilities. It was a day that the Brooklyn Renaissance was honored by our South African bredren in the sunshine of Brooklyn with grass beneath our feet.
The first time i saw them was at the New Africa Live series that Rwandan songstress Somi hosts a year ago. I ended up shooting them as they recorded at Electric Lady Studios, Jimi Hendrix's epic studio that has continued to be the recording studio of choice to folks like D'Angelo, Common, Pharrell, Erykah Badu, and on and on... I talked to Knox, their manager and we agreed this had to be documented for many reasons. I was leaving for Kenya the next day so I spent just one day shooting them lay down their Mystery EP with Brandon Curtis of Secret Machines at the mixing board. One of my favorite moments was sitting at Jimi's pianos.. he has a black one and a white one facing eachother, mini grands... his Spirit is still there... strong... you can definitely hear it in the funk that comes out of there. So down the line, be on the lookout for a doc project that i hope to finish shooting with BLK JKS in september, when they come back to town.

Old Soul

2009-04-20T17:20:00.001-07:00

Old Soul

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Havana Habibi is shot... now have to cut it.

2009-04-10T10:34:00.000-07:00

havana habibi preview

I got back from Havana January 16th, and despite the fact that my tripod hadn't made it on my flight and I had missed my flight two days earlier because I lost my passport... I felt HIGH. High because the journey that is Havana Habibi was coming into it's last trimester... the documentary is shot!

Change is Gonna Come: Obama Inauguration

2009-03-17T11:30:00.000-07:00

Kenyatta Hill (son of the late great lead singer for Culture, Joseph Hill) rocks the mic real hard in Georgetown after the Inauguration.

January 20, 2009
I had just come back from a government sanctioned trip to Havana on a professional researcher visa to finish photography for Havana Habibi. It was was snowing in New York, I was beat, but I knew I had to go to DC and follow up to the Brooklyn Obama little mini doc I did. I drove down with my sista Regine Romain and her daughter Ngozi and dropped them off in Silver Springs where I connected with my bredren Tikher Teferra, who was my assistant director/sound man for The Seed, the feature film I shot in Ethiopia. He'd moved from Addis Abeba to the states in 2008 and now works for a video production house in Silver Springs. We ate bomb Ethiopian food and went tried to go to bed early, knowing we'd have to wake up at 4am to get an early start on Obama's Inauguration. There was such hype over the whole thing, traffic alerts, folks making it seem like it would be impossible to get there from new york... We got up well before dawn and hopped on the train, which was packed to capacity and rode in. The vibe was jubulant, somewhat quiet, but electric on the train. I was struck by how many children were coming out, as well as how strong the turnout was considering how freezing it was... it was hurt you cold... mean to you kind of cold. We were unable to get to the train stop we wanted to because of the crowds, so we walked a little farther to the festivities. Volunteers were out in mass to help direct folks, but I think some were from other cities, because they we got some opposing dirctions. Our press passes came from an on-line hip hop magazine, and turned out to be disfunctional when it came to getting to the press area, so we did plan B, and just talked to folks about why they made the journey and what kind of expectations they had for the future. That night was full of celebration, the hustlers came out and sold everything from Obama hot sauce, condoms, watches to Obama air fresheners, cups, plates, and thongs. We breezed through a party that i was very underdressed for and ended up going to Georgetown to see Kenyatta Hill perform in a little Reggae club.
Enjoy the video!

