Check out my video and tell me your thoughts. Also I will be hosting a weekly conversation having people share their earliest memories of learning about the inferiority or superiority complexes of race and racism. If interested, just contact me. We start in September 2008.
4:55 AM - Won the 2007 Alan Merriam Book Prize!
Current mood: ecstatic
I am absolutely elated to announce that I won the Alan Merriam Book Prize awarded to recognize the most distinguished, published English-language monograph in the field of ethnomusicology with a $300 cash prize.
I received it for my book THE GAMES BLACK GIRLS PLAY: LEARNING THE ROPES FROM DOUBLE-DUTCH TO HIP-HOP (2006 NYU PRESS). kyraocity.com. To purchase the book visit: NYU Press for purchases
This is prize is awarded by The Society for Ethnomusicology, which was founded in 1955 to promote the research, study, and performance of music in all historical periods and cultural contexts. At present, the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) has more than 2,500 members from six continents. For more about the discipline itself visit: About Ethnomusicology
I just got the full rights from NYU Press to record an audio version of my book which I intend to have available by Thanksgiving for the holiday season for a reasonable price. It's a really great book and now I don't have to be the only one to say so.
I will go to Columbus Ohio this weekend (Oct 27) to accept the prize which is being jointly awarded to one of my favorite colleagues in ethnomusicology, Michael Largey, for his book Vodou Nation: Haitian Art Music and Cultural Nationalism (2007 Univ of Chicago Press) University of Chicago Press
Currently
listening
:
Stoned
By
Lewis Taylor
Release date: 06 September, 2005
12:44 PM - Debut at Joes Pub Aug 4th!!
Current mood: cheerful
Category: Music
Ambience, intimacy, an engaging audience, and the freedom to be me. That was what showed up for me during my debut at Joe's Pub last Sat night. Had a nice size crowd (wish more had come) and each and every one there was giving me such love that it was divine to sing the songs from the album and new songs that Tomas and I wrote together.
Our covers of Luther Vandross's the Night I Fell in Love and People Make the World Go Round featuring Toni Blackman made the audience erupt in applause and delight.
The new song "Strapped..with half a century o' woe on her back" about Coretta Scott King, Nina Simone, and Daisy Bates got a lot a reaction from the crowd. I love singing that song. It's funky, it's got an old and new feel, and it has something to say about the role of women as the stars in our everyday culture.
It was a special night for me. Tomas and I did our thing. I was looking great in my Moshood dress and my hair was done up fierce by my locktician Desaré (It's a Wrap in Harlem). She is a genius with hair. Everyone complimented me on my music, my covers, my dress and hair and the funky encore of People on which Toni Blackman killed on!
Thanks to those who made it and those who didn't. Thanks for all those who intended to come and something came up and you let me know. Really appreciate it!
NEXT GIG: Friday Aug 10th at Rose in Williamsburg! IT will be slightly different (more songs) than Joe's Pub and starts at 9pm!
6:32 PM - Gretchen Parlato...at 55 Bar Fri Jul 6 at 6pm
Current mood: satisfied
Category: Music
Along comes a voice, a style, an ease in being in song, that is Gretchen Parlato. I've been waiting for my opportunity to see the 2004 winner of the Thelonious Monk Vocal Competition. Might have been expecting vocal gyrations like Ella but got something so unique unto herself that I was both mesmerized and fixed on learning her sound. Gretchen Parlato is officially one of my favorite vocalists. Her choice of song and delivery, her sublty fierce rhythmic sensibility, her petite frame of power and serenity, she is divine!
She's performing throughout NYC this summer. Make sure you catch her at one of her gigs.
Also check out her live rendition of Wayne Shorter's ESP. It will never leave your head. And sexy?....Man! She oozes it through her articulation and vocal touch. You gotta check her out if you love jazz and if you don't. Her website lets you dabble in her album, self-produced like mine.
I've been in touch with her. Want to expand my jazz chops into a new direction and gets some rigor in my practice too and I think she's got something I don't have and I am ready to learn.
She did a new tune by Robert Glasper (off the hook extraordinary pianist and composer) for which she wrote some great lyrics. Her 6pm set was just delicious! http://gretchenparlato.com
Oh by the way, did I say how much I LOOOOOVVVVE Bed-Stuy! We got this perfect little community cafe called BREAD-STUY. The couple that owns it are so committed to our community and they are a happy and fun black couple. That's near a great restaurant called Petit Bassam. And a great black-owned bookshop called BROWNSTONE BOOKS.
