Bantu alongside guest performers Don Abi, Germany Rapper Curse and the Afrikan Shrine Styled Firedance crew rocked the crowd at the 10th edition of the Cologne Summerstage Festival. It was the perfect day for an openair event: Sunshine, goodvibes, open minded audience and lots of great bands.

Some images: http://www.funkhauseuropa.de/bildergalerie/index.phtml?gal=1963&img=15t

Bantu on iLike - Add iLike to your MySpace

Our continent has lost a passionate and courageous fighter. A woman who sacrificed her time, talent and energy towards waking up the world to the injustices of apartheid. She was the  voice of the struggle, taking the curse of her people everywhere from concerts, radio and TV stations all the way to the United Nations where she represented Guinea, her exile home for many years. She paid the price for her activism and outspokenness both within the confines of her home and as a professional, she was blacklisted not only by the South African authorities and spied upon by the likes of the C.I.A. Her marriage to the African American Student leader and civil rights activist Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) led to numerous concert cancellations and boycott by big time promoters and still she stuck to her guns. She was loved and admired by millions across the globe for her incredible talent and originality. Miriam Makeba was a rear gem of humility and simplicity amongst her super star peers.
In this moment of grief i rejoice knowing she lived to see the end of apartheid and the election of Barak Obama. Long live the first lady of African music, long live mama Africa

I met Sonny Okosun while recording at his Ogba studios and residence in July 2005. Like every other Nigerian product of the 70's i had grown up on a steady diet of Ozidi sounds. I will never forget when my dad came back from work with a copy of Okosun's legendary „Papa's Land" album sometime in 1976, i was fascinated by the unconventional artwork, intrigued by his lyrics and melodious voice. His strong grooves, massive horn section and politically charged lyrics ignited a strong feeling of connection in me. Here was an artists who sang the soundtrack to the images of Brixton riots and anti apartheid protest rallies that flashed into our living room via NTA news. Although i was only a kid, i could tell from his delivery and the power of his music that there was something urgent, a crises that needed to be addressed and he was the ordained minister of information. The voice of the voiceless Namibians, Mozambicans, Zimbabweans and black south Africans. I quizzed and drilled my poor parents for answers, desperately pleading for them to explain how whites could go against blacks in such a brutal and inhumane manner. It just didn't make sense in my world where my German mother and Nigerian father looked to me like the most normal couple on the planet. Little did i know that i was being sensitized and prepared for what i would eventually come to understand as racism years later in Europe.

From then on i became an official fan. Whenever Sonny Okosun was on television performing in one of hisfunky warrior outfits or declaring „Fire in Soweto" i was sure to be caught dancing and singing like a mad man. I adored him like millions of my fellow country men and women. 
i eventually met my long time musical Hero through my friend Alariwo(of Afrika fame). He had suggested we try out Okosun's Studio for a production I had started with Adewale Ayuba. At first i wasn't trilled. I wasn't sure if it would meet my standards (talk less of that of my "sophisticated" German sound engineer Haijo Krol), furthermore i feared his presence would be disruptive and contra productive. After all i had met numerous Nigerian and foreign artists who held court like kings believing they are the centre of the universe; simply put crazy Megalomaniacs. Still i gave my manager Tony Owodimoh a go ahead and he booked a one week session.

Right from the first day i stepped into Okosun's compound i could feel the aura of the free spirited artists it was written all over the place. There was a church ( a modest open structure), a crazy monkey who kept harassing both dogs and visitors, all kinds of animals and a beehive of activity. with adults and kids scattered all over and a relaxed Sonny Okusun who was pretty composed amidst the whole madness. He had a warm and generous spirit. From what I saw life had treated him well, he looked gracefully dignified and content. What struck me the most was that kids, adults, church members and employees alike all acted carefree around him. They didn't have that intimidating and terrifying look on their faces, the kind you see whenever you visit friends, family or you're invited to functions. The unwritten Nigerian class law that relegates the have-nots and powerless to the lower rungs of the social ladder did not apply everyone was equal and deserved to be treated as such.

Recording in Sonny Okosun's studio was quite an experience. There was a special vibe you felt in the recording booth and in the lounge. It didn't have the state of the art mixing board neither the latest Macintosh computer or microphones but still you felt like you where in Abbey Road . There was an energy all over the place and i was keen to tap from the source.

