On Photographs

It is your picture
placed by magnet
on my fridge door
that pulls me to you
I have to believe now
That you are my ghost
Granny dearest

Speaking to me in other people's voices
But only the special ones
How can science ever prove our feelings?

I was talking on the phone with Ayeola, a special friend
mother and sister i just met through her politically incorrect
but amazing husband, writer Carlos Moore.

Moore is the writer of Fela: This bitch of a life, and we were fotunate
enough that he our paths crossed.
More so, his wife, Ayeola, who looks like my grandmother in her ealy days

There i was with Ayeola on the phone
and the picture on the fridge just magnetted my heart
so that while i was talking, i had to watch it, and give it a few kisses.

And there, on the other side of the phone, without knowing that i am
watching my grandmother's picture she starts to talk "You must know
That whereever i am, i am thinking about you, my family"
This is a woman i had met merely three days ago.

i believe these were my grandmother's words.
Deep.
Personal.
Eternal.
Love.

Philos means love

Philos means love
that philosophy of thando, lerato
liebe, luvhuno, 爱,
glarring out of songs
waiting a nod of meaning
what does it mean to meet
a mother with her daughter at the supermarket
picking groceries and dreams
happy summer child besides her mother's flare dress

She calls out, i turn, she speaks beauty
and that philosophy is growing in our eye balls
she loves my hair, i love hers, natural
"can i take a picture of your hair ?"
I have taken one already beautiful one with the open shutter of my heart
So rarely do we give our selves words we belong to, emotions
we deserve, here we are woman and your child whose name means love
sharing a philosophy we did'nt invent but are discovering now
forget the hurry and rush of washing powder and rice and home and dinner
now here is the time, "nice to meet you," likewise
love is born

This morning

This morning i put aside the frills of life
in search of light inside this bag of dreams
Beyond belief, it is me and all my mortal selves
Alone again though i have love growing around me like
flowers blossoming beyond the space the eye can travel
I am alone again though i still itch to see the world
and drink its teachings savour its ways and words
I am alone and naked inside left with pieces called facts
but standing at an unknown corner of the mystery called truth
It is only here, inside that the story can begin again
or end i am lost this morning
I have all the language to cipher my walkings
but my prayers can not reach meaning
How do i teach anyone how to handle me
when i do not hear the language of my house
how can i make a home anywhere when the home
of my veins and blood is strange to itself?
This morning i wait under the knowing gaze of nature
under street lamps for the coming of transcending light...

Makeba remembered at UNISA

Images by Izabelle Jacobs


At an event to remember and honour the life and times of Miriam Zenzile Makeba on 9 November (the date of her death on stage in Italy two years ago) family and friends and well as colleagues gathered at the Dr Miriam Makeba concert Hall at the University of South Africa to listen to revolutionary and love songs coming from the hearts and voices of internationally acclaimed artists and friends of Makeba, Zenzile Lee (granddaughter of Mama Afrika), Mara Louw, Abigail Khubeka and Dorothy Masuka. This intense evening was laced with poetry from yours truly as well as poet and producer Duma Ka Ndlovu. With Style and grace, stage man and actor Sello Maake ka Ncube carried the audience into song, some jokes and anecdotes from the life of legendary Mama Afrika, as the simple Azanian child and singer came to be known. The outgoing principal of Unisa Prof N Barney Pitayna gave a message of welcome before the evening got down to song - accompanied by the talented Afrika Mkhize on piano - and reflections from the ladies of song themselves were shared to much memory and laughs. Khubeka, Masuka, Louw and Lee brought three generations of voices together in song and celebration with household and nostalgic tunes such as Masakhane, Pata Pata, Bandi Jongile, Into yam and Uya memeza umgoma. A video showing the life of Makeba as well as the legacy she has poured into the music of young South African artists was shown. Among organisers for this commemoration are Makeba's grandson Lumumba Nelson Lee, as well as friend Aubrey Sekhabi of the State Theatre Tshwane.

Fela! musical is sued by biographer

Show based on life of Afrobeat legend Fela Anikulapo Kuti faces $5m lawsuit

Share71 Amelia Hill guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 9 November 2010 17.59 GMT Article history
Scene from the National Theatre production of Fela! opening later this month. Photograph: Tristram Kenton

Hailed as the Muhammad Ali, James Brown and Bob Dylan of Africa all wrapped into one, modern hip-hop wouldn't exist without Fela Anikulapo Kuti, the late Afrobeat star.

But Kuti, an African revolutionary, musical visionary and polygamist who married 27 women on the same day in 1978, is turning out to be as controversial in death as he was in life. An award-winning American musical based on his life – lavishly praised by a string of American celebrities, including Madonna, Spike Lee, Toni Morrison, Oprah Winfrey and co-producer Jay-Z – has been hit with a $5m lawsuit. Carlos Moore, the musician's only official biographer, claims the producers of Fela! breached his copyright by failing to credit his book, Fela: This Bitch Of A Life, as a source for the production.

"I felt hurt and humiliated. It was a slap in the face," Moore, a highly respected African-Cuban scholar with a track record of advocating international black causes, told The-Latest.com. In his federal court filing, Moore says he was approached in 2007 and offered a "grossly insufficient" offer of $4,000 for the rights to his authorised biography, which was published in 1982 during Kuti's lifetime and reissued last year. Rejecting the offer, Moore demanded "an advance and participation in the royalty pool". But, he says, no further offer was ever made. Moore's Manhattan writ says that after his refusal, the playwright Jim Lewis and director Bill T Jones went on to use his book to develop their musical without the author's "knowledge, authorisation or consent", he claims.

Fela!, which opened on Broadway less than a year ago to ecstatic reviews – the New York Times wrote: "there should be dancing in the streets" – has won three 2010 Tony awards. By the time it closes later this year, over 400,000 people will have bought tickets. It is a success the producers hope to repeat later this month when the show opens on London's South Bank: the first time that the National Theatre has run a show simultaneously with a Broadway production. Moore's writ is a surprise to those involved with the show. Richard Kornberg, a spokesman for Fela!, told the New York Post he was "shocked" by the suit, pointing out that Moore took part in publicity efforts for the show, including a film clip on YouTube during which he praises the musical for its "tremendous accuracy". "[The show has] really understood the spirit of Fela," Moore is shown saying.

Born in 1938, Fela Ransome-Kuti studied classical music at Trinity College in London in the early 1960s. Returning to Lagos after his studies, Kuti's reputation spread. When Paul McCartney saw him play in Lagos in 1972, he said: "They were the best band I've ever seen live … I couldn't stop weeping with joy."

The influence of the musician has continued to grow after his death. Fela's co-producer, actor Will Smith, said: "His life inspired a nation and his soulful Afrobeat rhythms ignited a generation."

In the UK, bands such as Franz Ferdinand and Vampire Weekend credit him as an inspiration. The Turner prize-winning artist Steve McQueen is making a biopic about Kuti for release next year. Damon Albarn pronounced his song Zombie from 1976 the "sexiest track ever recorded".

The show has already attracted some controversy. Rikki Stein, Kuti's manager and friend, says it sets up the musician – who called himself "Adami Edo" – the strange one – as a "humanitarian, a courageous fighter against injustice and master musician". But others have accused it of underplaying Kuti's misogyny and homophobia, and for failing to mention Aids, from which Kuti died.

The London show is rumoured to be edgier than the Broadway production, with the addition of an anti-Islamic passage