FESPACO: African Cannes 2009

2009-03-13T15:36:00.000-07:00

Burkina Faso Roots!
I landed in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, I was struck by the heat, and the overwhelming feeling that I had just stepped into another chapter of the life journeys. It was my first time on continental West Africa, before that I had shot a documentary in Cape Verde. There were sistas in dresses that had "FESPACO" written on them, holding signs and I met up with them and they pointed me in the direction of a van to the hotel. I was so hyped to finally be in the land that was once home to one of the world's greatest leaders, Thomas Sankara. FESPACO had taken care of everything, plane ticket, meals, and room at Hotel L'Indipendance, which is really the epicenter of the networking at the festival. We arrived at the hotel and I started struggling with French. There was no filmmaker reception really, it was pretty much find your own way through the bussle. The room was nice, took a shower, then went out to the National Plaza with Walter Powell, director of "After School," to see some local music and then to a spot called Kingston to peep some roots reggae. The next day i spent hours getting my filmmaker badge done, which was a mission... much waiting in line, being told i needed to bring get a photo taken downtown if i hadn't brought a passport photo...etc... finally a brotha took a photo of my on his laptop camera and it was done. The whole process took about five hours. When i wasn't in line, i sat and asked folks words in Moore, because it just felt strange to speak French in Thomas Sankara's country... he was so much a liberator and burned fire on the colonial mindset. The next day i hooked up with Leslie To, a Burkinabe filmmaker i had met in New York, at a screening of her short film. Afterwards i met her father and uncle as she took me to "Ouagadougou's 42nd street, Kwame Nkrumah Boulevard. The following days were really a blur. I was not really prepared, didn't have flyers or images to make a real flyer with. My film, "The Seed," had been nominated for the Paul Robeson Award in the Diaspora Film Competition, so i was really trying to get folks to come out, writing the information of the screening on the back of little business cards and handing them out. It seemed like a lot of the filmmakers bond link up on language, it was hard to reach out to a lot of the French speaking African Filmmakers, who seemed deeply engrossed in conversations most of the time in French. I did build with some Brasilian Filmmakers who where brought out for a Brasilian cinema show, like Carmen Luz. American Filmmakers Patrick Coleman and Kirk Shannon-Butts showed their films, "Patterns of Passion," and "Blue Print."
My film didn't win, but our screening was a success. Folks came out and enjoyed it. Some of the hightlights for me were seeing Magic System rock the house in the national plaza, all the great food, rolling around on scooters with my brotha Alli and seeing his family and community garden, taking photos in a red millet beer bar, and meeting all the characters that came out. I did a few interviews and hopefully will get some buzz out for the film and have more opportunities to screen. I also met some folks who know Ben Okri, one of my all time favorite writers and the man responsible for the Famished Road trilogy, which i hope to someday adapt to film.
Ethiopia represented hard with Haile Gerima's Teza winning the festival. His sister was there to accept the award on his behalf and in her accpetance speech, she said that she hopes to see a united Africa with one flag and one language... the exact response i had dreamed a few nights earlier when i dreamed i had won the Paul Robeson award. I guess it would have been too much Ethiopian invasion if i took the diaspora with The Seed being shot in Addis Abeba... there's always next time.

On the Road to FESPACO

2009-02-22T05:53:00.000-08:00

I remember hearing about FESPACO, the largest African Film Festival and African Film Market, when I was in college and was cutting my first 16mm film, Crossing Holy Waters, on Taale Rosselini's Steinbeck flatbed because the ones at school were overbooked. He had worked in Burkina Faso in the Peace Corps, and had made several beautiful films out there. He had an award from FESPACO that was a bronze baobab tree, and right away, I decided I would have to be in the festival in the near future. Well, it's taken me 16 years, but it's going down. I submitted my Ethiopian Film, The Seed, as a work in progress and got the invitation to the festival a month ago, complete with airfare and expenses taken care of. Because of a technical problem with my film (for your filmmakers, I shot with a Panasonic AG-HVX200 in 24pn mode mini dv, and digitized it at 24 frames a second instead of using the 3:2 2:3 pulldown) I had to recut my film, using my old edit as a map, but eyeballing each shot to match the previous selection. I moved into my editing studio in Dumbo and grinded 18 hour days for the last ten days straight, with the crecendo of pulling in mi bredren Hisham Haj Omar to come out and iron out the last minutiae as we convert the film to PAL for the festival.
The process has had me thinking a lot about the journey this film took me on. It started in 2007. I went to Ethiopia to do a documentary on the Revolution of 1974 as research to enable me to write a script on the subject told from a beaurocrat's 11 year old daugher, a lion in the palace, a student activist in the Ethiopian Student Movement, a repatriated Rasta from Jamaica living in Shashemene, and a guard assigned to watch Emporer Haile Sellassie I during his house arrest. I was spending a lot of time at Addis Abeba University interviewing professors who were instrumental in the Ethiopian Student movement and stumbled on the story of priests in Axum who had deciphered heirogliphics that prophecized that the oncoming millennium would be the beginning of a golden age, a renaissance where the oppressive and destructive forces on earth will be destroyed. I wanted to go to Axum and interview them, but was low on funds. Seeing all the homeless youth in the streets made me want to make a film that could benefit them by establishing a foundation to help get them off the streets and into boarding schools. One day I looked into the eyes of a little boy selling napkins, and I saw a sage looking back at me... and that was the birth of idea for The Seed.
So here I am, been awake for he last 27 hours and the film is in the final process of PAL conversion from NTSC. I will update with stories from Burkina Faso as it all goes down.
perfectlove
jbee

