Kalamu ya Salaam, New Orleans' veteran neo-griot poet historian dj activist & radical educator, announces the "Listen to the People Project" & then blows the roof off the hearts and minds of a large audience gathered at the Bowery Poetry Club for a Katrina benefit.
2 separate audio files, approximately 13 min. & 12 MB and 7 min.& 7 MB in mp3 format.
Announcing! A Call to Action: the "Listen to the People Project"
Help reclaim history: anyone can participate in the databased oral history project called Listen to the People, directed by New Orleans own radical historian-dj-educator-activist "neo-griot" truth-teller poet, Kalamu ya Salaam. "I don't want Bush and Cheney and secretary of defense Rumsfeld and that guy Brown to write the only version of history," Kalamu exhorts. This project will be data-based in a demographic grid representative of the diversity of New Orleans and the region, to be made accessible to the public for non-commercial purposes so that histories, lives, understanding and relief can be better understood and served. Not only will this massive project serve history, but the process of story-collecting itself is a valuable tool with which people in other places can reach out to the peoples displaced by hurricanes Katrina & Rita, particularly those from New Orleans. Many thousands of survivors still face cold, isolation and uncertainty during the coming holidays. "Anyone can participate," Kalamu encourages - even if you don't have a cheap tape recorder, "just reach out and talk to someone". We can embrace the humanity of others whose humanity was so denied in the Days of the Superdome. Tape it, film it, write it down or just be human and talk with folk; this project needs good people in the rest of the states to help reach out to the displaced and connect their stories into history in the making. For more information, see the "Listen to the People" project at http://www.kalamu.com. Kalamu ya Salaam himself explains the project & its meaning in the first audio piece - please help put the Word Out! The second audio piece is a "poem"... it is untitled and indescribable -just prepare for the roof to blown off your hearts and minds.
"Death to the System!"
(The attached audio files were recorded live at the Bowery Poetry Club for a poet's Katrina benefit, September 30 in New York City.)
LATEST COMMENTS ABOUT THIS ARTICLE
Listed below are the 10 latest comments of 1 posted about this article.
These comments are anonymously submitted by the website visitors.
