ALAFIA: Leaving the Graham Plantation

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.