Black President! Brooklyn celebrates the Obama victory

2008-11-24T11:20:00.000-08:00

"Black President!" the first words that leave my mouth as i walk down the stairs to my apartment building. "Black President! Yes, I. Can't hold us back no more..." my neighbor chimes in, and the walk to the subway was more and more affirmation, celebration and jubilation that morning of November 5, 2008... the day after Barak Obama won the Presidential election. The morning of election day, i got up and voted at the elementary school down the street from me in Flatbush, Brooklyn, NY. The line was very long, a two hour wait til i hit the polls. But those two hours flew by, mainly because of the folks in line with me, our discussions, our excitement. Mind you, i was steadily, the one reminding folks that we had just watched two fixed presidential elections. i had spent time in other countries with obvious election tampering, Ethiopia and Kenya, and was starting to feel like democracy was never intended to be a reality that actually empowered people to choose elected officials. i'm also not delusional about politrix in the united states of america... i know that we basically live in an oligarchy, a country controlled by multi national corporations, a country that doesn't even have sovereignty of our currency... still, seeing a black man win the presidency cultivated a very powerful sense of victory. My bredren Taagen told me that some Rastas in Jamaica are calling Obama the Antichrist... some other mystics see him as a celestial being... some call him black Illuminati... or just straight up Illuminati... well... time will tell. I feel that his heart is in the right place. It felt good to me to vote for him. I feel like it's an affirmation that we are entering the renaissance. These four years leading up to 2012 have been prophesized as being the years that open the door to the golden age. the age when babylon shall fall. Who knows what monumental changes will have to happen for us to see that kind of movement of liberation, but I know we all are preparing ourselves, even if subconsciously.
So, on election day, after editing a grants video for Project Morry, an inner city youth summer camp with a year round scholastic support program, i grabbed my camera and went to four parties to document the historic night. i knew the power elite had chosen Obama to be the face of the nation during this time, knew he'd "win" the election, and really wanted to hear from my fellow Brooklyn renaissance folks what they were going through as it happened. the result is Brooklyn Obama, the video at the top of the page.
The Obamaized Fela Anikulapo Kuti image was created by Dwayne Rogers. You can get this image on a tee shirt or poster at http://www.dwaynerodgers.com/blackpresident/ and read an interview of how he came up with the idea at Okayplayer. I really love the image, one because it celebrates one of my greatest heroes, Fela Kuti, and two because it brings the revolutionary undertones to having a black president. One who will hopefully stand for Truth and Justice.
Sam Cooke is singing A Change Is Going to Come from the Ancestor realm... Let's make it happen!

The Woman Inside Prince is Jack Davey

2008-09-09T14:04:00.000-07:00

The last interview I saw of Prince he was talking to Barbara Walters. He was sitting next to his young wife on a white couch. He was speaking very quietly, and said that they had news. He said that they had two personalities, and the new personality was a woman. His wife nodded, that indeed there was a woman inside of him. It wasn't alarming, the brotha wears thongs and lace n eye make up n shit, but I didn't know how that was going to play out. Prince is a musical genius. I'm saying that in the tone that Eddie Murphy used to say brothas would roll up on him and threaten to kick his ass for impersonating Stevie Wonder saying, "Stevie a musical gene yessss!" After the interview came out, i think it was like 1997, not much changed. He still made his own eclectic funk. But what i hadn't realized was that the woman inside of him was a walking, breathing entity. Her name is Jack Davey of J Davey.
http://www.myspace.com/jdavey
I was at the show on August 20, 2008, at S.O.B.'s in lower Manhattan, and let me tell you... she ripped it. The band was tight and the beats were massive. And i was given a feeling that i hadn't experienced since i saw Prince in 1984 at the Frank Erwin Special Event Center, Austin, Texas. You see, i was a ticket scalper when i was 14. That means i always had tickets, and often would use the phattest tix for myself. For prince i brought my lil girlfriend wearing a lace glove and Purple Rain shirt to the 8th row and she caught a rose that Prince had kissed and thrown out to the audience. I had a feeling at that moment that i was a part of something important musically, culturally, historically... Jack Davey gave me that feeling as well. She approaches music with the same spontaneous brink of explosion that Prince does. The vibe is one of urgency. It's the primal feeling of procreation for survival. It's a compulsion that involves fight or flight or impregnate... i felt neuro transmissions to my knees to move. My senses became more alert, like a panther's. She bad, yo!
J Davey are representative of the Black New Wave of a mix of Hip Hop, Afro Punk, Electronica, Psychedelic Groves, Dub, and Funk. It's party music as well as music of liberation. It's raw sex and emancipation. Cop her latest album, it's knocking. But be careful, it has fertility powers, so if you're not trying to conceive, be warned.

