Friday, April 28, 2017

Culture Pimps and Ho's in the BAMBD by Marvin X


Culture Pimps and Ho's in the BAMBD
by Marvin X


Culture Pimps and Ho's in the BAMBD

My chief adviser, Rt. Col. Conway Jones, Jr., said to me from the beginning of our symbiotic relationship, i.e., how does a decorated USA military man and a revolutionary Black Nationalist join hands for the betterment of their people in particular and the American people in general?

Nevertheless, these two dirty old men came together in one of America's most radical cities, Oakland, California to advance the cultural revolution of America. Rt. Air Force Col. Jones told the revolutionary poet on the 50h Anniversary of the Black Arts Movement, "Marvin, your production of this event is the biggest thing to happen in Oakland in the last fifty years. This is your time and I support your effort. Just know this: the arts is the most dangerous game in town!"

"More dangerous than politics, economics, religion?"
He replied, "Yes, more dangerous than all those institutions because the arts provide the mythology and propaganda of those institutions. And there is steep competition among artists for the meager resources society provides for struggling artists, no matter what color or class."

So, does this turn artists into pimps and ho's?

"You said it, I didn't! Just know this, whatever you do, you must do it alone because nobody is with you, you are by yourself."

The colonel was not telling me anything new. I recited him my poem entitled I'll Walk Alone."

To myself, I recalled when San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown invited my theatre group to San Francisco after sending his man to view my play One Day in the Life at Oakland's Uhuru House. San Francisco artists objected to our coming into their city, even though my artistic career began at San Francisco State University and the founding of Black Arts West Theatre in the Fillmore. 

But more recently in Oakland, a foundation told me if I wanted a grant I had to partner with a local group that refused to meet with me since they wanted a monopoly on any grant funds coming into the hood. Even after blocking me from getting the grant funds, these rats appeared along side me to receive a commendation from the Alameda County Board of Supervisors.

Of course, artists are known to steal ideas from their socalled comrades. When you establish an original institution, soon come the pseudo artists with their Miller Lite version of such, and of course their Miller Lite version is more acceptable to the establishment and the authentic institution never receives the proper foundation and corporate funding as the pseudo organization with their Miller Lite aesthetics and fake radical ideology, including their multi-cultural, post racial mission of authenticity.

The people have begged me to make such information known to them so they can distinguish the fake from the real, but in the effort to establish a unified front, we have said nothing until now. And even now we say, unity, criticism, unity. Further, lakum dinukum waliya din (Arabic: to you your way and to me mine!).

But the hour is late so we say what we know, especially since it is in harmony with the instructions of my adviser, Col. Conway Jones, Jr. Of course, people ask me why am I associated with a US military man? I say this, "I'd rather be with a true trooper, mass killer, than with a punk bitch ass pseudo revolutionary artist, fake pimp/ho cultural worker, a sycophant of the reactionary political order that will sell out the people for bullshit political correctness, no matter if the people are forced to live in tents under overpasses. It doesn't matter to the artists and politicians allied in a most pitiful association that puts party above the people they claim to represent.

Even though the Col. is a Republican, he sought to bring funds to Oakland from the Trump administration for low-income housing. But he found no takers in the Democratic sycophants of Oakland, including the religious order, political establishment, developers and corporations. He made an appointment for me as co-founder of the Black Arts Movement Business District, to meet with the Trump Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Dr. Ben Carson, But no developer was interested in funds for low-income housing from the Trump administration, so the tent cities continue to grow in Oakland. And the political establishment is just fine with this emergency situation.

 In our beloved city of San Francisco, we have been informed homeless shelters are filled with North American Africans, yes, until they are forced into the central valley towns so the gentrifiers can replace them in the cities, especially areas like Hunters Point, Fillmore and across the Bay in West Oakland (Former Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, now Governor, said, "West Oakland is closer to San Francisco than San Francisco, meaning the West Oakland BART can get riders to San Francisco's financial district in five minutes, so they can maintain their pitiful lives of nothingness and dread, their world of make believe and conspicuous consumption.