If you come to NYC you gotta stop through Bed-Stuy or better known as Bedford Stuyvesant to newcomers.
Hung out yesterday with a new buddy, Ali. He and I talked shop about men and women all day. Hung out at Bush Baby for brunch and ended the evening late at the community stop called Food for Thought.
I love my neighborhood! Kyra
Currently
listening
:
Love Stories
By
Gordon Chambers
Release date: 01 May, 2007
3:28 PM - Haiti, Paul Farmer and my new found family in Indianapolis
Current mood: jubilant
Category: Life
Been a minute since I wrote. Just finished an extra-ordinary book called MOUNTAINS BEYOND MOUNTAINS: THE QUEST OF DR. PAUL FARMER, A MAN WHO WOULD CURE THE WORLD by Tracy Kidder. Baruch College assigned this book to all our freshman for the coming fall term. It's about one man's fight inside and outside the medical establishment to combat the infectious diseases TB and HIV particularly in Haiti. I might have never come across the book it it had not been assigned to our freshman class whom I will be teaching anthropology and music.
I have been on my own mission concerning bridging the gaps between the races, sexes and generations primarily though song and scholarship but also through the transformational work I've participated in at Landmark Education.
This book captured so much of what I am committed even on a larger scale than race, sex and generational gaps. It's about the gap between the haves and the have nots.
Some great quotes in this book and Paul Farmer is someone every black child and really ANY child and adult should become acquainted with. Tracy Kidder did a remarkable job telling the story of this medical anthropologist's life and global mission centered around Haiti. It is a true education in US foreign relations with Haiti on a level little engaged with by many Americans. I can't wait to see what our students struggle with and learn from by engaging the book. Here are a few quotes from it I love:
p. 78: "a minor error in one setting of power and privilege could have an enormous impact on the poor in another."
p. 120: "Perhaps it is a universal tendency to view the deaths of strangers philosophically."
p. 253: [Paul Farmer] debated a World Bank official at an international AIDS conference. (Africans must learn to curb their sexual appetites, the banker remarked, and Farmer replied, "I want to talk about other bankers, not the World Bankers, but bankers in general. My suspicion is they're not getting a lot of sex, because they spend a lot of time screwing the poor.")
p. 274: "It's so easy to mistake a person's material resources for his interior ones."
p. 294: "If you say that seven hours is too long to walk for two families of patients [in Haiti], you're saying that their lives matter less than some others', and the idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that's wrong with the world."
I can't wait to read more of his prolific writings, Paul Farmer's that is. I hope to meet him one day and thank him for honoring the lives of poor Haitians whom others from the World Health Organization down think are not worth a herculean effort by even one man much less an organization of men and women.
Now onto my news...MY CD is just about done! The photo is from the free posters I got as a member of the Recording Academy (Grammies). Disk Makers are finishing my packaging and duplication as I type. So check out my webpage kyraocity.com and CD Baby and Itunes soon for it.
And four weeks ago I met my father's family. For those of you following my family saga with my paternal peoples, I had a speaking engagement in Indianapolis my father's home. It was booked about the same time that he passed in Feb. I was determined to find my dozens of aunts and uncles whom my father had insured were NOT at his own funeral. Bitterness. Unnecessary bitterness.
We met on June 9th at the MLK Center in Indianapolis where I gave a talk about hip-hop that received a standing ovation. I told them my story about my dad and met my family all in the same moment.
Yesterday, July 1st, I was walking down Fulton Street in Brooklyn talking to my Aunt Sharon, Lovell and Claudette with such a beaming smile on my face. I love these people! And they love me!
I tell you if you think there is any barrier that keeps you from your people YOU ARE MISSING OUT on the opportunity it is to contribute to their transformation through forgiveness, compassion and acceptance. My cousin Mike and I are getting close. We are about the same age. My cousin Alisia (one of a twin and sister to Mike) and I had such a great connection of the bat. And my uncle Maurice, their father, who is a computer wiz at 70+, all of them just embraced me as I embraced them with open arms and heart.
10:46 PM - First response to Oprah's Town Hall re: Imus & Hip Hop culture
Current mood: productive
Category: News and Politics
"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing themself." Leo Tolstoi
I am so inclined to share how disappointed I was that it was an all-male panel on day two of Oprah's time to the subject. Russell and crew didn't think at all to include a female exec or an emcee or a producer to represent with them? But will trying to change them make a difference?
I am inclined to say that those men took no real responsibility for the images (not the poetry) that are defining how men see women among 4 year old boys and girls who will have to wait til their 40 perhaps to undo the valid though unproductive perceptions of a male-slanted view of black culture.
