Book Description
The vampire civil war has been averted, deadly were-demons have been beaten back and now it Damali Richards and Carlos Rivera (now a Council level vampire) will finally have the chance to settle in and explore their deeper, sexier love. But Carlos and Damali should know by now that there is no rest for the saviors of the known world. One of the four topside Master vampires has stolen one of the Keys-the living blood of Christ---that opens the sixth seal as foretold in Revelations. He who possesses the Key and the Seal can decide to the outcome of the Final War, a.k.a. Armageddon. With a vampire in possession of the Key, the balance between the Light and the Dark have been thrown off and even Damali is deeply effected. She is now sporting a pair of fangs. In order to retrieve the Key, Carlos and Damali are quickly thrust into a web of vampire politics and intrigue. And when Carlos's secret drug, Oblivion, finds its way into the hands of the enemies, even the seventh level of Hell comes calling.
Customer Reviews:
HOT, HOT, HOT.......2007-09-04
L.A. Banks is the best! This is definitely a must read and one book I could not put down until I was done. Damali and Carlos is a force to be reckoned with. This book and The Hunted are right now my favorite in the Vampire Huntress Legend. For those that have not read this series I strongly suggest that you do.
Different twist.......2007-01-16
I enjoyed this book. It was refreshingly different. Each story follows the good vs. evil theme, yet maintains an individuality that is uncommon in a series. I was fascinated with the concept of seven levels of heaven and hell.
MMMM..........2006-12-06
first off im 19.....and this book is hott...U could really feel tha love between Damali and Carlos...and it aint no cheesy kind of love either....Who knew vampires could love so deeply and with so much passion and the "good"parts(if ya get what im saying) are just as real none of that corney romance novel stuff....real passion thats makes u almost drop a fang yourself and offer ur neck 4 carlos.....Carlos may be only a character but he is sexylol it did seem like the book slow down in the middle but u could still feel and really "get" what the characters were going through....Dare u 2 read and not be turn on....
Wow..........2006-09-14
This book is terrible. I couldn't force myself to finish it and I read just about anything. The sheer amount of slang used in this book is overwhelming. I could feel my IQ dropping as I slogged through page after page. The story feels so flimsy and is not written well. I found my eyes still moving over the page but nothing was registering. It was really terrible. Please save your money, there are so many other authors out there that can really write and sell a good fantasy book. This just is not one of them...
Take It As It Is.......2006-05-24
LA Banks brings the heat again bringing back the characters from her beloved Minion book which started the series that we know as the Vampire Huntress Legend. Damali has been compromised while Carlos attempts to remain true to her and all that she stands for.
Damali Richards is known as the Millennium Neteru but is in love with a man of the dark side she will do everything to be by his side even if it means turn into what he is to continue loving him the way they love each other but not before she shows his type who she is really and what she really can do. Damali never thought she would see herself flux as hard as she did but when she finds herself surround by dark energy and having to do what it takes to survive Damali throws all precautions to the wind and takes in all that she knows to make her power plays and to remind everyone of what the Rivera's mean and what they stand for.
Carlos Rivera has loved Damali all of his adulthood and even decided that if necessary he would give her up to allow her to live a normal life but when things begin to take form he finds himself sitting between a rock and a hard place with decisions needing to be made and choices having to be dealt with he is willing to do everything to allow her to continue her safe journey and to do what she does and that's protect the living world. Carlos isn't sure what to do with Damali she is a force to reckon for but he will do everything within his willpower to keep her safe and to maintain his power to allow him to be what is he is but he knows he is willing to risk it all to keep Damali safe.
Carlos and Damali go on the adventure of their lives as they do everything necessary to protect their family and those who have become important but will it be enough to save everyone and to make sure everyone makes it to where they are suppose to go and where they are suppose to be. Continue to keep reading The Vampire Huntress Series as LA Banks brings the flavor that only Damali and Carlos could present.
