Bitches Brew: Official correspondence from Ted Macero, CBS Records Executive, regarding Miles Davis’ decision to name his groundbreaking album.
The photo above is in connection to the last post of the bill of sale for slaves. This is an actual slab from an auction block that was located in downtown Memphis during that dreadful period of history. Memphis used to be a bustling port city because of its proximity to the Mississippi River. Slaves were transported by riverboat to downtown Memphis to be auctioned off. For several years, there was a street named Auction until it was changed most recently.
Official advertisement for Slave Auction in Memphis, TN. I saw this on one of my friends’ FB page and decided to share it here. I’m sure if many of you researched it, you would find similar articles in your respective American cities.
Never forget because forgetting is dangerous….
Happy Birthday to the Godfather of Soul!
James Brown is Hip Hop.
This statute known as ‘Redemption Song’ is located at Emancipation Park in Kingston, Jamaica, which was constructed in July 2002 according to its website. The work is symbolic of the emancipation of Jamaicans from slavery in 1838. From what I’ve gathered, it was done by a Jamaican artist, Laura Facey Cooper, and was considered controversial by many Jamaicans because they believed it promoted nudity. In addition to that, many of them were offended by the male statue’s nakedness, in particular, his penis size, and also that the sculptor was too ‘light-skinned’.
The dichotomy is that the opposition to the statue are prime examples of how the body can be freed easily, but freeing the mind requires more work, which causes us to question whether slavery has truly ended. Those views about the ‘color’ of the sculptor & black nudity lends itself to an uneducated public on artistic concepts; and the deeply-embedded facets of white supremacy coupled with the erasure of African memory.
In pre-colonial Africa, nudity wasn’t largely regarded as sexual but rather, a way to deal with humid conditions, however, when the slave traders arrived, they viewed the so-called rampant nudity as indicative of a savage sexual nature. Once enslaved in these foreign lands, African men & women were mentally reconditioned to accept a Westernized view of themselves & to embrace & idolize whiteness. This, of course, went on for centuries spanning several generations.
To that end, here we are, in the 21st century, dealing with a statue that’s suppose to be a tribute to freedom. The sculptor’s vision of having the bodies rise from water reconnects to the African philosophy of the power of water with its ability to cleanse & renew. The nakedness factors into the concept of freedom as both the man and woman gaze upwards to God, presenting themselves as vulnerable & in search of heavenly guidance. For me, the statue is divine but I am almost certain that if a statue of this kind was done in the States, it may damn near send some twisted individuals into a certified tizzy.