I could go on. But instead I've been collecting data.
Did you know that black women and men are still being dismissed from their jobs or are being threatened with losing their jobs for their "nappy" natural hair styles? As recent as Jan 07, the Baltimore Police department passed a dress code that states you cannot wear dreadlocks as an officer. The rationale being you can't tell the difference between the criminals and the cops. Trade you locks in because the badge doesn't mean anything anymore.
Onto "hos". Whores in convential English. Byron Hurt should have been on Oprah with that male line up yesterday. The gay men who featured in his film should have been on that stage with Oprah 'n' em. It would have been a much different conversation don't you think. Let's break out of this heterosexual slant and break open the mold. Heterosexual men are not standing for heterosexual women. Look at the rapidly growing number of AIDS cases among hetero black women! If they won't stand for influencing (not censoring) the majority of rap videos, why should we expect anything when its about AIDS and our youth's future as leaders who know themselves whether male or female as connected inextricably to the opposite sex.
My book THE GAMES BLACK GIRLS PLAY: LEARNING THE ROPES (2006) has more to say about this issue than most. Why race trumps gender. How hip-hop, which is often overlooked as a music rather than some bad lyrics, actually is connected to a long lineage of complex musical expressions from the African American tradition including jazz, hamboning, and other syncopated and embodied traditions laced with poetry, chant or rhymes. I argue that girls' musical games are the earliest formation of a black popular music and that girls and women love hip-hop because they hear their games inside the musical elements of rap, sampling, and percussive approaches to melodies and rhyming.
Why hasn't there been one black music scholar like myself, Guy Ramsey at Penn, Cheryl Keyes at UCLA, Maureen Mahon at UCLA, or Portia Maultsby at Indiana who actually either researches and teaches hip-hop or grew up participating in the culture who can truly represent both the social and the musical issues that are being laid aside to support some booty shaking videos. And why aren't the directors being implicated in all this. THis is a naive question. Haven't looked at this yet but did Nelly direct Tip Drill? And why didn't Russell and Lyles as well as Chavers and Common say unequivably that they will not support women being called bitches, hos and chickenheads and the such anymore. That would go such a long way and they wouldn't be censoring anyone. Folks still have to choose for themselves but it would have sent a message to young and old what counts.
Last point: I love that this issue has come up and that we are faced with having to choose powerfully where we stand. Some will never choose. Others will really struggle with themselves (rather than others) and consider something new on the other side. I am for that. I am for empowering others with hip-hop and allowing full self-expression but also allowing that when someone is offended by your actions there is grace is owning that. Not because you were wrong, but because they felt something that your words triggered for them. And you could actually be with that. Not doing anything about it, just really be with it. Imus couldn't. He deflected. Oprah didn't in the past, she too deflected and dejected hip-hop (excluding Mary J). Bill Cosby couldn't be with it and seems like Russell, Lyles and the HSAN are being with what women have been saying for decades now.
None of this has ANYTHING to do with what Afrika Bambaataa created with teh Zulu Nation. I was listening to "Unity" by Bam from the Rap Mania compilation I bought a few years back.
Having fun at the expense of women ain't bringing the black community or humanity together. And I really value the ideals of the Zulu Nation (whether it always was practiced or not). Knowledge, wisdom, understanding and (what we always omit in memory) having fun. (READ JEFF CHANG'S BOOK Can't Stop Won't Stop!)
The chorus to UNITY is a fitting last thought:
PEACE UNITY LOVE and HAVING FUN!
Currently
listening
:
Rap Mania: Roots of Rap
By
Various Artists
Release date: 12 August, 2003
8:40 AM - Still Life and Commentator by Vijay Iyer and Mike Ladd
Current mood: determined
Category: Art and Photography
BAM's event Still Life with Commentator was INCREDIBLE. Wanted to just make a little mention of this BIG event! I am an absurdist at heart and this tapped into so many issues about the war in ways that was aethetically provocative. LOVED THE SHOW and think it was precedent setting art about politics!!
Check the website and the NYTimes Review for more...
7:39 AM - MY DADDIES AND DAUGHTERS WELL-BEING NETWORK
Current mood: accomplished
Category: Life
So I am learning to live with people the way they are instead of trying to fix people or have them do what I wish they should do.
My father is living with a terminal case of prostrate cancer. It was unavoidable. He was diagnosed 8 years ago. Ignored the diagnosis because he had no symptoms. YEs, there are no symptoms but a mere rectal exam tells you the truth black men need to know and deal with.