We accomplished our mission as planned, flying back to Germany with excellent talking drum recordings, vocal tracks and the feeling that we had something very special in our hands. Eight months later the album which we titled "Fuji Satisfaction" was awarded the Kora Awards in South Africa. Somehow deep inside i knew it was destined to happen (that it would become this big i did not expect) i knew Okosun had his hands in it (consciously or unconsciously) He had allowed us to connect to his vibe, he had blessed our music in his modest and subtle way.

Today 24 hours after his passing i will go back to my „Papa's Land" album which i now own as a reissue on compact disc blasting it out as loud as i can, i will sing on with the musical maestro chanting „We want to know who owns the land, who owns papa's land". I will cry for another Hero gone, a freedom fighter, a father, a strong believer in the spirit of brotherhood, a silent and humble revolutionary. And i will scream out my anger, I will rage at Nigeria, Nigerians and it's leaders for letting Sonny Okosun waste, for not coming to his aid when he desperately searched for funds to treat the cancer that was slowly pushing him to his grave.

Sun re o!

Breaking the Silence

Racism and Sexism in German Hip-Hop

Commercially successful German Hip-Hop is increasingly becoming characterised by the glorification of violence and obscene content, employing racist as well as sexist stereotypes. We Brothers Keepers (a registered organisation of primarily  Afro-German artists and producers founded to take a stand against racism and campaigning for equal opportunity at all levels of German society) have been observing the growing tendency towards the glorification of racism and sexism in German Hip-Hop for the past few years with increased concern. We believe it is high time that a public debate on this issue is held. We further believe that this debate should include all those with positions of authority and responsibility in the music industry i.e. representatives of record companies, labels, sales and distribution companies, as well as representatives of the media and politics. Naturally, members of the Hip-Hop community should also participate; not just those who buy and listen to the music, but all those critics who have – up till this point – been curiously quiet.

Wanna B Tight? - Then you better get it right!

This controversial issue can be best illustrated by the current high profile case of Aggro-Berlin/Groove Attack's latest release "Neger Neger" by the Afro-German rapper B-Tight (aka Bobby Dick). Since the album's release, stickers and posters with the words "Neger Neger" have been displayed prominently throughout Germany's major cities ('Neger' is an extremely offensive German word used to describe people of African descent, equivalent to the English 'Nigger'). Undoubtedly the product of an uninspired advertising campaign it aims to raise the profile of B-Tight, by any means necessary.
Clearly, the title of the album, the lyrics of the songs (by way of example: "Who still rams his dick in your hole, tell me who is always stiff? Neger! Neger!") and the advertising campaign are all entirely unacceptable. The word 'Neger' (to be denoted as 'N-word' below) is a racist insult. We reject the use of the N-word, regardless of whether it is applied as a self-definition or used to describe others. In the same way, we entirely reject any sadistic-sexist vocabulary.

The N-word is a signal word for the humiliation and dehumanisation of  Black people.  This can be seen in episodes of German history (through slavery, colonialism, genocide, compulsory sterilisation and murder in the concentration camps) and continues to be a reality to this present day. For example, the fascist murderers of Alberto Adriano sang the colonial and racist German nursery rhyme, "Ten Little N-s" as they barbarically kicked the father of three to death in Dessau. Moreover, right-wing extremists are only too eager to make use of the N-word: a conclusion supported by the recent statements on 'arrogant wealthy N-s' by Holger Apfel, Head of the NPD (German right-wing extremist political party) made during a meeting of the Parliament in the federal state of Saxony.

One cannot overestimate the effect that verbal racist and sexist violence can have.  This cannot simply be defended by the often quoted  'artist's freedom of expression'. This is not a debate about political correctness, but about R-E-S-P-E-C-T and responsibility. B-Tight does not represent Germany's Black community in any way, he is simply out to make as much profit as possible for himself and his label Aggro-Berlin.  Neither his personal choice of language nor his origin should be used to justify or legitimate racist concepts and statements. The way language is used both reflects the state of, and provides the framework for, interpersonal relationships within a society and promotes the distinct verbal and physical violence towards Black people. Due to the lack of guidance from political, educational or media institutions, one can now hear young people singing excerpts from B-Tight's songs and chanting his chorus in public. The end result of B-Tight's clichéd self-portrayal as a sex-addicted, perverted and hyper-potent Black rapist and macho is the uninhibited consumption of misogynistic but presumably 'authentically Black' phallic fantasies.
In this way, racism and sexism are turned into products for a young market, which is only too willing to pay for the confirmation of these prejudices.  

