AFRICANDO Arts and Culture Festival, a collaboration between the Foundation for Democracy in Africa and Miami-Dade County, is a one-day event that will feature contemporary African, Afro-American, Caribbean & Afro-Latino cultures. MDCC and the Black Heritage Museum will display masks, statues and murals from the Caribbean, South America, Brazil and Cuba. A special "Children's Activities Village" will feature traditional African and Caribbean folk tales, puppet shows, African mask and instrument making, African textile weaving, Miami Metrozoo's exotic animal show and more. The festival, which is the closing event for AFRICANDO 2001, will be promoted in Africa, AFRICANDO organizers say. A trade delegation from Miami and Washington, D.C., will conduct trade seminars promoting the conference and festival in Nigeria, Mali, Ghana, Senegal, South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Tanzania.
In 1984, the association opened an expanded Historical Museum at the Miami-Dade Cultural Center in downtown Miami. This 40,000-square-foot facility includes a permanent exhibition that traces the history of South Florida and the Caribbean, a temporary exhibition gallery that features several new exhibitions each year, a theater and classroom area for variety of educational programs, and storage areas for the museum's extensive collections of artifacts and archival materials, including books, manuscripts, maps and more than one million photographs related to the region. In recent year, the Historical Museum has directed increasing attention to Miami's role as a gateway of the Americas. To explore Miami's multifaceted connections with the Caribbean and Latin America, a new program series, Miami: The Gateway City, was introduced in Spring 1999. The objective of the 12-month series is to use the museum as a central forum for public dialogue about current issues facing Miami and as a space for related artistic presentations.
"But equally important, it was a celebration of the showbiz pioneers who met the standards of excellence that have enabled the Black community to lead the world of entertainment in Britain today." Songstress Beverley Knight, who became the envy of every woman in the land when she belted her heart out alongside sexy soulster Lynden David Hall, described the evening as "an history event." Roachford said: "I was honoured to be asked to perform."
It ran for more than six years and playing one of [Desmond]'s barbershop cronies was a highlight of [Ram John Holder]'s long career. "It only had half of the audience of Desmond's, but it had much bigger audiences than the shows they replaced it with." In it, the colourful and exuberant traditions of Trinidad's Carnival provide the setting for a stage event which transforms Handel's Messiah into an musical combining song, dance and spectacle with the spirit of Caribbean storytelling.
Dominicans fete late, and even after three nights of nonstop music there must be upwards of 4,000 people waiting to hear the last band. As Haiti's most famous kompa group - Tabou Combo - takes the stage, exhaustion is dispelled by their relaxed "C'est Tambou", an invitation to a dancing-at-dawn session which continues long after the sun has climbed into the sky. The Haitians in the press box break into spontaneous dance, some straying on-stage; couples slip into each others' arms, moving in effortless elegance, and Dominica's minister of tourism, Norris Prevost, inquires whether this is not the best party I've ever seen. Haiti's Magnum Band with St. Lucian Luther Francois on sax blasted away the wee-hours fatigue with flowing funk and konpa over vodou rhythms and soaring lyrical soukous guitar. It was nearly 7:30 a.m. when Guadeloupe's Taxi Creole ended a tight, driving set which drew on zouk, salsa, merengue, beguine, reggae, jazz and funk.
Friday, Oct. 29 was Kweyol Day, a celebration of island identity and culture. While the official language of the Commonwealth of Dominica is English, 80 percent of the population speak Kweyol, a legacy of early French settlement. Kweyol language and folk culture, after being sidelined, dismissed or denigrated during the British colonial period, has played an important role in forging the identity of independent Dominica since 1978. People's irritation with a late start was quickly dissolved. After the Stars, the Vodou rhythms of Haiti's seminal roots music band Boukman Eksperyans reverberated through Festival City. Named after the Vodou priest who presided over the ceremony that ignited Haiti's slave rebellion, Boukman Eksperyans has been at the forefront of taking the Vodou beat into the arena of world music. Tabou Combo, the most famous and long-lived Haitian Konpa band, seemed reluctant to leave the stage, but from 5 a.m., Festival City was overrun by WCK, [Dominica]'s marathon bouyon band, with whom I was still chipping at breakfast time. Not even a large pot of extra-strong Dominican coffee could revive me, and I retired battered and rambling in Kweyol, to recover in Trinidad.
