Conscientization 101

After an arduous and acrimonious dispute with a housing contractor—oh what a crazy summer and fall—we conclude our two-part series with the multi-genius collective, MCE.

In part two of this insightful and trenchant series we discuss the following:

and, much more!

We also give a blistering, but shrewd and veracious, polemic on housing contractors, and info on MCE’s forthcoming EP Food, Clothes, & Shelter, dropping December 21, 2023.

You cannot afford to miss the conclusion to this percipient, sublime, and highly replayable series!

This episode features music from:

MCE’s social media and affiliated websites:

On this 57th episode of Conscientization 101 podcast, we present part one of a two-part dialogue with a collective of artists whose praxis embodies the definition of nationbuilding, MCE. This series is presented in its Unabridged Interview form, as a thank you to those who value Conscientization 101. Our sincerest thanks!

MCE is a collective of multi-talented artists hailing from Pine Bluff Arkansas; and while MCE possess a diverse skill set which ranges from drawing, painting, and the creation of murals, music production is their passion and primary endeavor!

Fueled by the lessons learned from our greatest teachers and scholars, MCE’s sound is the life blood of the people; MCE’s music inspires not merely consciousness but critical consciousness, which particularly focuses on people achieving an in-depth understanding of the world, allowing not only for their perception and exposure of social and political contradictions, but inspirational tools to change those contradictions.

MCE is comprised of emcees Obafemi Kiensiedilele (Magnum), Ced Adamz and soul singer Eshmelek Malakyah. With exemplary wordsmiths, complemented with melodic, harmonious, and ethereal vocals; MCE’s music is not only a paragon of conscientization in terms of subject matter (the quotidian struggles of African people worldwide), but it is also eloquent and euphonious, thus solidifying their status as a veritable and salient music group!

In part one of this perspicacious and epigrammatic series we discuss the following:

and, much more!

In addition to our dialogue with MCE, we also discuss Dr. Walter A. Rodney’s invaluable posthumously released books; The Russian Revolution: A View from the Third World and Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution.

This episode features music from:

MCE’s social media and affiliated websites:

Although it has been over forty years since the cowardly and brutal assassination of our dearly beloved brother Dr. Walter Anthony Rodney (aka Dr. W.A.R.), his intrepid spirit lives on with us today. While the quisling, pelf worshipping assassins succeeded in destroying Dr. Rodney physically, they paradoxically immortalized him. Dr. Rodney’s life was/is the personification of an uncompromised intellectual who committed, what Amilcar Cabral called, class suicide in service of the people. Assiduously devoted to theory and practice, or better said conscientization, the life of Dr. Walter Anthony Rodney, from an African cosmological perspective, can be seen as an orisha or loi. The relevance of Dr. Walter Rodney’s life and work is now an eternal guiding principal or law that future generations can call upon to fortify themselves when in struggle and service to the people.

In this episode of Conscientization 101 Podcast, we proudly present a Conscientization 101 digitally remastered disquisition by Dr. Walter Anthony Rodney called Crisis in the Periphery: Africa and the Caribbean.

In addition, we also discuss the following:

and much more, such as our charm, ironic humor, sardonic quips, and wit to boot! You do not want to miss this episode!  

This episode features music from:

 Books referenced in this episode:

On the long-awaited conclusion of our two-part series, Raggo Zulu Rebel Emeritus: The Eloquence of a Scribe, we discuss the following with Raggo Zulu Rebel:

and, much more!

In addition to and in conjunction with the dialogue with Raggo, we discuss how Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Ayi Kwei Armah’s Two Thousand Seasons, and Anthony Sampson’s Black & Gold Tycoons, Revolutionaries and Apartheid work elucidates the necessity of imperialism (via colonial domination) to foster divisions amongst the colonized population. The divisions created by the colonizer are merely the first tools of ideological and psychological domination of the colonized, for the goal of the colonizer is cultural hegemony. The apogee of this phenomena is apparent when the colonized internalize the colonizer’s most potent ideological weapon…INDIVIUALISM!!!