Therefore we demand:

that the label Aggro Berlin ceases to produce and market racist and sexist images and content, as well as an immediate end to the street   marketing campaign of the album "Neger Neger" and the destruction of any publicity material which has already been produced and / or distributed;
that the distribution company Groove Attack ceases to distribute B-Tight's album "Neger Neger";
that all music broadcasters cease to give airplay to video clips with racist and / or sexist content; that all magazines, newspapers and fanzines cease the thoughtless reproduction of degrading news items and unchecked profit making advertisements which grossly insult Black people and / or promote the humiliation of women;
      iv)  An end to the silence in the German Hip Hop community and the music
            industry where people should stand up for respect and rage against racism.
            

It is  time to take responsibility for the entire society and to take a firm stand.


NOTE: If you would like to support our petition pls click on to: http://www.petitionspot.com/signature/schweigenbrechen




 

Peter Tosh - The Revolutionary Africanist

by Herbie Miller
Sunday, October 15, 2006


There must be a reason both at home and abroad that prevents Peter Tosh (October 19, 1944 ^September 11, 1987) from being recognised as the musical giant he was and continues to be. Whether it is a lack of communication between those who oversee his interest and the record labels for which he recorded, I don't know.

But certainly a mutually respectable and agreeable relationship between the two should result in the kind of currency other musicians who have transitioned enjoy. Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Frank Sinatra and Bob Marley are as appreciated today as when they lived. In some cases, these performers have become much larger than before.

Not so for Tosh. For someone second only to Marley, who has spread Jamaica's cultural image across continents and to millions of people, he has been severely snubbed by the local arts and heritage organisations, cultural czars in government, the media and as a result, the Jamaican music loving public. Perhaps the submerged artistry of Peter Tosh is because he was a revolutionary in fact and not just a rebel.

Peter Tosh considered himself a displaced African. He conceptualised that great continent as a state of mind, which means he could live his Africaness without ever going there. At the same time, however, Peter related to Africa in its reality. He saw it as a continent blessed with magnificent history, majesty and tradition, yet, beset with bloodshed, ethnic conflict, and poverty, which he attributed to the lasting effects of colonial exploitation and oppression.

Connecting the conceptual to the real, Tosh acknowledged Africa as a place he would someday visit, in fact even live. He eloquently expressed in many interviews his 'overstanding' of the motherland and his willingness to 'go back home.' In one such interview, he resolutely stated, 'The future with me is in Africa. My song say Mama Africa, that is just telling Africa I am coming home.'

Yet, on the other hand, although his main objective was Africa itself, Tosh loved Jamaica, which he dubbed, 'Jah mek yah,' and considered the island of his birth a piece of Africa afloat in the Caribbean - what he termed 'carry us/them beyond.'

His artistic response to that dislocation was to address Africa's historic significance by singing its praise, and encouraging an African identity. The song African, one of his many compositions that convey his awareness, provides a sense of Tosh's ideal:

Don't care where you come from
As long as you're a black man,
You're an African
Never mind your nationality
You have got the identity of an African
If your plection high, high, high
If your plection low, low, low
If your plection in between
You're an African

These lyrics clearly demonstrate Tosh's views on identity and suggest an Afro-Jamaican and diasporic relationship to Africa. At the same time, he addressed the realities of Africa's contemporary problems by highlighting the issues that plagued it. Above all, Tosh dedicated himself to the political freedom of Africa and committed himself to its liberation in both words and deed.

During the apartheid era, and before many of his fellow singers and musicians knew its meaning and implications, Tosh took a stance against the white supremacist governments of South and South West Africa and their Western allies. He openly supported the African Nationalist Congress (ANC) and South West African Peoples Organisation (SWAPO) resistance movements. As a reaction, Tosh composed and recorded his seminal album, Equal Rights in 1977. The powerful title song was programmed with African, 400 Hundred Years, Get Up Stand Up, Downpressor Man and Apartheid.

These songs all voiced his support for African liberation and his concerns for the world's oppressed. Using sound effects at the start of the song to simulate machine guns, chaos and struggle, Tosh sings on Apartheid:

Yu inna me land quite illegal
You inna me land dig out me gold, yeah
Inna me land digging out my pearls
Inna me land dig out me diamonds
We a go fight, fight, fight
Fight 'gainst apartheid
We gotta fight, fight, fight
Fight 'gainst apartheid
You break off, break off from Britain
You quite illegal right where you are
Yu get yu forces from colonial powers
Taking my diamonds to build ballistic missiles
And use yu might to take me rights
We gonna fight, fight fight fight
Fight gainst apartheid

Tosh talked direct, he addressed the situation as he saw it and he put his money where he put his mouth. Peter Tosh often performed for free on many anti-apartheid concerts, at times paying from his own pocket those in the band and crew who insisted on being paid. Their demands would not prevent Tosh from giving his energy and talents to the cause of African freedom.