"Let's Stay Together" shooting diary 2: Memphis and Al Green

2008-08-30T23:34:00.000-07:00

It's a long ride to Memphis from Brooklyn. About 17 hours, yo. And it's the kind of road that sends the mind deep within, especially as my cinematographer and actor were passed out cold 90% of the ride, and i was the only one driving. I was on a mission. A mission that had started a week before. A mission to meet Al Green.
I had gone to Al Green's sound check in Atlantic City, on a mission to reach out to him and tell him about the film. I brought my homey Malik, who's shooting when i'm in front of the camera, put on some nice duds, and we walked in like we belonged there. "Are you performing tonight?" one of the House of Blues staff asks.
"Not tonight," I said.
"Oh, you're with the band?" he wondered, looking at the camera bag.
"That's right," I said, and he pointed us to the back stage.
"You can get your back stage passes through those doors and to the left."
We waltzed back stage and hung out in a dressing room while I planned the next move. Al wasn't doing his sound check, I could tell it was someone else on the mic. After a few songs, we ventured out to investigate the other dressing rooms. I asked a sound tech if Al Green was in the larger dressing room, and he told me he was up in his hotel room.
"But his daughter is here, would you like to talk to her?" "
"Yeah, tell her joshua bee alafia is here."
He disappeared into the dressing room and came back to open the door to let us in. Deborah Green sat with the other background singer, filling envelopes with the bands pay for the night. She was very warm, and I was very polite. I told her what i was doing, that i wanted to use her father's music in my film, and told her how his new album creates an enchantment on the African American families in crisis and brings folks together in my film, in a very magical realism way. The film pitch is so bizarre, that i never feel like folks actually understand what i'm going for, but she was encouraging and took the little synopsis and DVD of Cubamor i gave her and said she'd give it to her father.
"I'm going to be in Memphis next week, are y'all going to be there?" I asked, having seen a gap in their tour dates on the website and hoping that Rev. Green would go back to his church that Sunday to give service.
"Well, I won't, but my Father will." She said, and encouraged me to go to the church.
That's how I came to be driving 1100 miles with a cinematographer and an actor to make my film and meet one of my favorite recording artists. Two days before the trip, a cinematographer friend that i've never worked with bailed on me because he pulled a paid gig and i was trying to bring him on as a favor, since my budget is too hurting to pay my technicians or actors as of yet. I ended up calling a young student i had met in the EVC teen film making program named Ariel. Aicha was coming with us three days before she left for a month in Switzerland.
We Arrived in Memphis at about 5:30 in the morning. The brotha working the desk at the hotel was real nice and talked about his city a little while i checked in. We crashed for about four hours, then bounced to church, disoriented as i looked at the clock not knowing we had crossed time zones. When we got to the Full Gospel Tabernacle, the place was already bumping. The drummer was kicking the kick hard, i felt it in my chest immediately. The music was extremely on point, and another singer was singing lead with a fury and a passion that made all the road fatigue leave my body. I spent most half the time standing and clapping as the choir lit it up. Al was seated initially, letting some other singers do their thing, then he stood, wrecked it, and gave a beautiful sermon that focused on being loving and tolerant to one another. It was Aicha's first time in church, as she is an agnostic, and i kept looking at her to watch her soak it all in. Rev. Green asked new comers to say where they came from and we heard responses from all over; South Africa, Kenya, Italy, Ireland, Indiana, and of course i had to represent Brooklyn! to the fullest. Toward the end, Rev. Green asked us all to tell the folks sitting next to us, "I love you," and it was actually very profound telling young Ariel and Aicha that i loved them. A great way to start a shoot. After the service, i approached the drummer and told him i wanted to meet with Rev. Green about a film i was shooting in New York. He was a cool brotha and listened to my short pitch, then went back stage to see if Rev. Green would entertain us, but he had already left as he usually does. He along with some other folks in the choir encouraged us to come the next day in the morning to see if we could get a sitdown. We left and ate a soul food feast then started shooting. Part of the mission was getting the hotel scenes knocked out, which we did steadily. We did the scene where Aicha's character gets pregnant... which is always kind of awkward, and got most of the romance scenes between her and i out of the way.
The next day we rushed Aicha to the airport and then went to see if the Rev. would grant us a meeting, interview, whatever we could get. We waited for about a half an hour at the church until his secretary came to tell us he wasn't giving interviews.
"That's alright, I really came here to get his blessing more than an interview. I want to just sit and meet with him, briefly."
"You came all the way from New York, just to get Rev. Green's blessing?" She said, somewhat shocked.
"Yes."
"Okay, let me give him another call and see if he'll just give you his blessing." She said, one of the sweetest folks you'd ever want to meet. "He says go ahead up there!" She came back with, genuinely excited because everyone knows how difficult it really is to get a meeting with Rev. Green.
We walked over to Al Green Publishing office. Rev. Green sat writing checks for his band, gave us both a quick handshake and smile and told us to sit down.
"Okay, let's hear it." he said, looking down at the check he was writing.
"Let me begin by saying it's a real honor to meet you, Rev. Green..." i started, then launched in to a summery of my film and how i thought it was only right to get his permission to reference him and that if we got distribution, the distributor would come to pay the royalties for the music we use in the film.
He began by telling me he wasn't giving interviews, that he had sent Tavis Smiley and his crew home packing the previous week as they showed up trying to shoot in his church. He spoke of not wanting somebody to do a bio picture on him or anything of that nature. As i clarified i just wanted to use his music, he ended up saying.
"You do you, and I'm going to do Al Green. Go on and make your movie."
He then shook our hands and we said goodbye. I felt like it was a step in the right direction, but I was a little disappointed he hadn't really heard what i wanted to do in terms of him and my film, the message i was going for.
It was a very long ride back to Brooklyn, but my initial disappointment faded into a gratitude that he had said the words,
"Make your film."
And that's exactly what i intend to do.

