Post by Onyango Oloo on May 26, 2007 21:20:28 GMT 3
Concert Review By Onyango Oloo
May 25th is recognized all over the Mother Continent as Africa Day dating back to way back in 1963.
For the many years I lived in Canada, that was one of the community functions I rarely missed.
In Toronto, Ontario, the annual event was usually put together by the All Africa People’s Revolutionary Party, an outfit closely associated with the late
Kwame Toure aka Stokely Carmichael, the Trini-based, US Pan African activist who was a permanent fixture in southern Ontario during Black History Month and other radical Afrocentric events. I remember Nomvuyo, Brian, Thando and other members of the Hyman family (with their origins in the Caribbean) anchoring these Africa Day activities together with Mesfin Aman (an Eritrean-Canadian), who like them were some of the veterans of the small but solid AAPRP.
We used to consider it an overwhelming success if more than 100 people showed up at the hall on Oakwood & St.Clair, or the Driftwood Community Centre in North York or whichever church basement the event took place that year. If on the other hand, only twenty people straggled and meandered in, we made up for the lack of numbers with feisty, militant and culturally rich content- songs, poems, speeches, posters, videos, marches. I am talking about the early nineties and figures like “Mwalimu” Oji Adisa, a very patriotic Jamaican born African brother who used to reside somewhere near the Kensington Market just off Dundas and Spadina near T.Dot’s China Town. For the out of towners, T.Dot is one of the many nicknames of Canada’s financial capital along with appellations like Hogtown and so on.
These reveries from yesterdecades are flowing back, uploaded to my current mental hard drive as a counterpoint to the experience I was suffused in last night here in Durban, Kwa Zulu Natal, South Africa.
As I have indicated elsewhere, I have been at the southern tip of our continent for the last three or four days to participate in the just concluded 9th edition of the African Renaissance and Intellectuality Summit- a gathering which brought people from all over this nation, across Africa and even the Diaspora where a fairly large African-American contingent more than ably represented African sisters and brothers who live outside Africa.
I was among two Kenyans invited to present papers at the summit. My compatriot talked about the cooperative movement in our country; I tackled the complex issue of internal strife, violence and conflict transformation, placing the matter in an overall African and international context.
The Chair of the African Renaissance Trust is none other than
Dr. Sibusiso Ndebele, the Premier of Kwa Zulu Natal.
www.anc.org.za/people/s_ndebele.html
Comrade Ndebele is NOT your typical African politician. A very humble down to earth revolutionary, he was part of the ANC’s underground structures and was later to play a prominent role in the peace-building processes here in this province following the partisan and apartheid instigated communal so called 'Black on Black" carnage which engulfed KZN in the dying days of the racist regime way back in the early to mid nineties.
After two days of scholarly, sometimes activist interventions from the podium in one of the many halls inside the expanse International Conference Centre at the heart of Durban (the site of the World Conference Against Racism a few years ago), the organizers had reserved May 25th, 2007 for an evening of out and out revelry, ribaldry and unadulterated fun and fiesta.
Given the fact that the event was officially sponsored and bank-rolled by the provincial government, I expected a sedate, even dour, prim and proper formal affair.
Nothing could have been further from the spectacle that evolved and unfolded last night.
First of all, bearing what I had said about the Toronto Africa Day activities, in terms of attendees, I was amidst throngs and throngs, a multitude which made a numerical mockery of the less than two dozen people who used to show up for those southern Ontario celebrations.
The Kenyans reading this should imagine that they are in the biggest theatre at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre in Nairobi. Imagine that that theatre brimming from end to end, top to bottom.
Secondly, the raw, positive energy was palpable a whole half hour before the very first artiste clambered to the stage.
Thirdly, all the acts were beyond superb and brilliant.
From the massive
Singing for Joy ensemble which kicked off things with a kick ass rendition of Nkosi Sikeleli I Afrika to the versatile and talented
Afro Tenors who did a Chichewa classic from Malawi, the inevitable Malaika rendition (with the usual South African insistence that it was a "Tanzanian song" rather than the evergreen Fadhili Williams Kenyan original) a well-known gospel song before topping things off with an ITALIAN opera piece that they have had the honour of singing with the great Pavarroti.
The Afro Tenors received more than one standing ovation before being invited back for an encore during which it was revealed that the lead tenor had May 25th as a special personal gift because it happened to be the day when he was actually born.
And who can forget the
Shwi noMtekhala band and the ones who followed their act-
![]()
img184.imagevenue.com/loc512/th_02514_P1010078_122_512lo.JPG[/img]
Malaika, fronted by a dynamic twentysomething South African diva?
Yesterday
ICC Durban was awash with good cheer with a good dose of bubbly African pride thrown in.
Having been here in South Africa, and here in Durban I can attest there is a new hopeful and forward looking South Africa that is rapidly emerging, despite the many lingerings of the apartheid legacy in the national economy, the taut political fisticuffs and the bilateral and multilateral post-apartheid state.
How wonderful if we in Kenya could taste a fraction of what is underway here in land of Madiba, Winnie, Sisulu, Chris Hani, Ruth First, Joe Slovo and Ahmed Kathrada.
Can you imagine a premier in Rift Valley Province or an autonomous region in Marsabit?
Can you imagine a Kenyan National Assembly with a woman as a speaker, joining her female cabinet colleagues in the Foreign Affairs, Health and other key ministries?
Can you imagine a slew of dynamic and progressive MPs in their mid twenties?
Where would the Eric Wainainas and Suzzana Owiyos be, if the government of the day saw it as part of their obligation to financially support and sponsor artists and promote our diverse national cultures-and not just during election years?
