Today, Oliver Mtukudzi, one of Zimbabwe’s most renowned musicians, has changed his plane of existence. He passed away to join his ancestors, after over a four-decade career. He, like Bra Hugh, Hugh Masekela, was a giant of African music, particularly Afro-Jazz. Just like Bra Hugh, he passed away on the same day, a year later.
To his fans he was affectionately known as Tuku. With his deep voice, he came to prominence in the 1970s as one of the voices of the revolution fighting white-minority rule.
The singer and guitarist mixed several different styles to create his own distinctive Afro-jazz sound, known to his fans as “Tuku Music“.
In 2018, Mtukudzi spoke to Eyewitness News about why he chose to stay in the music business: “My music is about touching the hearts… never mind how old. If a baby is born today, she/he must be able to relate to my music.”
I live you here with one of my favorite from Tuku: Neria.
Sculpture of Candace Amanirenas on a pyramid wall in Barwa, Sudan
Amanirenas was a great Candace, queen, of the Nubian kingdom, mother to queen Amanishakheto, and grandmother to queen Amanitore. Amanirenas was a great warrior queen. She built considerable pyramids and temples at Wad Ban Naqa, where she was buried with great treasures.
Her full name and title was Amnirense qore li kdwe li (“Ameniras, Qore and Kandake“). She reigned from about 40BC to 10BC, and is one of the most famous Kandakes, because of her role leading Kushite armies against the Romans in a war that lasted five years, from 27 BCE to 22 BCE. After an initial victory when the Kushites attacked Roman Egypt, they were driven out of Egypt by Gaius Petronius and the Romans established a new frontier at HiereSycaminos (Maharraqa).Amanirenas was described as brave, and blind in one eye. Some say that her name means ‘Amani is her name’. Amani is the Nubian name for Imana/Amon, Unique God of Africa.
Hamadab stela showing Queen Amanirenas and Prince Akinidad facing various Egyptian deities Amun and Mut
Meroitic inscriptions give Amanirenas the title of qoreas well as Kandakesuggesting that she was a ruling queen. She is usually considered to be the queen referred to as “Candace” in Strabo‘s account of the Meroitic war against the Roman Empire. Her name is associated with those of Teriteqas and Akinidad. King Teriteqas died shortly after the beginning of the war. She was succeeded by Akinidad (possibly the son of Teriteqas) who continued the campaign with his mother Amanirenas. Akinidad died at Dakka c. 24BC. The loss of one eye during battle made Amanirenas even stronger and braver. She despised death, and her fearlessness forced the admiration of Strabo, the Greek historian, who said, “this queen has a courage above that of her gender.”
When Aelius Gallus, the Prefect, or chief magistrate, of Egypt, was absent on a campaign in Arabia in 24 BC, the Kushites launched an attack on Egypt. Amanirenas and Akinidad defeated Roman forces at Syene and Philae, and drove the Jews from Elephantine Island. They returned to Kush with prisoners and loot, including several statues of Emperor Augustus ; the Queen buried a bronze likeness of the Emperor beneath the entranceway to her palace so that she and all who came and went could tread on the head of her enemy. The head, found in Meroë in 1912, now resides in the British Museum
Stela showing Candace Amanirenas crushing Roman enemies. This also appears in Cheikh Anta Diop’s book cited below
The Kushites were driven out of Syene later in the year by Publius Petronius, who now held the office of Roman Prefect in Egypt. According to a detailed report made by Strabo, the Roman troops advanced far into the Kingdom of Kush, and finally reached Napata. Although they withdrew again to the north they left behind a garrison in Qasr Ibrim (Primis), which now became the border of the Roman Empire. The Kushites made a renewed attempt to seize Primis, but Petronius forestalled this attempt.
A peace treaty was signed between the Meroites and Augustus in the year 21/20 BC, which continued until the end of the third century AD, with relations between Meroë and Roman Egypt remaining generally peaceful during this time. However, the Kingdom of Kush had begun to fade as a power by the first or second century AD.
Nubia or the Kingdom of Kush in 400BC
Thereafter a preponderant place falls to two queens, Amanirenas and
Amanishakheto. Their husbands remain forgotten and we do not even know the name of Amanishakheto’s. The throne was also occupied for some years by a king, the former prince Akinidad, son of Queen Amanirenas and King Teriteqas. Nevertheless, it is important which of these two queens came first, both of them ‘Candace’, which is the transcription of the Meroitic title Kdke according to the tradition of the classical authors.