"Let's Stay Together" Shooting Diary

2008-06-25T15:34:00.000-07:00

saturday, june 21, 2008

i woke up at 10 min. to 8am with butterflies in my stomach today. and then had diarrhea. sorry if that's t.m.i. but, it's real. it took me back to college, where i used to always get it before a theatre performance... no matter what... didn't matter how well i knew my lines, how confident i was... i'd always have to completely clear my gut before getting on stage. bizarre... so today was a flash from the past. maybe it's because i haven't acted for a while... i guess it's been about a year, my last efforts being my cameo in The Seed, the film i shot in Ethiopia... coming soon. (still working on the soundtrack.) So, the day started with some anxiety. I was at Adia's crib last night until 2:30am shooting her and ase dance company sewing their Oshun dresses and talking about the fate of the company for the ongoing Ase Dance Theatre Collective documentary, or for posterity... we'll see what happens. I rolled out and picked up my brotha Jonny Sheehan, one of my oldest friends, since we were 17, n shit... He agreed to work the camera while i'm in front of it. We picked up Aicha Cisse, my lead, and headed to Grand Army Plaza Water Fountain, at prospect park in Brooklyn. Aicha was wearing a yellow dress, which was a concern if the Oshun dancers came too yellow, but it all worked out. We ran through the lines, and i felt reassured that i had cast the first time actress, because she has a real natural feel for the role. Adia Whitaker and her crew showed up right as we felt confident we had the scene blocked and ready. The sun was in the wrong place... right over head, but folks had other commitments, so we had to make due. it was the first time i've used these new 32gig P2 cards, and there was a little anxiety there too. the footage is lush... can't wait to see how it projects. the pacing went well. we fought with traffic and fountain noises a little at first, but got through. it helps that Jonny worked as a sound man for years, since we had no sound recordist... i'm telling you, this is my no budget film that couldn't wait. Aicha is studying at Colombia U, and is overwhelmed during the school year, and some of my actors are about to turn SAG, so this was my last chance to shoot a no budget, non SAG film with this group of folks. Once we shot the scene where my character meets Aicha's character for the first time on a salty note... i picked up the camera as Jonny had to go take his son to a birthday party. I shot the Oshun Dancers dancing beside the fountain, as tourists took photos with their camera phones and digital cameras and the crescendo was when Adia broke out the honey and got really Ye Ye O with honey pouring all over them while they danced and carried on. As we ended the scene, Adia put some honey on my cheeks that i latter would accidentally smear on women's cheeks as i kissed them hello.

