Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra
musical-surfer - 25.10.2001 14:20
Een uitzonderlijke kollektieve Amerikaanse band, die het op zich hebben genomen de muzikale EN politieke erfenis van FelaKuti voort te zetten. Afscheids-mail van een lid en indrukwekkend gedicht. http://www.antibalas.com
OFFICIAL STATEMENT FROM MARTIN -22 OCT 2001
Brothers and sisters:
OUT FOR NOW...
Yes, Iīm out for now...off for at least two months to Mexico to take care of my
mom, whoīs fighting cancer, away from the bombs, the anthrax, the checkpoints,
the rumours, and all the official hypocrisy that has put all of us living
within these borders in a very precarious position, regardless of our personal
beliefs and practices.
OUTSIDE THE BUBBLE
I look forward to living outside the "bubble" for a while. In America, we reap
only the benefits of open markets and economic growth. Mexico, like many
countries, has received the ass-end of these new globalization policies, and
because they see how things really work. For instance, the price of the frijol
(bean) which is a staple and one of the few things the vast majority of the poor
can afford, skyrocketed from 9 pesos per kilo to 22 pesos after the WTC
bombing. The clothes and electronics Americans buy which seem to get cheaper
and cheaper do so because labor strikers in other parts of the world get fired,
tortured, or killed when the organize, because factories use their economic
leverage to dodge environmental, labor, and tax laws. We are all guilty,
indirectly or directly for so much of the suffering. (African American literary
giant Amiri Baraka breaks it down in a brand new poem which Iīve included at
the end of this message)
MOVING FORWARD, FOR REAL
The bravest thing that Americans can do now is not to line up in goose step
behind George Bush, the Army, the NYPD, etc. but rather to take this
opportunity to change America for the better, so that real justice exists in
this world. If we follow "official orders", we continue on a downward spiral.
Notice that in this critical time, we are not being told to examine our
wasteful behavior, our racism, our culture of violence, but rather to blindly
accept the erosion of personal liberties and go out and spend, spend, spend. If
we think for ourselves and take the worldīs perspectives and interests into
account, things can only get better, safer, more stable, not just for us, but
for everyone in the world. This is the ONLY way to avoid further attacks and
bloodshed. The government and the war industry have too much at stake to do
whatīs right. It is up to us, then. In the words of Bobby Seale, SEIZE THE
TIME!!!
HASTA PRONTO
So with this, I wish everyone, whether you agree or disagree, the best of
health, the safest of times, the greatest of joys to you all, your friends,
your families.
See you on the other side...
Love and mucho ache,
Martin Perna
(Antibalas)
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Somebody Blew Up America
By Amiri Baraka
They say its some terrorist,
some barbaric
A Rab, in
Afghanistan
It wasnīt our American terrorists
It wasnīt the Klan or the Skin heads
Or the them that blows up nigger
Churches, or reincarnates us on Death Row
It wasnīt Trent Lott
Or David Duke or Giuliani
Or Schundler, Helms retiring
It wasnīt
The gonorrhea in costume
The white sheet diseases
That have murdered black people
Terrorized reason and sanity
Most of humanity, as they pleases
They say (who say?)
Who do the saying
Who is them paying
Who tell the lies
Who in disguise
Who had the slaves
Who got the bux out the Bucks
Who got fat from plantations
Who genocided Indians
Tried to waste the Black nation
Who live on Wall Street
The first plantation
Who cut your nuts off
Who rape your ma
Who lynched your pa
Who got the tar, who got the feathers
Who had the match, who set the fires
Who killed and hired
Who say they God & still be the Devil
Who the biggest only
Who the most goodest
Who do Jesus resemble
Who created everything
Who the smartest
Who the greatest
Who the richest
Who say you ugly and they the goodlookingest
Who define art
Who define science
Who made the bombs
Who made the guns
Who bought the slaves, who sold them
Who called you them names
Who say Dahmer wasnīt insane
Who? Who? Who?
Who stole Puerto Rico
Who stole the Indies, the Philippines, Manhattan
Australia & The Hebrides
Who forced opium on the Chinese
Who own them buildings
Who got the money
Who think you funny
Who locked you up
Who own the papers
Who owned the slave ship
Who run the army
Who the fake president
Who the ruler
Who the banker
Who? Who? Who?
Who own the mine
Who twist your mind
Who got bread
Who need peace
Who you think need war
Who own the oil
Who do no toil
Who own the soil
Who is not a nigger
Who is so great ainīt nobody bigger
Who own this city
Who own the air
Who own the water
Who own your crib
Who rob and steal and cheat and murder
and make lies the truth
Who call you uncouth
Who live in the biggest house
Who do the biggest crime
Who go on vacation anytime
Who killed the most niggers
Who killed the most Jews
Who killed the most Italians
Who killed the most Irish
Who killed the most Africans
Who killed the most Japanese
Who killed the most Latinos
Who? Who? Who?