This episode features music from:

Raggo Zulu Rebel social media and affiliated websites:

And on Soundcloud (search) Raggo Zulu Rebel

Emeritus is an appellation bestowed upon a person who has personified excellence in their respective profession, (usually a former holder of an office, especially a college professor) having retired but allowed to retain their title as an honor. On this 54th episode of Conscientization 101 podcast, we present part one of a two-part dialogue with Raggo Zulu Rebel to discuss his retirement from his over two decades musical career, and why he is deserving of the designation of emeritus.

It has been an honor to be privy to the eloquence of this scribe, our dear brother, Raggo Zulu Rebel.

In part one of this trenchant, evocative, and sapient series we discuss the following:

This episode features music from:

Raggo Zulu Rebel social media and affiliated websites:

Books referenced in this episode include:

In the riveting conclusion of our three part series with acclaimed American Indian Movement activist-intellectual Ward Churchill about his venerable book Wielding Words Like Weapons: Selected Essays In Indigenism, 1995-2005, we discuss the effects of the settler colonial polity of Canada on American Indians.

We investigate this phenomenon by examining the chapter titled “Kizhiibaabinesik”. The chapter is a poignant dedication to brother Ward’s late wife Leah Renae Kelly.

This episode features music from:

Be on the lookout for the forthcoming book from Ward Churchill available for pre-order, From a Native Son: Selected Essays in Indigenism, 1985–1995.

And for more works by Ward Churchill, click here.

We continue with part two of our three part dialogue with Ward Churchill regarding his august book Wielding Words Like Weapons: Selected Essays In Indigenism, 1995-2005.

In part two of this puissant series we discuss Indigenous people in Western cinema. Specifically we discuss the functionality of pejorative depictions of Indigenous people in cinema to the settler colonial project known as the Americas, its effects on Indigenous people, and much more. We also begin a discussion about postality (i.e. post–colonial, post–racial, post–modernism, etc.), and why it is meretricious.

This episode features music from:

Books mentioned in this episode include:

And for more works by Ward Churchill, click here.

Sagacious, trenchant, and decisive are just a few ways to describe the writings of American Indian Movement activist–intellectual Ward Churchill. Informed by praxis, Churchill’s decades of work demonstrate a keen understanding that the fulcrum of the world’s political–economic contradictions are found in attenuating indigenous people’s political–economic independence and creating a helotized population.

It was/is colonialism (settler colonialism in the case of the Americas), that lies at the heart of the current world’s misery, and any analysis to the contrary is not only unrealistic, but utterly naive and puerile. While others with the same level of Churchill’s public notoriety are content to vacillate in their commitment to decolonial struggle, and genuflect with imperialism without the slightest bit of ignominy, he—understanding the exigencies of TRUE decolonial struggle—has resolutely held true to the veracity of this analysis through the decades via the solemnity of his work. His book Wielding Words Like Weapons: Selected Essays In Indigenism, 1995-2005, is a primary example of his fidelity.

In this episode of Conscientization 101 podcast, we present part one of a multipart dialogue we had with Ward Churchill regarding his perspicuous book Wielding Words Like Weapons: Selected Essays In Indigenism, 1995-2005.

Oh yeah, and we open this episode with one hell of a salvo!!!

This episode features music from:

Books and other works mentioned in this episode include:

For more works by Ward Churchill, click here.

In renowned African psychologist’s, Dr. Wade Nobles, book Seeking the Sakhu: Foundational Writings For An African Psychology, Dr. Nobles breaks down the terms “Sakhu” and “Sheti” as the following:

Sakhu Sheti are two terms from the Medu Netcher (Egyptian Hieroglyphs). The word “Sahku” means ‘understanding, the illuminator, the eye and the soul of the being, that which inspires.’ “Sheti” means to go deeply into a subject…'” (pg. 395, footnote 36).