The artists are quickly bought off with kibbles and bits of benefits so they will not oppose the mass displacement of the masses whom they falsely claim to be the artistic and cultural representatives. But they are pimps and ho's representing themselves only and in no way can claim to be artistic freedom fighters in the tradition of ancestor Paul Robeson.



--Marvin X
4/28/17


BAM Poets Choir and Arkestra rock Oakland's Malcolm X Jazz/art Festival, 2014

Black Arts Movement Poets Choir and Arkestra Rock Oakland’s Malcolm X Jazz Festival


 
 
 
 
 
 
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posted by Robert J. Carmack    a   re-post from Black Bird Press News
This past weekend I missed what I used to make every year when I lived in East Bay-Oakland area. The Malcom X Jazz Festival in San Antonio Park, Oakland California. this event is always produced by the Eastbay Arts Alliance  Celebrating Malcom X birthday.
Marvin X Poet & Bin Hassan-original Last Poets
Marvin X Poet & Bin Hassan-original Last Poets

The performances of Marvin X and the Black Arts Movement Poets Choir & Arkestra  Featuring
Don Murray &
Marvin X poet & living legend Don Murray saxes
Living legends poet Marvin X,  sax man David Murray and trumpet master Earle Davis 
Mechelle La'Chaux
L-R Tarika Lewis Violin & Mechelle La’chaux vocals
This was hardly a one man show. Other performers included Choreographer Linda Johnson and her dancers–Linda opened the show and stole the show with the beauty of her movement. There was harpist and vocalist Destiny Muhammad; violinist Tarika Lewis with her young students (awesome); vocalist Mechelle LaChaux, actress/poet Ayodele Nzinga; poets Genny Lim, Toreada Mikell, Pa
sister beautiful sistersisyetr  Muslims   malcom x festival  2014X and Tacuma King and girl with african instrument


african Dance students

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Oakland's Lakeshore District Discovers Marvin X, "the USA's Rumi," (Bob Holman), "Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland"(Ishmael Reed)


 Academy of da Corner Lakeshore   District

Academy of da Corner, Berkeley (ASHBY BART STATION)

Marvin X, "the USA's Rumi" (Bob Holman), "Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland" (Ishmael Reed), was discovered today by the Lakeshore District's  crowd. In truth, the peripatetic, indefatigable poet, playwright, essayist, philosopher, activist and co-founder of the Black Arts Movement and Oakland's recently declared Black Arts Movement Business District, often sets up his Academy of da Corner on Lakeshore, especially as an adjunct space to his "official" space in the BAMBD at 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland, and at the Berkeley Flea Market.

Today he was discovered by a Peet's Coffee bar tender, Haley, after she overheard his three hour interview with Mills College graduate student, Jasmeen doing her thesis on the Black Arts Movement, the most radical literary and artistic movement in American history. At the end of his interview, he told the grad student he knew people were "ear hustling" their conversation, but he didn't know the bar tender was observing his every move and those he interacted with, including Black Panther member Erica Huggins and later in the afternoon, novelist Cecil Brown, with whom Marvin X invited outside to his stand. Filled with curiosity, on her break, the bar tender came up to the poet's "Academy of da Corner, Lakeshore" and told him, "You must be a very important person, I observed your interview with the Mills College graduate student. I saw Erika Huggins come over to you and I watched you interact with Cecil Brown. I want to know who you are because I know you are somebody important, " said the curious, young white woman. The poet let her check out his book of parables and fables. He directed her to his parable Woman in the Box, then Parable of the Heart. Haley was impressed and excited to obtain her autographed book by the living legend, whose comrades have included, Danny Glover, Ed Bullins, Hurriyah Asar,  Amiri Baraka, Eldridge Cleaver, Angela Davis, Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, Sun Ra, Askia Toure, Huey Newton Bobby Seale, et al.

Cecil Brown informed the poet that he will assign his Stanford University students to interview the poet ASAP.

