Friday, January 10, 2020

Maze Ft. Frankie Beverly - Live at the Hammersmith Odeon (1995)

MAZE - Live in New Orleans: November 15, 1980

The Wild Crazy Ride of the Marvin X Experience!


Marvin X has done extraordinary mind and soul work in bringing our attention to the importance of spirituality,
as opposed to religion, in our daily living. Someone—maybe Kierkegaard or maybe it was George Fox who—
said that there was no such thing as "Christianity." There can only be Christians. It is not institutions but rather
individuals who make the meaningful differences in our world. It is not Islam but Muslims. Not Buddhism but
Buddhists. Marvin X has made a courageous difference. In this book he shares the wondrous vision of his
spiritual explorations. His eloquent language and rhetoric are varied—sophisticated but also earthy, sometimes
both at once. His moods are both reverent and irreverent: at times he consoles, other times cajoles with biting
mockery. At times amusing but always deadly serious.

Highly informed, he speaks to many societal levels and to both genders—to the intellectual as well as to the
man/woman on the street or the unfortunate in prison—to the mind as well as the heart. His topics range from
global politics and economics to those between men and women in their household. Common sense dominates
his thought. He shuns political correctness for the truth of life. He is a Master Teacher in many fields of thought—
religion and psychology, sociology and anthropology, history and politics, literature and the humanities. He is a
needed Counselor, for he knows himself, on the deepest of personal levels and he reveals that self to us, that
we might be his beneficiaries.

All of which are represented in his Radical Spirituality—a balm for those who anguish in these troubling times
of disinformation. As a shaman himself, he calls too for a Radical Mythology to override the traditional
mythologies of racial supremacy that foster war and injustice. It's a dangerous book, for it reveals the inner
workings of capitalist and imperialist governments around the world. It's a book that stands with and on
behalf of the poor, the dispossessed, the despised, and downtrodden. Marvin X has found a way out of our
spiritual morass, our material quagmire. We are blessed to still have him among us. If you want to reshape
(clean up, raise) your consciousness, this is a book to savor, to read again, and again—to pass onto a friend or
lover.
Rudolph Lewis, Editor, ChickenBones: A Journal
















Marvin X was guest editor of this poetry issue of the Journal of Pan African Literature
We honor and praise our beloved publisher who has joined the ancestors, Itibari Zulu! Praise be to Itibari always as cool as Cool Hand Luke!

Amiri Baraka, (RIP), Marvin X's best friend and revolutionary comrade. 
"Amiri was a brother like no other. Better Ax somebody (as they say in the Dirty South!)." Marvin X say, "Amiri help a nigga, just don't upstage him!"


 Marvin X in St. Louis, MO at Akhbar Muhammad's Book Fair



Hurriyah Asar and Marvin X, revolutionary comrades in the Black Arts Movement. Marvin has written several books while visiting Hurriyah on her island property,Beaufort, South Carolina. While in the area, he usually pays a visit to the king at the Yoruba African Village, Sheldon, SC.



Two titles: Love and War, poems, and How to Recover
from the Addiction to White Supremacy, a recovery manual
based on the 12 Step model. He completed How to Recover
from the Addiction to White Supremacy in South Carolina.


FYI, in late January, Marvin X will read his poetry at the Duke University conference on Black Islam in the Atlantic. Dr Mohja Khaf considers him the Father of the genre known as Muslim American literature. Bob Holman says he is America's Rumi, Saadi, Hafiz, three of the greatest names in Persian literature. Ishmael Reed says he is Plato teaching on the streets on Oakland. Harvard University Professor Dr. Cornel Wests says Marvin X is the African Socrates teaching in the hood. West says further, "Marvin X is a combination of Theolonious Monk and Marianne Williamson."
But, ultimately, we know Marvin X is Marvin X, like no other god in human form who walked among us. Marvin says, "Elijah and Guru Bawa taught we are in God and God is in us, nada mas! Basta ya!" Arabia, "Fahim? La fahim? Fahim! Anna Allah, Allah anna! La fahim?"

Ain't no real nigga orthodox nothing. Nigga by definition is beyond the pale, radical, extremist, original, aboriginal. An orthodox nigga ain't no real nigga. He serving somebody else's idea of somebody else's world, Sun Ra would say. What's your idea of your world, Nigga? Everybody got they own world but a nigga. He wanna be in somebody else's world, any world except his own black nigga world, wanna be African, African wanna be nigga! He wanna be Arab, Arab wanna be him, talk like him, dress like him, fuck like him. Nigga please, just be a nigga nigga and the world will follow you like they been doing the last fifty trillion years, Nigga!