"Let's Stay Together" has begun. Now it's about getting Al Green... He plays Carnegie Hall on Friday, and i'm on a mission to get him on camera...

Cuba in Transition Dialogos Interview Spring 2008

2008-06-13T09:27:00.000-07:00

Repatriation Afrika

2008-01-15T08:57:00.000-08:00

Repatriation Afrika Now
By joshua bee alafia

I’m writing from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I begin with that reference because it is here that we will unite this continent… Afrika the bountiful. Afrika the beautiful. Afrika, the salvation of humanity. The ancient Auximites prophesized that the year 2000 would herald the golden age… the end of the 3000-year curse upon the land. Perhaps bringing the Arc of the Covenant brought with it it’s negative energy… 3000 years of strife and unbalance. King Haile Selassie invited the displaced Afrikans of the Diaspora to return home to Ethiopia… he said there’s enough room here for all of us. I have internalized that call, the prophecy, and the sentiment that this is the launch pad of the Golden Age of Redemption. I am inviting you to join me. Afrika has been drained of human resources through the slave trade and economically motivated migration of trained professionals. It’s time to come back and give to Afrika. It’s time to unite the prodigal children with their place of origin. Repatriate now!
It is time to rethink the dominant system of economy. It is now based on a Eurocentric standard of gold as precious, gold as the base of economy. This is absurd. It means that whichever groups of people’s rape, pillage, and destruction, hording as much gold as possible, prosper. It is a standard based on destruction. As is other pillars of the current global system: the military industrial complex, the prison industrial complex and the pharmaceutical industrial complex. Thus war, imprisonment, and sickness are the most profitable industries to engage the economy. These coupled with alcohol, tobacco, and petrochemical industry. Destruction layered upon destruction. This is completely dysfunctional and ridiculous. The age of destruction has run its course and its time has finished. Wisdom is better than silver and gold.
In the New Millennium, we must look engage a new system of commerce that reinforces positive contributions to society and the planet as a whole. Each soul shall be born with a credit that will subsidize their childhood through student years’ necessities upon which they accumulate excess with positive actions. When you look at money, it really represents time and energy spent. Income is based upon technical skills that earn different sums of money based on years spent in training and function in generating wealth. Income shall be based upon time and energy spent in symbiosis with the socio-planetary effect of those actions. Thus we usher in an age where teachers will be redeemed for the good of their work instead of being underpaid and eventually driven from the profession due to burnout. This is the age where we invest in the wellbeing of our youth to ensure a strong society. Wealth is really contingent upon quality of life as opposed to material accumulation.
I’m a freelance filmmaker who generates relatively low income for a man my age with my education living in the USA, but I am rich in experience and quality of life due to my traveling around the world and the fact that I love what I do. Under the new system, the socio political effects of my works will be measured and my pay will be based upon how the works fall positively upon society; weather for mere entertainment or potential positive progressively transformative effect on the culture. A computer program can be created to calculate the value of actions and works.
The Afro, the United States of Afrika’s currency, will lead the planet in redefining what is important, what is valuable. I’ve never bought something gold in my life. Well, actually, I bought some video cables that had some gold connectors… and that’s the height of value I place upon the metal… it’s a good conduit. As we evolve, it’s time to live in accordance with the constant reinforcing of positive actions upon the planet. I’m calling out to my folks in the Diaspora to heed the call of your destiny… come reunite Afrika. Come redeem our fallen, come break our mental shackles, come decolonize, come realize the bounty that is our home… Afrika the free. Come enforce the shift from destruction to social upliftment, earth affirming, peace, building and cultivation.
3-17-98

self and Self, Shango and Shango

2008-01-15T08:09:00.000-08:00

Tato Casteneda Rabaza
Obabi's Shango alter in Atares, Havana, Cuba.

