Anderson@Large

Happy New Year 2025

 

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Black Artists’ Flight Into Egypt

I was a consultant on a project in Egypt in the 1990s. As I walked around Cairo, I was struck that Egyptians look like “high yellow” Africans. I later read that when Frederick Douglass visited Egypt in 1887, he observed, “The great mass of the people I have yet seen would in America be classified as mulattoes and negroes.”

In a speech delivered on July 12, 1854, “The Claims of the Negro Ethnologically Considered,” Douglass said:

Here I leave our learned authorities, as to the resemblance of the Egyptians to negroes.

It is not in my power, in a discourse of this sort, to adduce more than a very small part of the testimony in support of a near relationship between the present enslaved and degraded negroes, and the ancient highly civilized and wonderfully endowed Egyptians. Sufficient has already been adduced, to show a marked similarity in regard to features, hair, color, and I doubt not that the philologist can find equal similarity in the structures of their languages. In view of the foregoing, while it may not be claimed that the ancient Egyptians were negroes,—viz:—answering, in all respects, to the nations and tribes ranged under the general appellation, negro; still, it may safely be affirmed, that a strong affinity and a direct relationship may be claimed by the negro race, to THAT GRANDEST OF ALL THE NATIONS OF ANTIQUITY, THE BUILDERS OF THE PYRAMIDS.

From activists to artists, ancient Egypt has fueled African Americans’ imagination.

I recently checked out a new exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Flight into Egypt: Black Artists and Ancient Egypt, 1876–Now,” a multimedia exploration of how Black artists have drawn inspiration from Egypt.

The exhibition features 200 works of art, including the Sun Ra documentary, “Space is the Place,” John W. Mosely photographs taken at the Philadelphia Pyramid Club, and Henry O. Tanner’s “Flight into Egypt.”

On the day of my visit, there was a creative convening of some of the artists included in the exhibition.

The program closed with a live performance of “Egypt, Egypt” by rapper and DJ The Egyptian Lover.

“Flight into Egypt: Black Artists and Ancient Egypt, 1876–Now” is on view through February 17, 2025.

Happy Thanksgiving

 

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat

During the Cold War, racial segregation was the law and practice in much of the country. With the backdrop of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the U.S. Department of State launched the Jazz Ambassadors program, a cultural diplomacy initiative to promote American values abroad through music.

The program began in 1956 and was part of a broader effort by the U.S. government to counter Soviet propaganda. Jazz diplomacy was intended to win hearts and minds and promote a positive view of America as the land of freedom. Jazz Ambassadors included Louis Armstrong, Art Blakey, Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Lee Morgan and Nina Simone. Quincy Jones was the music director for the first tour.

A new documentary, “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat,” shows how unwitting jazz musicians were used by the CIA to cover their geopolitical machinations in the 1950s and ‘60s. Jazz musicians were unknowing decoys in the CIA’s plot to assassinate Patrice Lumumba, the first democratically-elected leader of the newly independent Republic of the Congo.

From the New York Times review of “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat”:

This film, though, treads less optimistic territory. One of its major threads is the C.I.A.’s use of unwitting Black musicians to not just spread soft power abroad during the Cold War but also, potentially, provide a smoke screen for the agency’s more covert dealings. Archival footage and audio of interviews with agents, in some cases many years later, underline the point: Art was art, but it was also a useful tool for machinations the artists quite publicly opposed.

[…]

That’s why “Soundtrack” lands on a coda. Each of these historical threads, in some way, led to the Feb. 15, 1961 demonstration at the United Nations protesting Lumumba’s assassination, organized by a group called the Cultural Association of Women of African Heritage and led by Lincoln, Rosa Guy and Maya Angelou. But the story didn’t end there. “Soundtrack” makes an explicit connection between what happened in Congo in 1960 and ongoing conflict today. These events occurred a while ago, but they’re not really history, “Soundtrack” argues. The past, one might say, is never dead. It’s not even past.

Read more

Black Music Month: Disco Inferno

The three-part series, Disco: Soundtrack of a Revolution, debuts on PBS this week.

The first episode focuses on the roots of disco. Philadelphia native, drummer Earl Young, is the architect of disco.

Young is the founder and leader of The Trammps which had a No. 1 hit with “Disco Inferno.”

The Trammps used to perform at North Philly’s Impulse Discotheque (the building still stands).

Disco: Soundtrack of a Revolution will premiere Tuesday, June 18 at 9pm ET on PBS (check local listings), PBS.org and the PBS App.

Black Culture is Root of Popular Music

Countless books, dissertations, studies, news articles and social media posts have been written about Black culture and Black music. It is said a picture is worth 1000 words. In an era when 1000 words are TL;DR, this image says it all: Black culture is the root; every popular music genre is the fruit.