Wanda's Picks

1. Mr. Guy Forchion, Executive Director, Virginia Key Beach Park Trust with Board Member, Dr, Gene Dinizulu Tinnie join us to talk about the historic Virginia Key Beach's 75th Anniversary

https://virginiakeybeachpark.net/

2.  Leroy F. Moore Jr., Founder of the Krip-Hop Nation, joins us to talk about two programs, Disability Justice and Covid-19, May 8, 4 p.m., and Corona19 Artistic Flow, May 16, 2-5 PM PT, featuring top names in Krip-Hop.  

3. Camellia Moses Okpodu (born January 24, 1964 in Portsmouth, Virginia), Professor of Biology and Dean of Arts and Sciences at Xavier University of Louisiana (XULA), New Orleans, LA, join us to talk about the Black Mother. 

4. Mrs. Sadie Williams, 96, born in Houston, TX, joins us to talk about being a mother.

This is a black arts and culture site. We will be exploring the African Diaspora via the writing, performance, both musical and theatrical (film and stage), as well as the visual arts of Africans in the Diaspora and those influenced by these aesthetic forms of expression. I am interested in the political and social ramifications of art on society, specifically movements supported by these artists and their forebearers. It is my claim that the artists are the true revolutionaries, their work honest and filled with raw unedited passion. They are our true heroes. Ashay!

Melanin Magic Sessions Take 12: A special series of shows featuring healers who will leave us with tools we can use to strengthen ourselves during a time when isolation is encouraged while the soul cries for communion.

1. Karla Brundage, Colossus and Anuj Nijhawan, co-founder of Shuffle, join us to talk about the Weekend of Words! Friday, May 8-Sunday, May 10.  https://wow.shuffle.do

https://wandasabir.blogspot.com/2020/05/wandas-picks-radio-show-wed-may-6-2020.html

This is a black arts and culture site. We will be exploring the African Diaspora via the writing, performance, both musical and theatrical (film and stage), as well as the visual arts of Africans in the Diaspora and those influenced by these aesthetic forms of expression. I am interested in the political and social ramifications of art on society, specifically movements supported by these artists and their forebearers. It is my claim that the artists are the true revolutionaries, their work honest and filled with raw unedited passion. They are our true heroes. Ashay!

Melanin Magic Sessions Take 11: A special series of shows featuring healers who will leave us with tools we can use to strengthen ourselves during a time when isolation is encouraged while the soul cries for communion.

1. Marvin X, editor, and Michael Satchel, screenwriter, l join us to speak about his new work, "Tariq,(the Moor)" an historic story of the African General in Spain. https://blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com/2020/04/book-release-tarik-by-michael-satchell.html

2. Dameion Brown had his first ever public performance as the title role in Othello at Marin Shakespeare Company in 2016, achieving what has never been done before by a first-time actor: the honor of “Best Lead Actor” from the Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle. Since then, he has appeared in The Seagull at Utopia Theatre Project, Waafrika and The Farm at TheatreFirst (winning another BATCC award), Dance of the Holy Ghost with Ubuntu, and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing last summer at Marin Shakespeare. He formerly taught parenting classes at the San Francisco Sheriff's Department for at-risk-youth, now he's a teaching artist and mentor at Alameda Juvenile Facility at O.H.Close and Chad facilities in Stockton.

This is a black arts and culture site. We will be exploring the African Diaspora via the writing, performance, both musical and theatrical (film and stage), as well as the visual arts of Africans in the Diaspora and those influenced by these aesthetic forms of expression. I am interested in the political and social ramifications of art on society, specifically movements supported by these artists and their forebearers. It is my claim that the artists are the true revolutionaries, their work honest and filled with raw unedited passion. They are our true heroes. Ashay!

Melanin Magic Sessions Take 10: A special series of shows featuring healers who will leave us with tools we can use to strengthen ourselves during a time when isolation is encouraged while the soul cries for communion.

We'd like to open the show with something about jazz, and McCoy Tyner and the improvisational nature of life-- Black life and Muhammad B. Hanif, Charles Curtis Blackwell, and Damu Sudi Alii join us to talk about it. 