From the House of Shango...
i want to talk about Shango a little bit. A lot of times, we think of Shango with the character flaws first... falsepride, voracious sexual desire, peacockery... and forget that Shango represents journey of human beings into Eternal One Consciousness, the transition from selfhood to Selfhood, enlightenment, Self Realization.
like many stories of transformation, allegory is used in the story of Shango, and the metaphor takes different forms;
the most popular is that Shango was a great king who was also a powerful sorcerer. After uniting all of the Yoruba kingdoms under one rule, peacefully... his sorcery became the focus of his attention, even replacing his womanizing. His brother Babaluaye the herbsman taught him the secrets of the forest, his wife Oshun taught him the secrets of Divination and his father Agayu taught him the secrets of his spiritual element... Fire. Shango's curiosity into his new found power superseded his maturity to handle it. He was seduced by his power to evoke lightning and accidentally burned down his village. The people ran him out of town and his shame and sense of failure drove him to hang himself from an Iroko tree. His first wife Oya found him hanging, took him down from the tree and raised him from the dead with the Power of her Love and devotion and her ability to call lightning from the skies and electrocuting his heart until the lifegiving pulse returned and he stood on his own two feet. "Oba ko so!" She exclaimed, "The King is not dead!" and it was so. Shango came back to town and made a formal apology to the people and they all rebuilt the dwellings and he ruled peacefully and ushered in a Golden Age that continued for a few hundred years after his natural death at a ripe old age.
another popular story is that after uniting the kingdoms, he grew so bored that he had his two brothers wrestle to the death and after doing so, was so grief stricken that he went out and again, hung himself from the Iroko tree, again Oya revives him...
The details of the stories vary, but what remains consistent is the ascension of power, misuse of power, death, rebirth and renaissance.
His death is always at his own hands, and his rebirth is always by the hands of his wife, or feminine aspect of the Self, Oya.
This is the story of ego and Spirit, self and Self, expansion and contraction, duality and Unity in Divine Consciousness.
The King figure represents the masculine cultivation of power and dominion over this plane of existence. The lightning is the ignition of Kundalini, the energy that unites "heaven and earth" the crown and the root Chakras. The tree represents Divine Knowledge, the Tree of Life, the Placenta. Oya represents the feminine Self, the contraction of the ego into the Spirit. She holds the key to the Spirit realm, the Ancestor realm, the cemetery. She is the wise owl, the gentle breeze and the eye of the storm, the maelstrom, the hurricane/tornado, the eternal spiral. She is the ultimate nurturer, the life giver and the destroyer, she's a warrior, the machete wielder fighting for her children, the psychic Seer, the heart and soul of the nation.
This story represents both the journey of self into Self. Through Self Knowledge, the ego dies and the Union with the Divine is realized. It is a story for the individual and humankind. The masculine energy of the industrial/technological age brings war and destruction due to our spiritual immaturity, and is brought to and end by the feminine energy asserting itself, the usage of feminine wisdom in healing earth, using the tree of knowledge, the placenta (stem cell research) to heal maladies, the contraction back into earth after the expansion of flight and space exploration... the journey of the tree from seed to stalk to branch to fruit and back to earth, seed fertilization, rebirth, sprout.
there comes a time when we as as a species, must put away false pride, false sense of self, and see the One true Reality of the Self, the Eternal Unity of all Creation, the Eternal One.
"every crown must fall" means just that. kingdoms must collapse to the power of the Supreme Equality of all Spiritual Beings... Divine Unity. One.
i'd like to tell you a story about my ego attacking me around spiritual experiences.
i went to my first sweat in 1992. it was the summer solstice and the tee pee was packed to capacity with mostly white hippies, to where, everyone was literally touching each other in proximity. i had been meditating, and went to the sweat with the preconceived notion that i would hold my back erect, and thought i would have a Kundalini experience in the sweat lodge. i was disappointed by the crowdedness, and was thinking thoughts like, "these hippy fools need to back up off of me so i can get my Kundalini on!...." the woman who ran the sweat was really a fire being. in the first round, she put so much water on the rocks that half the people in the lodge had to get up and leave. i was glad, because i could then put my legs down and sit cross legged. just as i was getting comfortable, more water steamed up on the rocks and i had to cover my nose and mouth because the heat was too intense to take directly into the lungs. a woman sitting diagonal from me asked if anyone would change places with her because she was sitting directly next to the circle of hot rocks that was kicking off searing heat. nobody