So of you know I met my birth father, Norman Lee Evans, Sr. four years ago. It is my distinct privilege to be participating in this time in his life. I probably would have missed out on it and had another sorry story to tell about men leaving me if I hadn't taken responsibility for what I really wanted. I wanted my dad in my life but was chicken. Scared to call. Fearful of being rejected. The payoff--loneliness, sadness, resignation; I got this stuff instead of the happiness, joy and satisfaction that came the moment I called him and forgave him and more importantly myself for acting like I didn't have a dad and that it didn't matter that we weren;t connected. Au contraire!
My father has given me a gift that I know he has no idea of the impact. My connecting with my dad is bringing other fathers and daughters together with ease. Conquering years of separation with one conversation.
How do you let go, you may ask. Simply. BUt you have to let go of your fear of the unknown, of being right about how wrong your dad or daughter was (the past is the past). It takes everything you got in your head, but it's really simple to choose to connect.
So I am happy to say I've connected and am being a leader for others to connect.
My African American friend Luther Garrison told me yesterday that an African man taught him how to do his own rectal exams for prostrate cancer. BRILLIANT! All that homophobia about not having a doctor check your rectum could disappear if black men were taught just like women who are taught to do their own breast exams in the privacy of their showers or bedrooms.
What a difference a rectal exam can make. Even if it's just 24 little hours, it's a lifetime for those of us who get to keep you in our lives for that much longer!
Be responsible, check it while you rectum it! Crude but better than dying for no good reason.
Prostrate cancer has a 90+% rate of success if caught early It's one of the most curable cancers And like I said to a female friend today "There is no pain in death. It's living with dying that hurts us when we know we could have prevented it."
The quality of one's life is directly proportional to how hip to reality you live your life. Don't ignore the signs. Don't lie. Stop the internal torture. Get checked!
5:38 AM - Last week a 5 year old rocked my ethnomusicogical world!
Current mood: cheerful
Category: Life
OK everytime I go out and speak about my book, I get high! Higher and higher off the folks, esp. the sisters who dig what I've done. I wrote this book for us! us=hue-mans with chromozones!!
On Oct 12th, I had a book reading at BROWNSTONEBOOKS.COM in my remarkable neighborhood called BED-STUY (DO OR DIE BABY!!). I moved in late August and folks here have embraced me like one of their own. Ain't no place like it. Crooklyn on the real!!
So there I am reading from my book. Sharing about the musical aspects of girls' handclapping gamesongs like Eeny meeny pepsadeeny and I also had the pleasure of inviting my songwriting partner and guitarist Tomas Doncker to join me and I sang my songs from BE THE TRUE REVOLUTION. It was a small crowd from the neighborhood but totally vibing off the material (music + written text).
I asked if someone else could help me demonstrate the gamesong DOWN DOWN BABY, the oral-kinetic practice from girls' culture that launched Nelly's career on COUNTRY GRAMMAR. This friend of mine QUEEN EBONY who lives around the corner came. I said, come on and do this with me. She said, "Naw! Not me!"
Then I hear in a beautiful 5 year old enthusiastic voice with a little nasal on the side, "I can DO it!"
Corrin, dark chocolate princess, artistic queen, and curious composer who was creating songs on my keyboard for me before we began, joins me.
We begin. No prompting. Just step right in. DOWN DOWN BABY DOWN DOWN THE ROLLER COASTER SWEET SWEET BABY I'LL NEVER LET YOU GO
I'm singing and she's just with me, hand gestures right there but she's not chanting and I wonder if she really knows it
SHIMMY SHIMMY KO-KO POP SHIMMY SHIMMY POW (repeat)
We get to GRAN'MA GRAN'MA SICK IN BED and she starts to sing along and when we get to HOT DOG she is crazy gyrating her body from head to toe, not having fully developed her ability to isolate her hips and head yet.
She knew it alright and it was SO adorable. This 5 year old showed more to me and the audience about my book than I ever had and it was like the fulfillment of why I even wanted to write the book.
GIRLS GIRLS GIRLSGIRLS! OH I love em and want em to get who they are as musical beings for the world!
Rock rock to the planet girls rock!! It was a great moment in my life! Peace, Kyra aka Prof. G (with her P H and D)
Keep playing your games!!
Currently
listening
:
Musicology
By
Prince
Release date: 20 April, 2004
discontent
ecstatic
cheerful
satisfied
jubilant
productive
determined
accomplished