Joy is in our hearts! It has taken us 8 years but we have overcome, or rather Laurent Gbagbo and Charles Blé Goudé (How long shall they kill our prophets…?)have overcome. The hour is to joy, and gratitude, because truly perseverance has been their motto for the past few years. All these tough years of claiming their innocence, all these years of constant support and people’s prayers, dedication, love, and determination have born fruits. Yesterday, January 15th 2019, Laurent Gbagbo and Charles Blé Goudé were acquitted of war crimes at the ICC. I rejoice in this step forward. I live you with snippets of the article from the NPR below. In latest news, the prosecution is trying to bar Gbagbo and Blé Goudé from returning to their home country of Côte d’Ivoire, and instead wants to keep them roaming through in Europe: this is another case of Deportation of African Heads of States. We will keep fighting to the last drop! As Agostinho Neto said: “La luta continua e la victoria e certa!”
====
Charles Blé Goudé celebrating with his legal team on 01/15/2019 (SkyNews)
A panel of judges at the International Criminal Court has dismissedcharges of war crimesagainst former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo, the first former head of state to stand trial at the ICC. Charges against his former youth minister, Charles Blé Goudé, also were dropped.
[…] A majority of the three-judge panel concluded that prosecutors had failed to show that there was a “common plan” to keep Gbagbo in power, nor “the existence of patterns of violence from which it could be inferred that there was a ‘policy to attack a civilian population,’ ” the court said in a press release.
Public speeches by Gbagbo and Blé Goudé did not constitute ordering, soliciting or inducing the alleged crimes, the judges said – adding that they needed no further evidence from the defense.
[…] After refusing to hand over power, Gbagbo was pulled from an underground bunker at the presidential residence in Abidjan in April 2011, and thenwhisked to The Haguein November 2011. He was held in custody for more than seven years.
Who or what did we celebrate in 2018 in Africa. Here are 10 people, events and things, which marked the year 2018 (if there are some other you would like to share, please send them in):
Sahle-Work Zewde, Ethiopia’s first female president, with the Prime minister Abiy Ahmed, on the day she was elected
1. Abiy Ahmed Ali became prime minister of Ethiopia this year, and brought in a wave of new measures. He is particularly noted for ending decades of border disputes between Eritrea and Ethiopia, bringing in the 2 sisters back together, releasing thousands of political prisoners and for having half of his government made up of women, some in key positions including the ministry of defense.
2. Ethiopia welcomed its first female president in the person of Sahle-Work Zewde. Mrs. Zewde was unanimously elected president by members of the Federal Parliamentary Assembly on 25 October 2018. Sahle-Work’s appointment makes her the first female Ethiopian head of state since Empress Zewditu.
3. Peace between Eritrea and Ethiopia. Peace at last with the end of the border dispute in June and July of this year, marking the end to decades of tension between the 2 sisters.
4. The release from jail of Simone Gbagbo. The former first lady of Côte d’Ivoire was released on 8 August 2018, after 7 years in prison. We are so grateful; it took us 7 years, but Simone is free at last. Free at Last: Simone Gbagbo Liberated.
10. Not sure whether to applaud this or not: Major museums across Europe have agreed to loan important artifacts back to Nigeria for a new museum the country plans to open in 2021 (Europe’s Largest Museums to “Loan” Looted Benin (Nigerian) Artifacts back to Nigeria). How someone can loan you something they stole from you is beyond me! They should just return it!
Here is an anonymous poem I thought of sharing with all; it reflects the life of so many in the workplace in the West. Enjoy!
=====
Being Black in the Work Place
They take my kindness for weakness. They take my silence for speechless. They consider my uniqueness strange. They call my language slang. They see my confidence as conceit. They see my mistakes as defeat. They consider my success accidental. They minimize my intelligence to “potential”. My questions mean I’m unaware. My advancement is somehow unfair. Any praise is preferential treatment. To voice concern is discontentment. If I stand up for myself, I’m too defensive. If I don’t trust them, I am too apprehensive. I’m defiant if I separate. Yet, I am fake if I assimilate. So, constantly I am faced with work place hate. My character is constantly under attack. Pride for my race makes me “TOO BLACK”. Yet, I can only be me. And who am I you might ask? I am that Strong Black Person… Who stands on the backs of my ancestors. Achievements, with an erect spine pointing to the stars with pride, Dignity and respect which lets the work place in America know, that I not only possess the ability to play by the rules, but I can make them as Well!