volunteered, and after a very long silent pause, i said, "yes, i'll switch with you." as i said it, my ego inflated, feeling strong against the heat, feeling durable against the hardship. As the next round began, water was poured on the rocks and it was so hot, even cupping my nose and mouth couldn't cool the air enough to take into my lungs. i collapsed into a fertile position and whimpered, putting sand on my legs because i feared they were boiling up with blisters against the heat of the hot rocks. i stayed in that position for the rest of the sweat, praying for the strength to remain, and for all of our strength to endure. i felt completely unified with all sentient beings in the tee pee, not tripping on their trust funds or hippiness or anything but the foundation of our common existence, our common humanity, and the reality that we are spirits in a material world... the body is not the spirit, but a vessel... i kept thinking "this body is a pool of flesh..." when the sweat was finished, i stumbled out of the tee pee on legs of a newborn, and crashed into the big alter that was set up, knocking over deer alters and rocks. the woman who ran the sweat scolded me. i then walked into the ocean, naked. we were in northern california, in santa cruz, and the water was very cold, but stunningly refreshing after four hours in the sweat. there was no moon in the sky, and as i looked down i saw my body was glowing with little points of light like stars... "the light is coming through me!" i shouted, and my homey/housemate beside me started laughing. "Those are sea enenamae, man..." he said, "they're phosphorus, that's why they glow..." again the ego deflating... expansion and contraction, expansion and contraction... the burning and the rising from the ashes, the destruction of the alter, the laughing stock, being made an object of ridicule after feeling spiritually expanded... the duality of bugging off hippies, and the unity of Eternal One present in all sentient beings... all of these feelings and realizations... my ego was terrified of being destroyed in that tee pee... until it literally was. the moment i got out, it tried to reflate, it tried to become grandiose.... again, it was brought back to earth, and i was never quite the same.
but more ego fights awaited me...
one of the most comical to me was when i went to a Tibetan Buddhist retreat with Sogyal Rinpoche. it was back in 1999, and there was a big snow storm. i had just moved back to new york, and was living in Manhattan. my same homey from college who had brought me to the sweat lodge, had become Sogyal Rinpoche's assistant for some years. he got the fee waved for me to be his guest at the Tibetan House for a weekend retreat. I had never seen Sogyal Rinpoche or read his works, but had brought my homey Seth to another Rinpoche's teachings back in college. Immediately, i was a little turned off by seeing that there were only 3 black folks out of about 100 people there. immediately, my ego was trying to cloud my mind with duality. i thought venom thoughts about the "yuppy" culture vulture clinging to the Tibetan prayer beads and trying to buy enlightenment at little meditation retreats... a little series of dualistic ego centered thoughts cluttered my mind as i sat waiting for the workshop to begin. We were asked by an attendant to write down one thing we would like to learn about or receive from the workshop. i wrote down that i would like to experience an "empty mind," because i could never really feel like my mind was empty when i meditated. Sogyal Rinpoche walked into the room and sat on a small stage. I was alarmed to see that he was a round man, seeming chubby, and he wore a western oxford shirt under his robe. my ego started babbling... "what kind of Monk or Rinpoche or whatever is fat? He had hella desires... be eating hella shit... what kind of guru eats hella doughnuts n shit... he's rocking a mullet! why is he rocking a blue oxford shirt... like he's some kind of accountant or some shit..." my ego was terrified of destruction. The students there started bowing, many of them going to the ground three times in prostration. I just stood there, judging with a screwface. Sogyal Rinpoche sat down and looked through the stack of papers with our requests on it. He stopped at one and smiled. "Empty mind," he said, and turned his head to the left and looked me dead in the eyes. "Okay, put your little pens and notepads away and let's sit for a moment. Some of you say you haven't experienced empty mind. It's here. It's here..." My ego panicked... "he's talking to me... he read my paper... he looked at me... he.. me.. he... me... me... silence... empty... empty... " before it could babble for two more sentences, my mind shut it's ass up, and there was emptiness. no thoughts. just being. my smile broke the emptiness and i felt very humbled for judging Sogyal Rinpoche. Later, when i shook his hand, i saw that his body is solid... spiritually dense. i laughed at my idiot thoughts, my dualistic ramblings, and i've enjoyed seeing him as much as i can to receive his teachings.
whenever we have the intention of ascending past our egos, there is a panic. there is an internal revolt. it may manifest as judgemental ramblings, or a number of different tools of distraction to try and disengage our Spirit from asserting itSelf in the Truth of Unity, The Eternal One.