Thursday, January 9, 2020

Maze Ft. Frankie Beverly - Live at the Hammersmith Odeon (1995)

Off the Record: Alert, Breaking News

Marvin X 
photo Adam Turner

A  little blackbird has just told us NAACP President Rev Amos Brown and our beloved brother Danny Glover appeared at SF City Hall today and got Supervisor Hillary Ronan to support a bill for reparations. 
Marvin X and Danny Glover friends and Co-founders of the National Black Arts Movement. Both model themselves after Paul Robeson, the ultimate Artistic freedom fighter.
photo Ken Johnson

We find this interesting since Supervisor Ronan advocated against London Breed becoming Mayor. And did not NAACP President Rev Amos Brown charge the "progressive Supervisors", including Ronan, with racism? Did she change her stripes over night? Or is Rev Amos Brown among Mayor Breed's loyal opposition?
As we know, politics has no permanent friends, only permanent interests. We would think Brown would approach Mayor London Breed to advocate for reparations since she is a descendent of Africans who suffered in the American slave system.
We support reparations in the form of land and sovereignty, with funds to establish an independent nation in America or elsewhere. No, we justly deserve part of American, the land we suffered since 1619 as indentured  servitude and/or chattel slavery and today enjoy wage slavery. After 400 years in the American slave system that allowed centuries of capital accumulation, look at our wretched condition on the streets of San Francisco and other cities throughout America. Has America any desire to share her great wealth with the us impoverished descendents of Africans captured in the American slave system.

Not only do we demand land, economic resources for the next 50 to 100 years, but as part of reparations, we demand the general amnesty of all our brothers and sisters in American jails and prisons, 80% of whom were drug addicted and mentally ill at the time of their arrests for mostly economic crimes and tried without proper legal representation.
Marvin X
Sun Reporter Newspaper
Political Columnist
1/9/20

Luther Vandross's Greatest Hits Full Album - Best Songs Of Luther Vandross

Off the Record #1 SF Mayor London Breed, Black Magic Woman

 Off the Record #1 Mayor London Breed, Black Magic Woman

Santana
photo Adam Turner

Off the Record #1
Mayor London Breed
Black Magic Woman
by
Marvin X
Sun Reporter Political Columnist
Marvin X
Photo Adam Turner


When the Mayor ended her address we departed the beautiful SF City Hall, renovated during the administration of the living legend, the Honorable Willie Brown. As we made our exit from the press section, it was announced  Santana was about to play. We just knew he would play his classic Black Magic Woman in honor of our Voodoo Queen, Mayor London Breed! LoL We were informed he did not play Black Magic Woman and whatever he played was drowned out in the city hall sound trap! For the Mayor's loyal opposition, we share words from Santana's classic:
I've got a Black magic woman
Got me so blind I cannot see
Don't turn your back on me, baby
Stop messing about with your tricks
You just might pick up my magic sticks....





Wednesday, January 8


This morning SF Mayor London Breed was inaugurated for her first four year term. Initially she served out
the term of Mayor Ed Lee who suffered a heart attack. Affordable housing dominated her acceptance address,
although she began with herstory as a descendent of Africans captured in the American slave system. Eventually
her family arrived in San Francisco seeking a better life. Growing up in the projects did not allow her to imagine
one day she would be Mayor of a most beautiful city in the world.



MC Kayla Smith
photo Adam Turner

She did not imagine her goddaughter, Kayla Smith, would be mistress of ceremony at her inauguration,
or that a black woman, Superior Court Judge Teri L. Jackson, would administer the oath of office. 

 
Superior Court Judge Teri L. Jackson and Mayor Breed
photo Adam Turner

After noting historic niceties, she delved into the ugliness of the hour: lack of affordable housing, not
only for the homeless but teachers, police, techies and other workers. Affordable housing shall be the priority
of her administration, along with making the streets safe and clean for everyone. This will involve conservatorship
for the severely mentally ill. Homeless shelter beds are being made available to get people off the streets. Car parks
have been set up for persons forced to live in their cars. But again, she noted that affordable housing is the critical issue.
She said the City is planning 50,000 homes in the next decade. Whatever policies that have prevented the development of
affordable housing must be altered. "Homelessness isn't just a problem, it's a symptom: the symptom of unaffordable
housing, of income inequality, of institutional racism, of addiction, untreated illness; and decades of disinvestment.
These are the problems. And if we're going to fight homelessness, we've got to fight them all.... ...Our housing problems
were entirely predictable. They are the result of decades of almost intentional under-building, and the decision decades
ago to down-zone almost three-quarters of the city and ban apartments."

