Conscientization 101

What’s up everyone, we’re back! And do we have a show in store for you!  Since this is our relaunch episode, we decided to spend a little more time with you! During this time we talk about the updated website and, since we no longer have subscriptions, we wanted to explain our new store where all our content and new merchandise is available.  We also discuss new content coming in the future.

For the feature of this episode we are happy to present excerpts from our dialogue with Big Frizzle! Big Frizzle is a multi-talented lyricists, singer, writer, and student/teacher of African history and culture. He has been featured on countless albums as an MC and singer and he has released his much anticipated album titled Family First, Africa 4 Africans Edition. During the interview Big Frizzle talks about how he started doing music, the influences which have directed his musical delivery and content, and the making of Family First, Africa 4 Africans Edition. This is part one of a two part series.

This episode features sounds from the following artists:

Big Frizzle – Family First Africa 4 Africans Edition

All Black Everything

Boys In The Hood

Children Of the Colonised

Hell’s Kitchen

How Media Portrays / Betrays Me

Shaka Zulu

Toast ft. Triggs Vega

Chairman Maf

Sincere Soup  – SOUP

Telegram – SOUP

The System – ZOO

Logic & Last Resort

Essence – True Talk (the instrumentals)

It’s Funny ft. Big Frizzle – More True Talk

Shadow ft. Big Frizzle – True Talk

Walking Away – True Talk (the instrumentals)

Big Frizzle, Logic, Big Cakes, Turbulence – Do My Thing , The People’s Army – General Salute Vol. 2 album

Jaja Soze ft. Logic & Big Frizzle – Activist

Logic & Big Frizzle ft. Big Cakes – Soldier, ACADEMIKS album

Nate ft. Big Frizzle & Jai – Human Nature, Life & Lyrics album

Various Artists – This Is Black History

This episode of the C-101 podcast features the UK based Hip Hop collective RU1 Fam! We had the opportunity to talk with three of the members: Iras DanJahDan, Watusi 87, and Mercury aka Djhuti. We had a really great time talking with these brothers. It was like we met up with some of our long lost family members, thus the title of today’s show!

We talked with them about their music and creative process, worldwide resistance to neoliberal policies and much more! This is the last show for this year but we will still be posting music videos and books. We’ll be back early next year with some new and exciting changes, so we encourage everyone to check our Twitter, Instagram & Facebook for updates.

Thanks to all the wonderful people we interviewed this year, our supporters, and a special shout out to our subscribers. All of you keep us going and we look forward to even more connections in 2016!

On this episode we feature music from RU1 Fam from their collaboration album with Logic, We Are One the tracks were, “Highest Grade” (Feat. Michael Lloyd Pinq), “We Are One”, “From The Corner”, and “Time Is Now” (feat. Adam Hourigan). Also you heard their track “Real Life Hip Hop” from their EP I Am One.

On this episode of Conscientization 101 podcast, we had the opportunity to dialogue with the Directors of the Southern California Library, Michele Welsing and Yusef Omowale. SCL is a community library and archive located in South Los Angeles. Founded 50 years ago, the library holds extensive collections of histories of community resistance in Los Angeles and beyond. The Southern California Library documents and makes accessible histories of struggles that challenge racism and other systems of oppression so we can all imagine and sustain possibilities for freedom.

We talked with Michele and Yusef about several contradictions many people are suffering from in today’s neoliberal society. We talked about who gets afforded humanity in society, why people are so susceptible to exploitation, the general belief that the primary (if not only) point of struggle is with the police, how the goals and objectives of social justice groups are literally dictated by the people we should struggle against, and much more!

This episode features “Right This Wrong (Instrumental)” by Deeskee from the Free Leonard Peltier: Hip Hop’s Contribution to the Freedom Campaign and Raggo Zulu Rebel’s track called “Banging On The System” ft. Poetic Pilgrims from Raggo’s latest album The Struggle Continues (2007).

On this episode of Conscientization 101 podcast, we have a round table discussion with Dr. Julian Kunnie (The Cost of Globalization: Dangers to the Earth and Its People and Is Apartheid Really Dead? Pan Africanist Working Class Cultural Critical Perspectives) and Dr. João Costa Vargas (Catching Hell In The City Of Angels: Life And Meanings Of Blackness In South Central Los Angeles and Never Meant to Survive: Genocide and Utopias in Black Diaspora Communities)!

So what is a boçau? How did this revolutionary term become a pejorative name in Brazil? We discuss this and the importance of an African identity for Black people, British Prime Minister, David Cameron’s, response to the call for reparations from Caricom, the question of immigration and Syrian refugees, and much more!

