Afromusicology by Kyraocity

Brother-man (I’d Like to Change the World)Music by Tomás...

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:51:24 -0400

Brother-man (I’d Like to Change the World)
Music by Tomás Doncker and Kyra Gaunt with Alvin Lee
Words by Kyra Gaunt
Hook borrowed from Ten Years After (w/ Alvin Lee) “I’d Love to Change the World” (1971)

Excerpt from rehearsal 10/19/2009 on Rockaway Avenue, Crown Hghts, Brooklyn

Always watchin’ them in silence
And my teeth are filled with rage.
Doing nothing is such violence, hmm?

Everyday I don’t deliver.
Went to college but I’m dumb,
to the saggin’ pants I let down.

Been demanding they be different.
Thrown my hands up in the air.
Perpetratin’ I’m a victim, hmm?

And the need for something better
is so blatantly erased,
Being liberal is such nonsense.

Pre-chorus (4 bars):
I’d like to change the world—-

V2:
Always watchin’ them in silence
Still my teeth are filled with rage.
Doing nothing is such violence, hmm.

Everyday I don’t deliver.
Went to college but I’m dumb,
to the saggin’ pants I let down.

Been demanding they be different.
Thrown my hands up in the air.
They can have their self expression, uh-hmm.

And the need for something better
is so blatantly erased,
Being liberal is such nonsense.

Extension - V3 (half chorus):
There’s- no- chance to be a child.
Fuck the village, ain’t no jobs.
Just- a myth from Riker’s Island.

I could stop and make a difference.
Get to know my Brother-man and his commitment.

Full chorus w/ Tomás (16 bars):
I’d like to change the world.
But I don’t know what to do. 2x

Stevie Wonder Release (16 bars/guitar):
I keep on passin’ them by (4x)

Bridge + break (3 + 3 / 3 + 3):
Ah-ahhh. (4x)

Chorus (solo):
I’d like to change the world.
But I don’t know what to do - - . 2x

Full chorus (add harmony + sing-a-long) 2x

Stevie Release (8 bars/guitar):
I keep on passin’ them by (2x)…out

Are My Hands Clean? Sweet Honey in The Rock

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:23:00 -0400

http://www.rhapsody.com/sweet-honey-in-the-rock/live-at-carnegie-hall/are-my-hands-clean Are My...

For teaching in my Anthro class tomorrow. Ode to the...

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:25:46 -0400

For teaching in my Anthro class tomorrow.

Ode to the International Debt
Lyrics and music by Bernice Johnson Reagon. Songtalk Publishing Co. 1985
Performed by Sweet Honey in the Rock from the album Live at Carnegie Hall (1988)

There is money going overseas to buy changes that will never come
Dollar backed Contras spill the blood of the people in small nations we won’t leave alone
There are Contras in Nicaragua, US trained death squads in El Salavador
I hear Jonah Savimbe holding hands with Apartheid is being lead to drink at the trough
USA sponsored violence create refugees all over the world
They poor into LA, DC and Arizona seeking sanctuary from our guns

Meanwhile, in the corporate boardrooms, they talk about the debt as if it could be paid
But money borrowed and loaned for guns you can’t eat and buildings you can’t live in and trinkets you can’t wear, it is a debt not owed by the people.

There is money going overseas to buy changes that will never come
Dollar backed Contras spill the blood of the people in small nations we won’t leave alone

"You bring the bomb which John Coltrane ws trying to put into black music beyond European diatonic..."

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 04:51:00 -0400

“You bring the bomb which John Coltrane ws trying to put into black music beyond European...

Abdoulaye and I met and talked 7/6/2009 about at African night...

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 11:49:00 -0400

Abdoulaye and I met and talked 7/6/2009 about at African night at St Nick’s in Harlem. About his Songhay roots. When we met at St Nick’s Pub in 2004 he went only by Adboulaye Alhassane. But his uncle is Ali Farka Toure (see video). The surname Toure is not on his passport. He just started using it again in U.S. We talked abt Bambara music in Gao, Mali and Niamey, Niger. Abt his father’s disapproval of his becoming a popular musician. Their lineage is traced back thru Morocco to Muhammad. In Niger, Abdoulaye said, state radio played Afro-American music especially James Brown. He watched every African American film shown when he was 10. Jim Kelley was his favorite. Africans marveled at African Americans in film & radio. He said “because they came from us!” (Africans).

And we talked about Coumba Sidibé. About Senegalese music being diatonic not pentatonic. This didn’t work for Coumba’s Wasulu singing in Bambara. How he wanted me to school her in jazz. We also talked abt my idea of “false cognates” or “false friends” when Jamaican wining meets the pelvic cadences in African dance-drum. And finally we talked about bringing our peoples together; completing the pain and suffering from our segregation.

Best site on migrations of African diaspora

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 11:37:00 -0400

Best site on migrations of African diaspora: The African-American Migration Experience The...

Twitter Censored #ThatsAfrican Trending Topic

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:56:00 -0400

Good journalism requires opening up topics not ending them. I followed the #Thatsafriccan Trending...

American Africans Senegalese-Americans ...

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:15:00 -0400

American Africans Senegalese-Americans Ghanaian-Americans African Americans Black Americans Americans Cablinasians Black Africans People of African Descent Global Africans Africans of the Blood Africans of the Soil Afro-Caribbeans Rastafarians Ethiopians The Original Negro Delineators

Thanks to Wayne Marshall for posting this on Wayne&Wax 26...