Although the Mayor's agenda is an honest attempt to address the City's critical issues, she faces serious opposition
from the board of supervisors that some black community  leaders call racist, partly because the mostly white board
proposed policies without consulting the community. SF NAACP President Rev Amos Brown is one critic.

In turn, the so called progressive supervisors charge the Mayor's affordable housing program as top down since she
wants to limit community input during the planning process. The Mayor simply wants to expedite the process because
the  problem is a full blown emergency. Her loyal opposition say she has sided with developers but Mayor Breed won
70.7% of the vote so she clearly has the consent of the governed, plus she controls the budget and city departments.
Still she will need to organize more black community support, perhaps, to convince the loyal opposition to vote in her
favor on issues such as affordable housing, homelessness, drug abuse and mental illness that impact the North American
African community. Left wing racism is still racism. Our community must support the Mayor with a visible presence at
Board of Supervisor meetings, planning committee sessions and other meetings that impact our lives. We are too often
absent. We can Lift Every Voice and Sing or sing Silent Night. But we see there are forces on the Board of Supervisors
who care not whether we remain in this city. Perhaps Mayor Breed should do what the late poet Amiri Baraka did for the
Newark, NJ city council. He purchased multiple copies of my manual How to Recover from the Addiction to White
Supremacy, a 13-step recovery program based on the AA model, and passed copies out to the city council members,
including Newark's Mayor at the time, Cory Booker. 

We hope the Mayor will ultimately understand housing is a human right, therefore the financialization of housing must
end. Everyone has a right to be housed. It should not be an economic proposition but a matter of national social security.

When the Mayor ended her address we departed the beautiful SF City Hall, renovated during the administration of the
living legend, the Honorable Willie Brown. As we made our exit from the press section, it was announced  Santana was
about to play. We just knew he would play his classic Black Magic Woman in honor of our Voodoo Queen,
Mayor London Breed! LoL We were informed he did not play Black Magic Woman and whatever he played
was drowned out in the city hall sound trap! Final word to SF Board of Supervisors: don't mess with that Black Magic Woman!



January 6, 2020
Monday Night Interfaith Prayer Service for Mayor Breed

On the eve of the inauguration of SF Mayor London Breed, Third Baptist Church, officiated by Rev Amos Brown,
hosted an interfaith prayer service Monday evening, January 6, 2020. Sun Reporter Newspaper Publisher Ameila
Ashley Ward suggested I attend in my new role as political columnist. Amelia wanted me to get familiar with
politics in the City of St. Francis. Amelia introduced me to Sheryl Evans Davis, the sister who heads the Human
Rights Commission, the brother who is State representative of the NAACP; PUC Chief Harlen Kelly and his wife
Neomi. Amelia didn't know my baby brother Tommy and Harlen grew up together in Fresno and are best friends.
Nor did she know my niece Sheena Johnson is a Specialist in Harlen's department.

Rev Amos Brown opened the service and brought on the featured speaker, the dynamic spirit filled Dr Frederick
D Haynes,III, of Dallas, Texas. On a previous occasion, after hearing Dr. Haynes preach, I told Amelia, "If I hear him
preach one more time, he might make me a Christian!" 

TonightI was again enraptured by his sermonette for Mayor London Breed, mixing the rap lyrics of Nippsy Hustle
and the Book of Isaiah. He described Mayor London Breed as one who descended from the slave ships but refused
to allow the waves to consume her. All she need do is stay under the guidance of her Spiritual GPS. He called forth
Mayor London Breed who said repeatedly she could not believe she was indeed the Mayor of San Francisco, one
of most beautiful cities in the world. She acknowledged the awesome task before her to uplift the downtrodden of
her city. She noted that on her frequent visits to the Tenderloin ghetto, she runs into people she grew up with in the
projects of the Fillmore District.
She knows it is her job to help the less fortunate, to be a role model for all the girls in the hood who think they
are doomed to a life of nothingness and dread. She knows her opposition is substantial: only one of the eleven
Supervisors was present this night. She called upon those present for support and prayers, especially the
interfaith community. She thanked them for assisting with the homeless, mentally ill and drug addicted.
--Marvin X 

1/8/20



Mayor London Breed delivering inauguration address
photo Adam Turner



Marvin Is 60 *✩* Marvin Gaye Tribute Album "1999"