The Mystic Revelation of Rastafari, a group of Nyabinghi ceremonial drummers founded by the legendary Count Ossie in the 1950s, is not only making its New York debut but is raising the curtain on the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts' "Caribbean Roots: Caribbean Routes" festival. Chris Combette, who has been collaborating with Mungal Patasar on several tracks for his new album, opened the show with his beautiful fusion of Caribbean styles - samba, salsa, soca, bossa nova, reggae and zouk sweeping over the auditorium like warm waves. Based in French Guiana, bordering Brazil, Combette has soaked up the melodies of the region, while his lyrics address the nostalgia or alienation of the immigrant, and racist murder in the metropole. Beneath his sinuous, sometimes ethereal music lurked incisive Kwéyol irony and melancholy metaphors. It was left to Kali and his banjo to bring down the curtain on the festival with his brilliant reworking of Martiniquan traditional music, mazurk, biguine, chouval bwa, gwo ka (from Guadeloupe) with reggae, funk and jazz. It was good to hear St. Lucian Luther François, one of the Caribbean's foremost contemporary composers and sax players, adding punch to this excellent band and the finale of a significant festival for Caribbean music.
"[Daniel Beauxhomme] comes from the lighter skin mixed class," said Kevin Johnson, who plays Daniel. "It's the story of two different people from two different worlds falling in love. Fate brings them together and fate takes them apart. It's similar to `Romeo and Juliet.'" "In Haiti, it's very confusing. It's fuzzier than here (the United States). A lot of it has more to do with money and name than this," said Shirley Julien, who is Haitian. "And that's what the musical focuses on. Ti Moune means `little orphan' in the play. But, in Haiti it means `little person.' That drives the theme more because she doesn't have a real name. In Haiti every little kid is called ti moune." "I don't think that there is that much of a difference," said Julien, who is also the musical's choreographer. "It's just highlighted more. The division is put on us and we accept it. It's up to us to say `I don't believe this' and take time to learn about Haitians, Jamaicans and Trinidadians. Our commonalities are so much stronger and deep inside of us."
Mocko Jumbie, as it is called in the Caribbean, has been a part of the Virgin Islands culture for more than 200 years. The phrase "Mocko Jumbie" may have different meanings according to the different tribes that practices the art. "Mocko" could mean "Mock" or it could mean "Good God."
There's tendency among some reggae fans to tune out most of today's dancehall deejays, dismissing them as untalented shysters. While that's an essentially justifiable reaction, there are deejays - mostly of the conscious variety - who are worthy of our attention. One in particular is Prezident Brown. Tune out his new release - To Jah Only - and you'll deprive yourself of a relevant body of work that's likely to sway and have you listening for more of this style. To Jah Only is a neat package that adroitly intertwines the traditional with the contemporary. The title track, which leads the album, gently combines slow guitar picks with Nyabinghi drumming, amid Brown's assiduous delivery of some trusty Rasta melodies. The familiar Duppy Conqueror rhythm by Bob Marley is acquired on In This Life, and it's superimposed with a message that counsels mankind about his covetous ways. This theme is also continued with Pomps and Pride. One of the livelier tracks is Micro Chip, and Brown does a nice job keeping pace with a very demanding tempo. But the strongest is undoubtedly Faith - an instant classic that unveils Brown's versatility and true talent. His encyclopedic expressionism sets him apart from the ordinary, and he's truly one of our best links between the past and the present. [Dean Fraser]'s latest album - Retrospect - is a delightfully appetizing reminiscence of classic hits that are masterfully reproduced for everyone's listening pleasure. With 12 tracks, this album takes you back to mento, through ska, roots, and up to the present.