In our 50th podcast episode with U.K. based recording artist Raggo Zulu Rebel…“we came to a deeper understanding” about who we are as African people. So sit back and enjoy as we delve into such topics as: nationalism and cultural unity of Africa, cultural misorientation, the cultural basis of economics, and much more.

This episode features sounds from:

Chairman Maf from his album Ginger: the tracks are “Imposter”, “Pear Tree”, “Besomuch and “Friday Night Soul” respectively, and

Raggo Zulu Rebel from his albums Selassie I Son (2007), The Return of Jah Messenger, and Jah Messenger: the tracks are “Dreadlocks Man ft. Spliff Range & Jah Mirikle”, “Deeper”, “Old School ft. Sicko”, “Skylarkin”, and “RasTafari ft. Jah Mirikle, Rass Gregg & Spliffy” respectively.

Raggo Zulu Rebel social media and affiliated websites:

Twitter @raggozulurebel

Instagram @raggozulurebel

Facebook Raggo Zulu Rebel

Website: https://www.raggozulurebel.com/

Bandcamp Raggo Zulu Rebel

Soundcloud Raggo Zulu Rebel

Books mentioned in this episode were Chancellor Williams’s Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a Race from 4500 B.C. to 2000 A.D. and works by Ward Churchill.

We conclude our Ideopraxis Series with a digitally re-mastered presentation from Dr. John Henrik Clarke titled, The African World Under Siege!!!!

This presentation from Dr. Clarke took place at the Slave Theater in New York circa mid 1990’s. And in this presentation Dr. Clarke discusses the following:

(For more on this point see Part 1 and Part 2 of our dialogs with Dr. Julian Kunnie about his book Is Apartheid Really Dead?: Pan-Africanist Working-Class Cultural Critical Perspectives), and much more!

Dr. John Henrik Clarke (January 1, 1915-July 16, 1998) in the late 1960’s through the late 1980’s, was one of the foremost architects of the emerging discipline of Africana Studies/Africalogy as Professor of African World History in the Department of Black and Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College of the City University of New York and as the Carter G. Woodson Distinguished Visiting Professor of African History at Cornell University’s Africana Studies and Research Center.

As an academician and intellectual, Dr. Clarke emerged as one of the leading theorists of African liberation and the uses of African history as a foundation and grounding for liberation. Under Dr. Clarke’s formulation liberation was defined not simply as freedom from European domination, but fundamentally as the restoration of African sovereignty. He explored history’s utility in moving an oppressed and subordinated people from a position of subjugation on multiple levels to full status as a self-sustaining, self-defining, self-directed, free, and independent people on a global stage.

Although a leader among European academy-trained African intellectuals who joined the European academy largely beginning in the late 1970’s, Clarke’s education and training were the product of a movement for the indigenization of African academic intellectualism in Harlem of the 1930’s that can be traced back to the early nineteenth century. Books authored by or about Dr. John Henrik Clarke in the Conscientization 101 Library include Christopher Columbus and the Afrikan Holocaust: Slavery and the Rise of European Capitalism, Africans at the Crossroads: Notes for an African World Revolution, and John Henrik Clarke and the Power of Africana History: Africalogical Quest for Decolonization and Sovereignty by Ahati N. N. Toure.

Ideopraxis, a term coined by renowned African scholar & author Ayi Kwei Armah, means “the translation of ideas systematically embraced into structured behavior and lifestyle. Ideopraxis is the yardstick that separates revolutionary performers from phonies” (Remembering The Dismembered Continent, pg 75-76). With this term in mind, we created our Ideopraxis Series.

Conscientization 101’s Ideopraxis Series is an extension of the tracks we produced for our FREE GIFT musical commentaries featuring Dr. Marimba Ani, Dr. Amos Wilson, and Dr. John Henrik Clarke. These podcast episodes include lectures we have curated and digitally re-mastered from each of these African scholars in order to preserve these critical insights and analysis.

This episode has featured music from:

Other books mentioned in this episode in the Conscientization 101 Library were Soledad Brother by George Jackson and The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born by Ayi Kwei Armah.