1. Mina Morita, Crowded Fire joins us to talk about Mina Morita, Artistic Director, Crowded Fire theatre, director, Dustin Chin’s Snowflakes, or Rare White People, May 1-10, 2020

http://minamorita.com/aboutmina/

https://events.berkeley.edu/index.php/calendar/sn/TDPS.html?event_ID=125989

 

2. Jazz History Month concludes with a conversation with: Damu Sudi Alii

Charles Curtis Blackwell

Muhammad B. Hanif

This is a black arts and culture site. We will be exploring the African Diaspora via the writing, performance, both musical and theatrical (film and stage), as well as the visual arts of Africans in the Diaspora and those influenced by these aesthetic forms of expression. I am interested in the political and social ramifications of art on society, specifically movements supported by these artists and their forebearers. It is my claim that the artists are the true revolutionaries, their work honest and filled with raw unedited passion. They are our true heroes. Ashay!

Melanin Magic Sessions Take 9: A special series of shows featuring healers who will leave us with tools we can use to strengthen ourselves during a time when isolation is encouraged while the soul cries for communion.

We open the show with Tosin Aribisala, drummer, percussionist, singer, composer, who hails from Lagos, Nigeria. He joins us to talk about his single, released earlier this year, and Africa Rising (2016) and other projects.  

This is the final Friday, National Poetry Month. It has been really lovely sharing the airwaves with poets throughout the country. Thanks so much to Kim McMillon, Ph.D., poet, playwright, scholar, for curating with her friend, Lucinda J. Clark is the founder of P.R.A. Publishing and the Poetry Matters Project from Augusta, GA. We close with a bang, an all women set featuring Bay Area poets: Joyce Young, Adrienne Oliver, Kathryn Takara, in Hawaii, and Karla Brundage.

Co-hosts, Kim and Wanda, will close the program with a poem.

We'd like to open the show with something about jazz, and McCoy Tyner and the improvisational nature of life-- Black life. However, at this writing that is an idea without flesh.

We open with guests: Deborah A. Wright, a retired Reference Librarian/Administrator from the College of Charleston’s Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture (Charleston, SC, USA; Dr. David L. Horne, the International Facilitator for the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (SRDC) and the Pan African Diaspora Union (PADU), an international umbrella organization of Diasporans & Nvasekie N. Konneh, a Liberian writer, poet, magazine publisher, community and cultural activist. We will talk about SEHWAH Liberia, Inc., a local Liberian NGO and the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (SRDC) its United States based Pan African counterpart's Proposal for COVID-19 Awareness and Food Assistance in Liberia beg. 4/20 so that families can stay safe during the crisis. Donations can be sent via Cash apps or Zelle @ $KDonzo or 571-237-9159, and Mr. Nvasekie Konneh 267-826-3952.

2.  Zarinah Shakir is the Producer/Host of the award winning Perspectives of Interfaith, a TV program taped and aired at the Arlington Independent Media studios in Arlington, VA over 16 years. It airs at DCTV, Washington,DC, Manhattan Neighbourhood Network and other markets.  She is also the former Producer/Host for six years of Islamic Perspectives, the longest running TV program about Islam and Muslims in the Washington, DC metro area.  Ms. Shakir joins us to talk about Ramadan, the Islamic month fasting which begins this week. 

3. Queen Hollins, Earthlodge Center closes the show. Rafael Jesus Gonzalez's poetry for Earth Day is another highlight of today's show.

Join us for an evening of improvational storytelling with Yeye Luisah Teish and Ms. Jovelyn Richards as Voodoo Queen and Ms. Pat. Ms. Pat has a boarding house her friend, the Voodo Queen, likes to visit when she's in town. They let me record their conversation for a listening audience, if I promised to not interrupt. 

This evening is part one of a three (3) part series, 7 p.m. 3rd Sundays through June 21. Pull up a chair, fill a cup with tea leaves and sit back and enjoy. 