 Marvin X at Oscar Grant Plaza, across from his Academy of da Corner, 14th and Broadway

photo Pendarvis Harshaw

Marvin X, publisher of The Movement Newspaper, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and associate editor, Prosperity Carter


Marvin X at his Academy of da Corner, BAMBD, 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland
photo Adam Turner

Poems by Patrick Howell

Image result for malik seneferu painting of the spirit
Aesthetic Ascension series by Malik Seneferu , www.maliksart.com

spiritually speaking,

we are
cosmic earthlings asleep
at this epoch of our collective being
awakened only when our chakras
banging at the lowest infinitesimal monotone metronome frequency
Boom.  Boom. Ka-bang.
are disrupted by  the wicked doings and the impositions
of our souls by them evil ones.
Then, sleeping giants tremble terrible awakened,
marching with the authority of elephant herds
in the long rhythmic strides of gazelles across the plain lands
roaring in the chorus of the lion’s prides
with the organization and immediacy of the flock heading
for its true north, after our longest winter.
A lost tribe -
Intergalactic, our reach is from the earth to the heavens,
the majestic wing expanse of eagles,  
the grace, precision and beauty of humming birds,
the electricity and power of the mighty ocean,
and the magic of mystery,
the majesty of gods.



Image may contain: one or more people and indoor
Patrick A. Howell photographed at UC Santa Barbara Black Student Union
Photo and Artwork by Malik Seneferu

And then, well, the vibe is alive
and we have the love of God, a Spirit Force
where there is nothing that we cannot affect
for we have done it all before
as Olmec, Pharaohs, Moors
Kush, Mesopotamian, Stars
Black lives have always mattered most in  
the cosmos, Electric church, blue notes
and the most high heavenly frequencies.
Psychosomatic cosmic dust -
We are-
the dreams of ancient eternals and ancestors
whose towering visions
are matched only by our grind
hustle and grit.  We channel the earth,
our bodies with our bodies.

Yes, yes.  Yes, to thyselves let us be truly

awakened NOW
Image result for jules arthur
FREDRICK DOUGLASS by Jules Arthur,  www.julesarthur.com


These Griots

Magnificent energies fleshed,
low baritone is humming-
resonating truths, meting out justices…
just by simple being.
Soiled mahogany dripping.
Magnificent like empires,
cosmic metaphors
come from the eternal fires
of original creation
outside the space that created time.

These griots – they be taking thrones
Wherever they sit.  As they be.
Wisdom of ages, their minds are tomes
where there was once marvel,
re-imagining worlds from with-
in -  magical beings.
See them, amongst us
manifesting.  Call ‘em old
their soul eternal, priceless treasures
platinum, silvers, gold.

Dark matter of consciousness
Transformed into epochs, new ages,
new ways of being
from the darkened nebuli
of the inner mind, rooted in cosmic
metaphor
re-imagines herself  and her relationship
the sun burns a little rosier upon the
the griots crown – time having tinged
the widows peak silver.

Be careful !
These Griots- they wit sharp like acid
gone is they id,
call you stupid, make you it.
Yes – I said it – Griots stand/sit
and the cosmos alter.
It’s not so hard to explain with these Griots-
They are made of the immortal
and their imaginations soiled fertile with living
realities.  These Griots manifest by but….

These Griots.
Image result for jules arthur
Painting by Jules Arthur,  www.julesarthur.com