Black History 365
Good, Better, Best, Never rest until YOUR Good is Better and YOUR Better is Best!
Amilcar Cabral on a stamp with the flag of Guinea Bissau
It so happens that in our country the Portuguese colonialists did not expropriate the land; they allowed us to cultivate the land. They did not create agricultural companies of the European type as they did, for instance, in Angola, displacing masses of Africans in order to settle Europeans. We maintained a basic structure under colonialism – the land as co-operative property of the village, of the community. This is a very important characteristic of our peasantry, which was not directly exploited by the colonisers but was exploited through trade, through the differences between the prices and the real value of products. This is where the exploitation occurs, not in work, as happens in Angola with the hired workers and company employees. This created a special difficulty in our struggle – that of showing the peasant that he was being exploited in his own country.
Map of Guinea Bissau
Telling the people that “the land belongs to those who work on it” was not enough to mobilise them, because we have more than enough land, there is all the land we need. We had to find appropriate formulae for mobilising our peasants, instead of using terms that our people could not yet understand. We could never mobilise our people simply on the basis of the struggle against colonialism-that has no effect. To speak of the fight against imperialism is not convincing enough. Instead we use a direct language that all can understand:
Flag of Cape Verde
“Why are you going to fight? What are you? What is your father? What has happened to your father up to now? What is the situation? Did you pay taxes? Did your father pay taxes? What have you seen from those taxes? How much do you get for your groundnuts? Have you thought about how much you will earn with your groundnuts? How much sweat has it cost your family? Which of you have been imprisoned? You are going to work on road-building: who gives you the tools? You bring the tools. Who provides your meals? You provide your meals. But who walks on the road? Who has a car? And your daughter who was raped-are you happy about that?”
Amilcar Cabral on the need to personalize, and adapt the fight to his country’s realities.
One of Côte d’Ivoire’s most prolific writer is, without a doubt, Bernard Binlin Dadié, the maestro. Some of his poems have been translated in many languages, while others have been set to music for movies, such as “Dry your tears” which was set to music for the Steven Spielberg movie Amistad. Bernard Dadié is a man whose work and versatility have blessed countless people around the globe.
Please enjoy ‘Les lignes de nos mains / The Lines of Our Hands‘ which was published in La Ronde des Jours, Edition Pierre Seghers, 1956. The English translation is by Dr. Y., Afrolegends.com.
‘Les Lignes de nos mains‘ / ‘The Lines of Our Hands‘ by Bernard Dadié
Today, I have translated Mariam Sankara‘s declaration on the day of the 30th-year anniversary of the death of her husband, the president of the Faso, the great revolutionary Thomas Sankara.
Very often we forget women’s contributions to revolutions, history acts as if these men had been all alone. If Mariam Sankara had not been home to take care of their two children, to take care of Thomas when he got home after a hard day, do you think we would have had a revolution? If Winnie Mandela had not carried on the battle, do you think the world would have known about Nelson Mandela? Maybe not… because during those 27 years while Nelson was living a ‘somewhat’ cozy life in prison, Winnie was being jailed, attacked, harassed, beaten to death, had to run to exile several times, but she kept his name high up. Now, today, history chooses to only count his contributions, forgetting hers!
So here is the declaration from Mariam Sankara, that she made last year on 15 Oct 2017. The original on ThomasSankara.net; the text has been translated to English by Dr. Y., Afrolegends.com
========
Thomas Sankara a Ouagadougou
Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends,
The assassination of President Sankara and his companions on October 15, 1987, interrupted an original and promising development experience in the history of contemporary Africa.
I would like to thank you for your support to the whole Sankara family and to me as well as for your loyalty to the memory of President Thomas Sankara.
Through his policy, Thomas defended, by giving the example himself, essential values such as integrity, honesty, humility, courage, will, respect and justice. By mobilizing the various components of society, he fought hard against the debt, for the well-being of all Burkinabé, the promotion of Burkinabé cultural heritage and the emancipation of women. He urged his fellow citizens to take care of themselves to live with dignity. In short, he refused submission to the diktat of the most powerful in this world, took the defense of the weakest and most disadvantaged. Impregnated with these values and ideas, you have, through the popular uprising of October 30 and 31, 2014, put an end to the dictatorial regime of Compaoré. This insurrection has allowed the people to take back the floor to demand, among other things, the end of impunity, the reopening of the justice file on the assassination of Thomas Sankara and his companions, that of Norbert Zongo and many others.
