The journey of the Senegalese griots

About 2 weeks ago I found myself convincing an American friend of mine to move to Senegal so she could learn French. Senegal is the closest African country to the United States (distance wise) and is located in West Africa and gets more visitors than any other country in West Africa (of course). Interestingly enough [...]

Thoughts on the contemporary spoken word scene in England

When Van asked me to blog about the spoken word scene in England, I was thrown into something of a quandary. How do you approach a subject as huge as this in a one off blog? I’ve been performing at, organising and attending poetry events in my home country since 2002, and researching U.K. and [...]

“YES, WE CAN” – Barack Obama Tells a Story that Resonates with the World and SPEAK 2B FREE

At 3 P.M. November 4th, I casted my vote for the 44th President of the United States of America. As I left the polls in my small New England town, I walked by a young child, holding hands with his mother who said, “If you are voting for Obama, there’s just no use in coming [...]

“Preserve our words, carry them to the wider world” Mandla Madlala

I grew up seeing storytellers (they were usually old people) and used to pester people to tell me stories all the time. I have an aunt, who is a teacher, and she used to tell me stories and I just loved it. She once told me that I would watch her and listen attentively and [...]

Change my future, tell me the truth about my history

Who writes history? I ask this because I am South African and of course never believe a history book written before 1994. There are whole nations in the world who do not know their history and even if they do know it, they do not believe it because they know it is a lie. I [...]

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