King Toure’ Art Man
  1. Art Man. Hear history. Art Askia Touré. Hear now? You listen to Askia Muhammad Touré and you will hear history. You will hear the tears, brimming. You will hear the joy swimming. Hoarse laughter circling. You will hear the pride, unmasked. Yes, a distinct color timbre of glee that is in that voice that is history as it keeps time with staccatoed alliteration and a vibrato that hums. A sweet soul. Magnificent soul of the Kora humming is his S’s. See history is made of men and women who did the work, made the time. Their time is history whose hearts sing as they walked the streets. To Harlem in the 1960s from Songhai in the 1400s, history is paved with blood sweat and tears. Hear? Bone crushing rhythms? Yes - it is loud, undeniable. And definite percussion. Authority. Animal skin on Djembe drum rapping. It is our voices emerge from the dark into the light of day. It is the sound of elections. It is the sounds of revolutions. Resistance. Soulutions. The earth’s heart beating is earthquakes and them- they voices. It is the beat of a man’s heart covered over in voice. And these hearts in unison, a great spirit force immortal. Risen. Now, history sits at a room in Boston and composes lines to not only record the record but carry the spirit forward. The voice carries on from the mouth of a svelte sage into the ears of youngs. Hear it now? Yes. It’s the voice of Askia Muhammad Touré. Black. Arts. Movement. It’s poetic dialect. Didactic. Red heart, earth center. Talk slowly beat. We are born again again and again. This fire rages. Calmed only by breezes.   Spread like wild fire by breezes.
  2. But let’s ground these words to earth and bring the high talk to the earth’s granular vibrations. I’ve said it before - What a blessing it is to converse with the elders; to glean their wisdom with simple truths, simple talk. Their words are like a benediction. They are sonar bridges throughout the ages. Are we listening to our elders? What Askia Muhammad Touré embodies is the beauty of our elders. What Malaika Adero built is the libraries.   What Chestor Higgins, eye of Horus, sees is creation as the sun.  What Marvin X. Jackmon embodies is the power of our spirits.   What Abiodun Oyewole is the keeps the rap rooted.  Who Marie Dutton Brown listens to is the orders of ancestors.   And we are a wealthy people. Billions is a meager number when compared to the riches of our soul, of our legacy. Our elders are rich with time, cosmic beings who know no limits. These are the shoulders upon which we stand upon. And this is the measure by which our children will look to us, their forebearers, a new power generation.


https://urbanintellectuals.comAskia Mohammad I-Meme
  1. See now? Askia Muhammad Toure’ is the spirit unrivalled in living and the spirit fleshed from ancient ruler to ruling griot, the times were not lost on him but made by him, enhanced by him, made whole by metaphysical knowings. How are we born? How will we die? Askia Toure is not concerned with that. The charlatans flee his presence. He knows the secrets and it is within how we live, enhanced by an eternal fire with no end, lighting days and ending nights. Black Pride! Fire that crushes the narcissism, barbarism and nihilism of capitalism. From the Niles to the Kilimanjaro, he carries within a barrel chest broad, the beat for generations- from Black Power Movement to Millennials carrying forth the fight for black liberation, from the pride of ancients, his is the voice carrying instruction. Black Panthers strut tall and long. From the tall grass of the Sahara to the Oakland, Chicago, Detroit and NYC urbans. From the Pyramids to the Streets of Harlem, his is instruction that will born Hip Hop, make the world spin like on boogie. Instruction that will born the new era hereto un-named. Instruction that will cleanse itself and renew the contract for our beautiful women, through whom travel the unborn, the unknown, the new heroes. King griot Askia Muhammad Toure’ - He is ours, a smile as broad as the heavens, dimples deep as waterfalls cascading. Our living, breathing liberation. No cheap commercial, this the real thang, a cosmic heart beating. His is the divine masculine, percolating territories from ancient kingdoms to afro- futuristic landscapes. In his palms, the palm lines are oceans and mountains, hereto un-named. Futures unfurling with great African names.
Image result for askia toure


A mystic preacher, metaphysical in form, his is the wisdom of the ages, the metaphysics of the sages, raging fierce for the divine feminine, every syllable uttered, a sly tryst increasing the entwinement betwix his masculine and her feminine. Oh, how Askia Muhammad Toure’ loves his woman. He loves his women as only black man with a black soul could. He would kill for his women but so much more powerful is his towering vulnerability and gentle soul, he will live for his black woman, and passage of time will not still this beautiful will. His is the terrible fire sweeping through towering myriad conscience, keeping us straight woke! His is the spirits and souls and tribal edicts of technologies that are coals waiting to be be lit by new soul, new knows, new millennials. Askia Muhammad Toure’s is the immortal soul of our beloved ancestor resurrected. A mythic figure beyond time.

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Marvin X is Marcus Garvey--photo Jameel Rashed Patterson


Marvin X plans to write and perform a play about his Black Nationalist hero Marcus Garvey.
"Up you mighty people, you can accomplish what you will! Africa for the Africans, those at home and those abroad!"