Flag of Burkina Faso
The decision taken in Burkina Faso by the transitional authorities to finally bring justice to Thomas Sankara has generated immense hope in Burkina, in Africa in general and in the world. But we are still waiting for justice.
The request of the civil society and families is clear. We want to know as soon as possible the sponsors and the executors of this assassination and those of the other crimes.
To delay the quest for truth is to play the game of the assassins of Thomas Sankara and his companions. To do no justice is to refuse a dignified burial for Thomas Sankara and his companions, it is to prevent families from mourning.
That is why the people of Burkina Faso and their friends must remain mobilized and relaunch the campaign so that thirty years later, justice is finally done for Thomas Sankara and his companions.
Dear compatriots, our family welcomes your initiative to erect a memorial to Thomas Sankara.
Mariam and Thomas Sankara with their children
Like many of our compatriots, we are committed to the defense and safeguarding of Thomas Sankara’s memory. I would like to salute this initiative of the civil society, led by the association CIMTS (International Committee for the Thomas Sankara Memorial). This Memorial project enjoys popular support. A consensual and inclusive approach should allow to realize a quality work which will testify to the vitality of the ideas of Thomas and his faithful companions of the revolution of August 4, 1983. However, the family wants this memorial not to be built in the enclosure of the Council of the Entente which brings back painful memories because of the assassinations and the tortures which have marked this place.
With all these wishes for the valorization of the memory of Thomas observed around the world, one realizes with the time that Thomas Sankara was a visionary. Aware of the actions of the critics of the revolution, he knew he was misunderstood because he was ahead of his time. He said back then: “kill Sankara, thousands of Sankara will be born”. This has become a reality. Today, we see that the youth is immersed in its progressive ideas to transform society.
Thirty years after his death, Thomas’s thought remains alive and of actuality.
Once again, I congratulate you on your commitment and your loyalty to the memory of President Thomas Sankara.
30 years of resistance!
30 years of impunity!
Finally bring justice to Thomas Sankara and his companions and to all the victims of unpunished crimes!
One of Seychelles’ most acclaimed and prolific author is the writer Antoine Abel, who had been an ambassador of the indigenous culture of the island nation. He is considered by many as the father of Seychelles’ literature, and had an extensive career writing novels, short stories, poetry and plays in French, English, and Creole. Most of his work dealt with the folklore of the Seychelles, and the natural environment of the islands, in which he wove in colorful personalities and histories inspired from the local culture. Descending from a family of slaves, he is the first Seychellois writer to expose to wide world to the literary gems of the country.
Below is one of his poems, ‘Dances d’hier‘ translated to English by Dr. Y., Afrolegends.com. Enjoy the poem below, and also check out The Seychelles Ministry for Youth Sports and Culture which ‘remembers Antoine Abel.’
Danses d’hier
J’entends encore les staccatos Le prolongement des sons des tam-tams Des tam-tams du temps jadis
Alors les collines s’enflamment Dans la nuit sèche Les pieds des danseurs Se baignent dans la fine poussière De latérite Et leurs pas scandent sauvagement Un rythme endiablé
J’entends encore les notes rapides La voix étouffée du « commandeur » Se modulant dans l’air tiède du soir.
Alors les échines s’arc-boutent Les unes aux autres Et les hanches roulent comme des houles Les ventres des danseuses voluptueuses Ondulent lascivement… Et des voix confuses s’interpellent Impudemment.
Je perçois toujours les staccatos Les grondements des “grosses caisses” Par delà les années de mon enfance … Je les porte en moi Comme des stigmates.
Dances of Yesterday
I still hear the staccatos The extension of the sounds of the drums The drums from the old days
Then the hills ignite (flare) In the dry night The dancers’ feet bathe in the fine dust of laterite And their steps wildly chant A frenzied rhythm
I still hear the quick notes The muffled voice of the « commander » Modulating in the warm evening air.
Then the backs bridge One with the other And the hips roll like swells The bellies of the voluptuous dancers Wave sensually… And confused voices call out Impudently.
I still perceive the staccatos The rumblings of the “big drums” Beyond the years of my childhood… I carry them in me Like stigmas.
“Your brain is your greatest weapon. Connect it to your heart, and you can go anywhere.” 
African Heritage 