Onyango Oloo
Durban, South Africa
May 25th is recognized all over the Mother Continent as Africa Day dating back to way back in 1963.
For the many years I lived in Canada, that was one of the community functions I rarely missed.
In Toronto, Ontario, the annual event was usually put together by the All Africa People’s Revolutionary Party, an outfit closely associated with the late
Kwame Toure aka Stokely Carmichael, the Trini-based, US Pan African activist who was a permanent fixture in southern Ontario during Black History Month and other radical Afrocentric events. I remember Nomvuyo, Brian, Thando and other members of the Hyman family (with their origins in the Caribbean) anchoring these Africa Day activities together with Mesfin Aman (an Eritrean-Canadian), who like them were some of the veterans of the small but solid AAPRP.
We used to consider it an overwhelming success if more than 100 people showed up at the hall on Oakwood & St.Clair, or the Driftwood Community Centre in North York or whichever church basement the event took place that year. If on the other hand, only twenty people straggled and meandered in, we made up for the lack of numbers with feisty, militant and culturally rich content- songs, poems, speeches, posters, videos, marches. I am talking about the early nineties and figures like “Mwalimu” Oji Adisa, a very patriotic Jamaican born African brother who used to reside somewhere near the Kensington Market just off Dundas and Spadina near T.Dot’s China Town. For the out of towners, T.Dot is one of the many nicknames of Canada’s financial capital along with appellations like Hogtown and so on.
These reveries from yesterdecades are flowing back, uploaded to my current mental hard drive as a counterpoint to the experience I was suffused in last night here in Durban, Kwa Zulu Natal, South Africa.
As I have indicated elsewhere, I have been at the southern tip of our continent for the last three or four days to participate in the just concluded 9th edition of the African Renaissance and Intellectuality Summit- a gathering which brought people from all over this nation, across Africa and even the Diaspora where a fairly large African-American contingent more than ably represented African sisters and brothers who live outside Africa.
I was among two Kenyans invited to present papers at the summit. My compatriot talked about the cooperative movement in our country; I tackled the complex issue of internal strife, violence and conflict transformation, placing the matter in an overall African and international context.
The Chair of the African Renaissance Trust is none other than
Dr. Sibusiso Ndebele, the Premier of Kwa Zulu Natal.
www.anc.org.za/people/s_ndebele.html
Comrade Ndebele is NOT your typical African politician. A very humble down to earth revolutionary, he was part of the ANC’s underground structures and was later to play a prominent role in the peace-building processes here in this province following the partisan and apartheid instigated communal so called 'Black on Black" carnage which engulfed KZN in the dying days of the racist regime way back in the early to mid nineties.
After two days of scholarly, sometimes activist interventions from the podium in one of the many halls inside the expanse International Conference Centre at the heart of Durban (the site of the World Conference Against Racism a few years ago), the organizers had reserved May 25th, 2007 for an evening of out and out revelry, ribaldry and unadulterated fun and fiesta.
Given the fact that the event was officially sponsored and bank-rolled by the provincial government, I expected a sedate, even dour, prim and proper formal affair.
Nothing could have been further from the spectacle that evolved and unfolded last night.
First of all, bearing what I had said about the Toronto Africa Day activities, in terms of attendees, I was amidst throngs and throngs, a multitude which made a numerical mockery of the less than two dozen people who used to show up for those southern Ontario celebrations.
The Kenyans reading this should imagine that they are in the biggest theatre at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre in Nairobi. Imagine that that theatre brimming from end to end, top to bottom.
Secondly, the raw, positive energy was palpable a whole half hour before the very first artiste clambered to the stage.
Thirdly, all the acts were beyond superb and brilliant.
From the massive
Singing for Joy ensemble which kicked off things with a kick ass rendition of Nkosi Sikeleli I Afrika to the versatile and talented
Afro Tenors who did a Chichewa classic from Malawi, the inevitable Malaika rendition (with the usual South African insistence that it was a "Tanzanian song" rather than the evergreen Fadhili Williams Kenyan original) a well-known gospel song before topping things off with an ITALIAN opera piece that they have had the honour of singing with the great Pavarroti.
The Afro Tenors received more than one standing ovation before being invited back for an encore during which it was revealed that the lead tenor had May 25th as a special personal gift because it happened to be the day when he was actually born.
And who can forget the
Shwi noMtekhala band and the ones who followed their act-
img184.imagevenue.com/loc512/th_02514_P1010078_122_512lo.JPG[/img]
Malaika, fronted by a dynamic twentysomething South African diva?
Yesterday
ICC Durban was awash with good cheer with a good dose of bubbly African pride thrown in.
Having been here in South Africa, and here in Durban I can attest there is a new hopeful and forward looking South Africa that is rapidly emerging, despite the many lingerings of the apartheid legacy in the national economy, the taut political fisticuffs and the bilateral and multilateral post-apartheid state.
How wonderful if we in Kenya could taste a fraction of what is underway here in land of Madiba, Winnie, Sisulu, Chris Hani, Ruth First, Joe Slovo and Ahmed Kathrada.
Can you imagine a premier in Rift Valley Province or an autonomous region in Marsabit?
Can you imagine a Kenyan National Assembly with a woman as a speaker, joining her female cabinet colleagues in the Foreign Affairs, Health and other key ministries?
Can you imagine a slew of dynamic and progressive MPs in their mid twenties?
Where would the Eric Wainainas and Suzzana Owiyos be, if the government of the day saw it as part of their obligation to financially support and sponsor artists and promote our diverse national cultures-and not just during election years?
Onyango Oloo
Durban, South Africa