Who own the ocean
Who own the airplanes
Who own the malls
Who own television
Who own radio
Who own what ainīt even known to be owned
Who own the owners that ainīt the real owners
Who own the suburbs
Who suck the cities
Who make the laws
Who made Bush president
Who believe the confederate flag need to be flying
Who talk about democracy and be lying
Who the Beast in Revelations
Who 666
Who know who decide
Jesus get crucified
Who the Devil on the real side
Who got rich from Armenian genocide
Who the biggest terrorist
Who change the bible
Who killed the most people
Who do the most evil
Who donīt worry about survival
Who have the colonies
Who stole the most land
Who rule the world
Who say they good but only do evil
Who the biggest executioner
Who? Who? Who?
Who own the oil
Who want more oil
Who told you what you think that later you find out a lie
Who? Who? Who?
Who found Bin Laden, maybe they Satan
Who pay the CIA,
Who knew the bomb was gonna blow
Who know why the terrorists
Learned to fly in Florida, San Diego
Who know why Five Israelis was filming the explosion
And cracking they sides at the notion
Who need fossil fuel when the sun ainīt goinī nowhere
Who make the credit cards
Who get the biggest tax cut
Who walked out of the Conference
Against Racism
Who killed Malcolm, Kennedy & his Brother
Who killed Dr King, Who would want such a thing?
Are they linked to the murder of Lincoln?
Who invaded Grenada
Who made money from apartheid
Who keep the Irish a colony
Who overthrow Chile and Nicaragua later
Who killed David Sibeko, Chris Hani,
the same ones who killed Biko, Cabral,
Neruda, Allende, Che Guevara, Sandino,
Who killed Kabila, the ones who wasted Lumumba, Mondlane,
Betty Shabazz, Princess Margaret, Ralph Featherstone,
Little Bobby
Who locked up Mandela, Dhoruba, Geronimo,
Assata, Mumia, Garvey, Dashiell Hammett, Alphaeus Hutton
Who killed Huey Newton, Fred Hampton,
Medgar Evers, Mikey Smith, Walter Rodney,
Was it the ones who tried to poison Fidel
Who tried to keep the Vietnamese Oppressed
Who put a price on Leninīs head
Who put the Jews in ovens,
and who helped them do it
Who said "America First"
and okīd the yellow stars
Who killed Rosa Luxembourg, Liebneckt
Who murdered the Rosenbergs
And all the good people iced,
tortured, assassinated, vanished
Who got rich from Algeria, Libya, Haiti,
Iran, Iraq, Saudi, Kuwait, Lebanon,
Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine,
Who cut off peoples hands in the Congo
Who invented Aids
Who put the germs
In the Indiansī blankets
Who thought up "The Trail of Tears"
Who blew up the Maine
& started the Spanish American War
Who got Sharon back in Power
Who backed Batista, Hitler, Bilbo,
Chiang kai Chek
Who decided Affirmative Action had to go
Reconstruction, The New Deal,
The New Frontier, The Great Society,
Who do Tom Ass Clarence Work for
Who doo doo come out the Colonīs mouth
Who know what kind of Skeeza is a Condoleeza
Who pay Connelly to be a wooden negro
Who give Genius Awards to Homo Locus
Subsidere
Who overthrew Nkrumah, Bishop,
Who poison Robeson,
who try to put DuBois in Jail
Who frame Rap Jamil al Amin, Who frame the Rosenbergs,
Garvey,
The Scottsboro Boys,
The Hollywood Ten
Who set the Reichstag Fire
Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed
Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers
To stay home that day
Why did Sharon stay away?
Who? Who? Who?
Explosion of Owl the newspaper say
The devil face cd be seen
Who make money from war
Who make dough from fear and lies
Who want the world like it is
Who want the world to be ruled by imperialism and national
oppression and terror violence, and hunger and poverty.
Who is the ruler of Hell?
Who is the most powerful
Who you know ever
Seen God?
But everybody seen
The Devil
Like an Owl exploding
In your life in your brain in your self
Like an Owl who know the devil
All night, all day if you listen, Like an Owl
Exploding in fire. We hear the questions rise
In terrible flame like the whistle of a crazy dog
Like the acid vomit of the fire of Hell
Who and Who and WHO who who
Whoooo and Whooooooooooooooooooooo!
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In 1934 Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) was born in the industrial city of Newark,
New Jersey. After attending Howard University in Washington, D. C., he served
in the United States Air Force. In the late fifties he settled in New York?s
Greenwich Village where he was a central figure of that bohemian scene. He
became nationally prominent in 1964, with the New York production of his Obie
Award-winning play, Dutchman. After the death of Malcolm X he became a Black
Nationalist, moving first to Harlem and then back home to Newark. In the
mid-1970s, abandoning Cultural Nationalist, he became a Third World
Marxist-Leninist. In 1999, after teaching for twenty years in the Department of
Africana Studies at SUNY-Stony Brook, he retired. However, in retirement he is
as active and productive as an artist and intellectual as he has ever been in
his career. Currently he lives with his wife, the poet Amina Baraka, in Newark.
More info on Mr Baraka: http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/baraka/baraka.htm
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 Website: http://www.antibalas.com
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