This episode features music from Akala’s album The Thieves Banquet and the track was “Malcolm Said It”.

This episode features excerpts of our interview with sister Eyesis Star. Eyesis Star is a hip hop artist from East London. She has a “passion for music and a thirst for truth” and she “has been doing music since the start of creation and the same way life can’t end, neither can her music for it is Everliving.”

Eyesis started reciting and performing her written lyrics in 2011 with The Rebel Lions Of Creation, a group of young friends who grew up together from school days. She then branched out further, working more with I & Ideal, a member of the Rebel Lions to bring out a CD titled ‘Reflections’ and is currently working on her new project ‘K.R.E.A.M – Knowledge Rules Everything Around Me‘.

As well as poetry, singing and rapping, Eyesis plays Jembe as part of a traditional west African drum group ‘Jembe Explosion’. This group has taken it upon themselves to educate each other about their African traditions in order to preserve the culture and heal past traumas within themselves. We hope you enjoy The Praxis of Eyesis Star.

This episode features Raggo Zulu Rebel’s tracks “Revolution” and “Marcus Garvey”, from his The Return of Jah Messenger Vol. 2 album. We also feature music from NoName (of the RU1Fam Collective) entitled “All I Have” and Eyesis Star the tracks are the exclusive “Can’t Breathe” ft. Watusi 87 and “Non Believer” (also produced by NoName).

Today we are featuring interviews we did with Black Agenda Report’s  Margaret Kimberley (left), Editor & Senior Columnist, and Executive Editor Glen Ford (right). We interviewed Glen and Margaret in 2012 at the Left Form in New York City at Pace University. Glen and Margaret provide very informative analysis and observations which are still relevant in 2015 (and beyond). This podcast includes the full interviews with both Glen and Margaret.

This episode features music from Logic & Last Resort from their True Talk (The Instrumentals) album, the song was called People’s Legacy (Instrumental) and Logic’s album 30 Free, the track is Freedom (feat. Muslimah & Naz Haze).

On this episode we feature excerpts from an interview we did with Dr. João Costa Vargas in Austin, Texas at the University of Texas – Austin. With all the significant changes happening in the world politically, we had to visit João and get his take on various formations that have emerged in the past few years.

We specifically talk to João about his piece Black Disidentification: The 2013 Protests, Rolezinhos, and Racial Antagonism in Post-Lula Brazil. We also discuss Black autonomy, the Black Lives Matter movement, the rise of consumerism in Brazil, the role of academia in society, the pitfalls of multi-racial coalitions for Black people, culture, the role of sports as an imperialist tool, and the benefits of doing structural analysis.

This episode features music from Wise Intelligent’s album, The Blue Klux Klan, the track is called “Nothing”.

On this episode we play excerpts from an interview we did with African writer, Ayesha Harruna Attah. We talk about her two novels Harmattan Rain and Saturday’s Shadows. As part of our discussion we discuss the characters in her books and relate them to the everyday experiences of Africans throughout the world. We also talk about the political environments in which she sets her narrative and the importance of writers putting forth a vision that we can build from.

This episode has featured sounds from; Akala the track is “Get Educated”, from his Knowledge Is Power – Mixtape, Vol. 1, Chairman Maf from his album 1976, the track is “Rise”, from Arise King David, from his album Free Music, the track is “Nkrumah Salute” and from Logic & RU1 Fam’s  collabo album We Are One, the track is “One” feat Amy True.

In this episode we air excerpts from a dialogue we had in 2011 with Dr. João Costa Vargas about his books: Never Meant to Survive: Genocide and Utopias in Black Diaspora Communities and Catching Hell In The City Of Angels: Life And Meanings Of Blackness In South Central Los Angeles. In this discussion we discuss the structural conditions Africans from Brazil and the United States live under and the character of the various struggles happening in these African Diaspora communities.

This episode features music by Akala, the tracks are “Get Educated”, “Pissed Off”, and “Yours and My Children” from his albums Knowledge Is Power – Mixtape, Vol. 1, The Thieves Banquet, and Doublethink, respectively. We also feature Big Frizzle‘s track “All Black Everything.”

This is part 2 of our dialogue with Donnie Mossberg. You can find Donnie on SoundCloud, Instagram, and Twitter.

This podcast episode features Donnie Mossberg’s “Milonga Triste” and “Israelite (This Uprising) 05′” from Wise Intelligent’s album, Blessed Be The Poor.