Tuesday, January 7, 2020

Prayers for SF Mayor London Breed

On the eve of the inauguration of SF Mayor London Breed, Third Baptist Church, officiated by Rev Amos Brown, hosted an interfaith prayer service Monday evening, January 6, 2020. Sun Reporter Newspaper Publisher Ameila Ashley Ward suggested I attend in my new role as political columnist. Amelia wanted me to get familiar with politics in the City of St. Francis. I sat next to her and her son Kevin, with my two grandsons, James and Jameel covering my back.  Amelia introduced me to the sister who heads the Human Rights Commission, the brother who is State representative of the NAACP, PUC Chief Harlen Kelly and his wife Neomi. Amelia didn't know my baby brother Tommy and Harlen grew up together in Fresno and are best friends. Nor did she know my neice Sheena Johnson is Harlen's chief assistant. Rev Amos Brown opened the service and brought on the featured speaker, the dynamic spirit filled Dr Frederick D Haynes,III, of Dallas, Texas. On a previous occasion, after hearing Dr. Haynes preach, I told Amelia, "If I hear him preach one more time, he might make me a Christian!"

Tonight, I was enraptured by his sermonette for Mayor London Breed, mixing the rap lyrics of Nippsy Hustle and the Book of Isaiah. He described Mayor London Breed as one who descended from the slave ships but refused to allow the waves to consume her. All she need do is stay under the guidance of her Spiritual GPS. He called forth Mayor London Breed who said repeatedly she could not believe she was indeed the Mayor of San Francisco, one of most beautiful cities in the world. She acknowledged the awesome task before her to uplift the downtrodden of her city. She noted that on her frequent visits to the Tenderloin ghetto, she runs into people she grew up with in the projects of the Fillmore District.
She knows it is her job to help the less fortunate, to be a role model for all the girls in the hood who think they are doomed to a life of nothingness and dread. She knows her opposition is substantial: only one of the eleven Supervisors was present this night. She called upon those present for support and prayers, especially the interfaith community. She thanked them for assisting with the homeless, mentally ill and drug addicted.
--MARVIN X
1/6/20

Saturday, January 4, 2020

You say you know blues

You say you know blues
blue in cotton fields
blue cane fields
blue lynching
blue rape male female child
blue
new year's day blue
blue auction block blue
mama down river
husband lover river
child river
blue 
new year's day blue
never see again blue
mama blue
daddy blue
children blue
new year's blue
no prayer blue
auction block blue
can you hear me now blue
slave hut blue
master's house blue
slave master rape child blues
down river child blues
plantation blues new master blues
new years day auction block blues
sing Mali blues Mali Mississippi blues
sing
Kora blues
ten thousand years ritual blues
ten thousand year mythological blues
Yoruba bues
dance yoruba blues
shango dance blues
Oschun  Yemanja Dance blues
legma dance
crossroads dance
Peter dance
Ptah dance


crossroads dance
Legma let us cross
we need you legma
dance
--Marvin X
1/4/20

Ali Farka Toure & Ry Cooder - Talking Timbuktu (Full Album)

#3 Off the Record, the political column of Marvin X

#3 Off the Record, the political column of Marvin X



Did not Iran through General Soleimani support the American defeat of Isis in Iraq? Did not his militias fight along side the Americans to halt ISIS as it marched to the gates of Bagdad? Did not the militias directed by General Soleimani join with the Americans when the weak-kneed Iraqi army was on the verge of defeat? How then can the Americans slaughter the General in broad daylight?

We do not need Middle Eastern historiography to inform us of American duplicity. Aboriginal American peoples noted the European Americans spoke with forked tongues! They sign agreements, then renege on them, thus their word means nothing, no matter in civilized conversation word is bond and bond is life and I will give my life before my word shall fail! 

Under President Obama, the US signed a deal with Iran and the Europeans that meant nothing to President Donald Trump and his white nationalists. Let's be clear, we are not opposed to white people who desire to remain white, to revel in their mythological white supremacy that is doomed to abject failure in the multi-cultural world of today and tomorrow. We do not wish whites to become black, we only want them to not think they can dominate and oppress blacks and other non-whites in the name of capitalism, wage slavery and free trade. Can they ever imagine fair trade? They seek such from the Chinese but what about fair trade in the ghetto? And fair trade in the ghetto has nothing to do with global fair trade Donald Trump is seeking. How can there be fair trade with China when half the corporations in China are in co-ownership with American corporations? 

Alas, the tariffs paid by Americans for goods imported from China benefit American corporations in league with Chinese capitalist/communist pigs. Let us not mention Black American athletes who are so integrated with Chinese corporations that they support the slaughter of freedom rights fighters in Honk Kong and say nothing about the 20 million Asian Muslims in Chinese concentration camps.
Need we reflect on African history and those royal kings and queens who benefited from the triangular trade, yes, those African royal families and politicians who still enjoy the surplus capital from 400 years of chattel slavery. Surely you know in every trade there is a buyer and a seller!