Soundtrack: 

Cannonball Adderley

Autumn Leaves 10:59

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpB7-8SGlJ0

McCoy Tyner & Ravi Coltrane - Walk Spirit Talk Spirit – LIVE (12:52 mins)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dFtZbha29M

Chuck Mangione

Feels So Good (9:42 mins)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FExBwfQHXlE

Luisah Teish (also known as Iyanifa Fajembola Fatunmise) is a teacher and an author, most notably of Jambalaya: The Natural Woman's Book of Personal Charms and Practical Rituals. She is an African-American, born in New Orleans, Louisiana. ... She is an Iyanifa and Oshun chief in the Yoruba Lucumi tradition.

 

Jovelyn Richards is a writer, performance artist, instructor, radio host, film director, novelist. 

https://www.jovelynrichards.com

This is a black arts and culture site. We will be exploring the African Diaspora via the writing, performance, both musical and theatrical (film and stage), as well as the visual arts of Africans in the Diaspora and those influenced by these aesthetic forms of expression. I am interested in the political and social ramifications of art on society, specifically movements supported by these artists and their forebearers. It is my claim that the artists are the true revolutionaries, their work honest and filled with raw unedited passion. They are our true heroes. Ashay!

Melanin Magic Sessions Take 7: A special series of shows featuring healers who will leave us with tools we can use to strengthen ourselves during a time when isolation is encouraged while the soul cries for communion.

1. Rhodessa Jones, Medea Project: theatre for Incarcerated Women, Cultural Odyssey, joins us in a prerecorded interview to talk about The Ressurrection of She at Brava Theatre, March 28-April 7, 2013. Yes, it is an archived interviewed. 

2. We continue our celebration of National Poetry Month with wonderful poets. This portion of the show is curated by Kim McMillon and Lucinda Clark. 

3. We close with another rebroadcast, Adia Tamar Whitaker joins us to talk about Have K(no)w Fear, A Blusical at ODA, 10/17-20/2019.

This is a black arts and culture site. We will be exploring the African Diaspora via the writing, performance, both musical and theatrical (film and stage), as well as the visual arts of Africans in the Diaspora and those influenced by these aesthetic forms of expression. I am interested in the political and social ramifications of art on society, specifically movements supported by these artists and their forebearers. It is my claim that the artists are the true revolutionaries, their work honest and filled with raw unedited passion. They are our true heroes. Ashay!

Melanin Magic Sessions Take 6: A special series of shows featuring healers who will leave us with tools we can use to strengthen ourselves during a time when isolation is encouraged while the soul cries for communion.

Rebroadcast the Bill Withers who passed April 3, 2020 and Dr. King, who was killed April 4, 1968, Special Radio Show aired 4/4/2020.  https://wandasabir.blogspot.com/search?q=bill+withers

Melanin Magic Sessions Take 5: A special series of shows featuring healers who will leave us with tools we can use to strengthen ourselves during a time when isolation is encouraged while the soul cries for communion.

1. Shekhem Samerit Kau (aka Marcus Gary) joins us to talk about Ausar Auset Society West Coast Chapter's workshop series: Ancient Tools for Successful Living-- Virtual Workshops, Sun., April 12, 12 noon PT. Based in Oakland, CA Shekhem Samerit Kau has 26 years experience in the application of holistic living and Wellness as a member of the Ausar Auset Society. Backed with 17 years experience with Qi gong and Chinese medical science, He is an Instructor of Qi Gong, Yoga, Meditation, Male Virility, Bazi Astrology and Digital Meridian Imaging. Shekhem is a graduate of UC Berkeley with a Bachelors Degree in Architecture and a minor in Structural Engineering. Also holds a Masters of Civil Engineering from Stanford University with a focus in Construction Engineering and Management. www.facebook.com/qigongbootcamp

2. Leah Davis, Wealth & Wellness Coach. To register for the webinar on Women's Empowerment Stories visit https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_P4sR6_t6R361BkZdxuqZ0g 

3. National Poetry Month Celebration continues this week with poets from throughout the country