Wyclef Jean - the trailblazing hip-hop artist and Haiti's answer to Jamaica's Bob Marley and Ireland's Bono - last month unveiled an ambitious new philanthropic effort aimed at bringing the power and wealth of his own celebrity - and the collective muscle of the Haitian Diaspora - to bear to help his native land. Wyclef christened the emerging non-profit "Yéle Haiti" during a tour of Haiti last month, in which he announced plans to help fund the reconstruction of schoolhouses and a vast scholarship program, among other initiatives.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
236 p, Concludes that Peruvians of African descent give meaning to blackness without always referencing Africa, slavery, or black cultural forms. This represents a significant counterpoint to diaspora scholarship that points to the importance of slavery in defining blackness in Latin America as well as studies that place cultural and class differences at the center of racial discourses in the region.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
236 p., Addresses what it means to be black in Peru. Based on extensive ethnographic work in the country and informed by more than eighty interviews with Peruvians of African descent, this ground breaking study explains how ideas of race, colour, and mestizaje in Peru differ greatly from those held in other Latin American nations.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
Jamaican deejay Yellowman is best known for 'slackness': lyrics centered on masculine heterosexual potency, sexist objectification of women, and graphic sexual narratives. Yet a deeper look at Yellowman's life and recorded output suggests that when his slackness is read in the context of Afro-Jamaican culture, reggae history, and his Rastafarian faith, a more complex interpretation of his slackness is needed. The study draws on Carolyn Cooper's (2001) theory that slackness is a 'metaphorical revolt against law and order, an undermining of consensual standards of decency' (p. 141). Whereas the term 'culture' is used in reggae to depict music that is Afrocentric, Rasta-inspired, and socially conscious, and is normally seen as the antithesis of slackness, it is suggested that for Yellowman, the slack/culture dichotomy is eroded when slackness becomes part of the religious repertoire of resistance against mainstream Jamaican society. The dissertation presents: a) an overview of theory and methodology b) an ethnographic case study based on Yellowman's life and career, and c) four analytical chapters that offer itineraries to theorize slackness in Yellowman's music. First, it is argued that through slackness Yellowman subverted embedded Jamaican cultural notions of sexuality, gender, race, nationality, and beauty by promoting the dundus (black albino) as sexually appealing, hyper-masculine, and part of the imagined black nation. Second, it is demonstrated how Yellowman's sexual lyrics are an example of Obika Gray's (2004) thesis that slackness was a conscious political project employed by the Jamaican poor to contest the normative values of dominant society. The pitting of Yellowman and slackness in reggae journalism against Bob Marley and culture is contested. Third, it is refuted that Yellowman employs slackness for the purpose of moral regulation based on conservative Afro-Jamaican sexual mores and his understanding of Rastafarian morality. Finally, Yellowman's perforating of Christian dualistic ideas of carnal/spiritual is situated in the Rastafarian Babylon/Zion binary, demonstrating how Afro-Caribbean religion has redefined Christian dualism using an Afrocentric body-positive ideology.
TWO-TIME Olympic relay gold medallist, Michael Frater, will be looking to keep Jamaica sprinting atop the podium in the 60 metre dash at the New York Road Runners Millrose Games on February 15, 2014. But the 31-year-old's task won't be easy as three young Americans - US Olympian Isiah Young, and 2013 NCAA champions D'Angelo Cherry, and Ameer Webb - will be in on the chase. 'The Armory is one of my most favourite places to race," said Cherry, who won 60m titles at the US and NCAA Championships last winter. "I'm in good shape and looking forward to running a great race at the Millrose Games."