Tosh kept himself abreast of the various liberation struggles, their supporters and detractors and energetically engaged anyone sharing his opinion (or not) in lively discussions and debates on the subject. He read and passed on to those interested, a book he purchased in Brussels called the Broederbund (Brotherhood) that provided a background to the origins and implementation of the apartheid system. He met and spent time in reasoning sessions with Kwame Toure (Stokely Carmichael), Angela Davis and others with similar reputations for engaging in progressive struggle.

Along with Toure and Davis, and like the celebrated renaissance man, political activist and fellow entertainer, Harry Belafonte - with whom he did a video special in 1976 - Tosh was not afraid of being on the front line. In 1967, he was arrested outside the British High Commission in Kingston protesting Ian Smith's take over of the former Rhodesia, now the South West African state of Zimbabwe. And he never gave up music as his primary weapon. Songs such as African, Mama Africa, and I am Going Home, are other samples of Tosh's recorded reactions to Africa and its liberation.

In the heated election campaign of 1980, and in spite of Marley being previously shot (1976) for agreeing to perform on the Smile Jamaica Show, which was perceived as a political gesture, Tosh conceived and staged the Youth Consciousness 1 and 2 concerts at the Jamaica House grounds and at Fort Clarence. It was his way of communicating to youth, both as a reprimand to turn away from tribalism and partisan violence and for them to support what he thought the more progressive option offered. Jahman Inna Jamdung, recorded for the Equal Rights album was the theme:

Jah man inna Jamdung
Have some faith my brother
There are many, many tribulations
But have some faith my brothers

Undoubtedly, the recording Equal Rights remains Peter Tosh's flagship recording. It is also one of the most outstanding recordings to address socio-political issues as a global problem. As a complete work, it captures the racial, political immorality and systemic inhumanities that was part of the world of the 70s, a situation that remains to the present.

Shifting the highlight from the specificity of South Africa's apartheid and placing the focus on the continent in general, Tosh's revolutionary spirit, communal solidarity and feminist consciousness are evident in the song Fight On:

Africa has got to be free
Fight on brothers, fight on
Fight on and free your land
Fight on sisters, fight on
Fight on and free your fellow man
Cos if Africa is not free
Then we all will be
Back in shackles you see
My brothers fight on
Fight on and free yourselves
Fight on and free your land
Fight on and free your fellowman

Among his fans, Tosh's Africanist image is generally known, though in general, he has been slighted, not taken seriously or really understood. Its disturbing that with the day of his birth fast approaching, Tosh remains a grossly underappreciated, under represented, and even taken for granted singer/musician.

He was, and continues to be viewed in many circles as a somewhat cantankerous individual who existed in the shadow of his former group member and brethren Bob Marley. Yet, in my mind, Peter Tosh was not only a most complex human being, but also, was one of his era's most politically aware, incisive, musically engaging, and truly entertaining performers.

As for me, he remains one of the most important, insightful and committed twentieth century political musicians and activist I have observed. His pragmatic observation of local and world politics influenced his compositions. Tosh was a musician whose best socio-political works parallel that of anyone working in that style. That is, everyone from Robeson to Marley.

On the lighter side, what is unknown by most, is that Peter Tosh had a grand sense of humour. He was young at heart and as funny as any stand up comedian, or that he spent quite some time purchasing toys and gadgets associated with youth culture and activities for his own use. So, skateboards, roller skates, slingshots, electric motorcars, unicycles and layback cycles (the two most grown up of his many toys) were most precious and guarded. He also loved pets and kept fishes, a variety of rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters and birds.

His favourite was Freddie, the parrot. I once had to talk Peter out of returning from a European tour with a pet chimpanzee, for me, it was a monumental achievement since it was virtually impossible to talk him out of some things, including 'beating the gate' with the hamsters from a previous tour.

How difficult might it be to convince the record labels holding Peter Tosh's best-recorded material - Sony, EMI, Rolling Stone/Atlantic and Island - to embark on a campaign to establish this musical giant and important political activist to the height he deserves? Short of political reasons which certainly, record labels have been known to use as excuses on a purely musical level, I hope not too difficult. On behalf of those for whom Peter Tosh lives, I say, Happy Earthday, Mystic Bush Doctor.


Herbie Miller is a cultural historian specialising in Slave culture, Caribbean identity and jazz. He was Peter Tosh's manager. Copyright 2006 herbimill@aol.com