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:11:00 -0400

Thanks to Wayne Marshall for posting this on Wayne&Wax 26 Jan 2009. From a forthcoming documentary called THE NEOAFRICAN AMERICANS. http://neoafricanamericans.com and http://neoafricanamericans.wordpress.com/

Competing Discourses of Blackness

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:03:00 -0400

The journal Social Text just released an issue called Diaspora and Localities of Race 98 (27/1)...

Thx to TED friend Cooper Bates (Los Angeles Idea Project) for...

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:41:00 -0400

Thx to TED friend Cooper Bates (Los Angeles Idea Project) for reminding the Loch Ness Blogster to appear. Check out Wayne&Wax on Modern Ancient African Music (a must follow blog). Wayne Marshall includes this great dancehall video by Senegalese world musician Baaba Maal in a review of Ingrid Monson’s article on theories of globalization (1999). Love the video narrative teaching kids abt African music inna Jamaican context w. traditional Senegalese singing & dancehall beats. Reminds me how black folks in NYC learn Senegalese dance. From free classes all over the city. Esther. Nafisa. and more. Donations accepted. This is an informal sector of ethnomusicological training that beats Columbia or NYU.

VIDEO: Osunlade Feat Wunmi. My girl artist/actor Hanifah Walidah...

Sat, 23 May 2009 12:24:00 -0400

VIDEO: Osunlade Feat Wunmi. My girl artist/actor Hanifah Walidah sent me this. Listen to her as Sha-Key. We met on panel w. Medusa Gangsta Goddess at NBAF. Hanifah’s becoming an ethnomusicologist & joined SEM.

A Recent "trip": Traces of the Trade

Sat, 23 May 2009 11:05:45 -0400

A Recent "trip": Traces of the Trade: About 7 weeks ago, I discovered the BBC Documentary RACISM-A...

"With her deep, earthy voice, commanding stage presence…she took what was deepest and strongest..."

Wed, 20 May 2009 17:24:00 -0400

““With her deep, earthy voice, commanding stage presence…she took what was deepest...

Found video of Coumba Sidibé (1959-2009) on YouTube on random...

Wed, 20 May 2009 17:12:00 -0400

Found video of Coumba Sidibé (1959-2009) on YouTube on random search as I am finishing my article. Sadly learned she died two weeks ago!! Cannot believe it. I loved her singing. Can anyone translate what she’s saying in the video?

A video from 1985 by Coumba Sidibé, star of the kamalen n’goni music of the Sikasso region in Mali. More info: http://wrldsrv.blogspot.com/

Malian singer Coumba Sidibé died on Saturday, May 9, 2009, at her home in the Bronx, New York. Coumba Sidibé, whose first album was the highest-selling album in Africa for a female vocalist, was known the world over as the multi-titled Queen of Wasulu music.

Was Roots a Hoax? And the Roots of our Discourse

Sat, 02 May 2009 14:13:00 -0400

After teaching ethnomusicology since 1996 as a professor and longer since grad school, I still have...

BBC: Banjo is a staple of American country, bluegrass and folk music, but do its real roots lie in Africa?

Sat, 02 May 2009 13:44:00 -0400

Heard Béla Fleck and his brother Sascha Paladino on BBC talking about their film THROW DOWN YOUR...

TAKE ME AWAY FAST - Trailer with DJ FRANK Been contemplating...

Sat, 02 May 2009 13:01:00 -0400

TAKE ME AWAY FAST - Trailer with DJ FRANK

Been contemplating Africa, whites, and blacks as I write an article I called the Unfinished Migrations of Music, Race and the African Diaspora. This piece will be akin to the ethno article on Paul Simon’s Graceland by Louise Meintjes. Gotta get this thing done. Been getting signs and messages to push me along.

Tonight, and today’s my mom’s birthday (LOVE YOU MOM!), I invited myself to hang with BK’s Frenchie Davis (exotic/fantasy poet). We are going to First Saturday at Brooklyn Musuem featuring DJ Frank and his VOODOO FUNK. How perfect!! He spent 3 yrs living in “Conakry, the capital of Guinea and from there traveled various other countries in the region, namely Sierra Leone, Ghana and Benin [diggin in the crates] to find as many vintage African records as possible.”

WHY I CREATED THIS BLOG First, I love the “silos”...

Sat, 02 May 2009 12:55:00 -0400

WHY I CREATED THIS BLOG

First, I love the “silos” theme and layout. Let’s me play with pulling together things that are usually set apart into silos in the study of ppl of African descent and their music. Why are there no commercial African American radio stations that feature segments on African music? Why are the a half a dozen programs in ethnomusicology that feature African drum and dance but only 1-2 programs in African American music? And I don’t mean jazz ensembles or jazz programs.

I created this blog with Tumblr so I could capture & record my thoughts & concerns as well as the sounds and images of music, race & the African diaspora particularly from the perspective of being African-American. I’m black women with heritage in Maryland and Virginia. No Caribbean roots. No knowledge of what part of Africa my ppl came from. Got my Ph.D. from Univ of Michigan. You know, the insitution sued over reverse discrimination. They were succeeding at their diversity mission.

"I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than..."

Sat, 02 May 2009 12:47:00 -0400

“I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more...