Even today, there are Africans and North American Africans who will buy us and sell us. I was riding in a taxi in Newark, New Jersey with a Haitian driver who said to me, "Broder, my African broders sold us once and it looks like they want to sell us again!" Alas, one of my Pan African Student Union brothers at my alma mater,  San Francisco State University, traveled to Africa only to come home totally disillusioned, he discovered anyone could be bought or sold in in Africa for $35.00. So much for his Pan African, Kemetic education. 

The Father of Black Studies, Dr. Nathan Hare, says the mission of black studies morphed into Africana Studies, Diaspora Studies, anything but the resurrection of the black man in America, and woman! Dr. Hare notes, "While we study the bones of King Tut, the bones of North American Africans languish in the strange fruit of popular trees, swamps, rivers, lakes of the dirty south!" Where is the forensic evidence of our torture and trauma in the dirty south? Why do we think the bones of King Tut are more glorious than the bones of Toby?

We so ignut we sing the Blues but don't have a clue of the source of the Blues. Mali musician Ali Farka, who played with BB King and the Rolling Stones, said, "Blues? WTF? My people have been playing the music you call Blues for ten thousand years!"

I wish somebody would help me, hep me!

--Marvin X
1/4/20
Sun Reporter Newspaper, San Francisco
Column #3

Black Bird Press News & Review: If I had my choice

Black Bird Press News & Review: If I had my choice: Fania and Angela Davis If I had my choice I wanna see huey in the Acorn projects rusty and dusty cracked out but solid in thinking...

If I had my choice


Fania and Angela Davis


If I had my choice
I wanna see huey in the Acorn projects
rusty and dusty
cracked out but solid in thinking
the last time I saw him
we smoked crack to no end
but it was beyond crack
generals talking revolution
youth in our presence
challenging us
be true to the game
game be true to you
were we true
lost in smoke and forgotten revolution
generals
with children
challenging us to be true
sucking watching our
contradictions
what revolutions
no contradictions
study the Russian
Mexican
French
American
contradictions
blow your mind
brother against brother
don't make me go to Stalin
Mao
murder of millions
America is clean
Natives no genocide
no buffalo slaughter
no small pox
no African Syphilis
guns no matter
diseases enough
European love
we love you back so much
we love your guns
disease
toxic religion
capitalism
slavery
so wonderful
we rejoice
praise be to Europeans
civility
christianity
modernity
praise b
you saved us from
primitivo
we needed you so much
why did you don tattoes
you christionized us
we died for your heaven
your glory
story
abject lies
fake news
alternative truth
lies
bullshit
propagada
who are you
the Pope's rapists
destroyer of little boys
no for sex love lust
for property in the Church
The Pope
family
don't say to me nothing
you destroyed my son
he molested his children
died of AIDS
what fun
sing to me songs of mercy grace
sing silent night sing
nothin nice
devil songs
durges
blues
sorrow songs
WEB
Souls of Black Folk
black reconstruction
nation?
garvey
elijah
malcolm
martin
fanny lou
angela
Where are you
down in dungeon
george jackson
lover man
revolution
soledad brother
san quentin
kill or be killed
revolution prison
take me freedom
make me free in big yard
why do I sing
Scream from yard to yard
I am crazy
take me
leave me alone
let me scream
I am crazy
leave me lone
I am robber
let me shock you
sock you
establish authority
in your bloody face
now you understand
I came to rob you
give me all you have
you took all of me
I have nothing for you
You kill me
I kill you
are you true?
don't matter
who are you
I take you out
who are you?''
--Marvin X
1/4/20


Wednesday, January 1, 2020

Poem for 2020

POEM for 2020

Ola, Dos mil veinte
Ola, vamonos
Let's get it on
perfect vision
can't claim blindness
you see clearly now
no excuse
You see God
You see devil
don't lie in 2020
No fake news fake blues fake jazz fake ass
time for low down funky truth
butt naked truth
no metaphor innuendo circumlocution 
alternative facts no solution
Cornel say keep the funk in place
don't hide the funk conceal the funk
keep it real keep it funky
Cornel say that's why we love Elijah Muhammad
Malcolm X Martin Luther King, jr.
Fannie Lou Hamer
They kept the funk in place.
JB say ain't it funky now!
2020
perfect vision
no illusion
you know donald is the devil
Demos devils too
take lesser of two evils
don't hesitate
We see clearly now
Frisco fog lifted
Sunny day in Bay
See Golden Gate
Escape illusions delusions 
psycho drama
you know what mama said
nappy head!
--Marvin X
1/1/20

Marvin X at his Academy of da Corner, 14th and Broadway, Oakland. He is holding grandson Jahmeel. On right is X's brother, Ollie (RIP).