Average customer rating:
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Kara Walker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love
Philippe Vergne ,
Sander Gilman ,
Thomas McEvilley ,
Robert Storr ,
Kevin Young , and
Yasmil Raymond
Manufacturer: Walker Art Center
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Binding: Hardcover
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Seeing the Unspeakable: The Art of Kara Walker
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ASIN: 093564086X
Release Date: 2007-03-01 |
Book Description
Kara Walker is among the most complex and prolific American artists of her generation. Over the past decade, she has gained international recognition for her room-sized tableaux, which depict historical narratives haunted by sexuality, violence and subjugation and are made using the paradoxically genteel eighteenth-century art of cut-paper silhouettes. Set in the antebellum American South, Walker's compositions play off of stereotypes to portray, often grotesquely, life on the plantation, where masters, mistresses and slave men, women and children enact a subverted version of the past in an attempt to reconfigure their status and representation. Over the years, the artist has used drawing, painting, colored-light projections, writing, shadow puppetry, and, most recently, film animation to narrate her tales of romance, sadism, oppression and liberation. Her scenarios thwart conventional readings of a cohesive national history and expose the collective, and ongoing, psychological injury caused by the tragic legacy of slavery. Deploying an acidic sense of humor, Walker examines the dialectics of pleasure and danger, guilt and fulfillment, desire and fear, race and class. This landmark publication, which is sure to win international design awards, accompanies Walker's first major American museum survey. It features critical essays by Philippe Vergne, Sander L. Gilman, Thomas McEvilley, Robert Storr and Kevin Young, as well as an illustrated lexicon of recurring themes and motifs in the artist's most influential installations by Yasmil Raymond, more than 200 full-color images, an extensive exhibition history and bibliography, and a 36-page insert by the artist.
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- The story......and then the story about the story
- Playing a Life Playing a Role
- Comentary on Understanding and Racism
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Fires in the Mirror
Anna Deavere Smith
Manufacturer: Anchor
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Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992
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M. Butterfly.
ASIN: 0385470142
Release Date: 1993-09-01 |
Book Description
Derived from interviews with a wide range of people who experienced or observed New York's 1991 Crown Heights racial riots, Fires In The Mirror is as distinguished a work of commentary on current Black-White tensions as it is a work of drama.
Customer Reviews:
The story......and then the story about the story.......2006-03-22
The play captures the human drama from the highly charged, out-of-control situation in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, over three days of rioting in August of 1991. One of the play's many apoplectic characters says, "There ain't no justice," in response to another character describing separate groups of angry mourners for both Gavin Cato and Yankel Rosenbaum, with each group regarded as being "at a political rally rather than a funeral."
Another character talks of "the situation that moved from simplicity to sophistication...to become a powder keg." It is fascinating to hear and watch as each character reflected that powder keg experience uniquely. The play revealed that each one of us is, in fact, the accumulation of our life's experiences, at any given moment in time.
As the viewer watches the rumors spread, there is the realization that, "There always is the story. And then always there is the story about the story."
In a sense, Fires in the Mirror shows how one story is transformed and extended by the Crown Heights citizens into other stories, with each story being somewhat new, usually nuanced, and uniquely shaped by the circumstances surrounding the story-teller's accumulated life experiences. The accumulation is each individual's life. No other individual in the whole world can possibly have the exact same accumulation of experiences. That's a practical example of what diversity looks like.
In a certain sense, all involved are at fault in creating the riots. In quite another sense, the play makes clear that no one is at fault, because at any moment the community is prone to erupt into the confusion and violence that comes from individual bafflement and fear from an unexpected occurrence. In this case the occurrence is the auto crash leading to the murder that evening. The play says it is hard to assign blame. No one but no one wanted to have seven-year-old Cato killed in the auto accident. That evening, the teenagers didn't really want to kill Yankel in retaliation. Rather they were reacting, by automatically and unthinkingly expressing their anger and their oppressively inarticulate grief through knee-jerk violence.
Compelling--that one word describes the play's environmental aesthetic of eruption, noise, and confusion, all of which lead by the end to some clarity, yes, but also to stupefied and inexplicable human silence. That muted end result, the play shows, comes from a lack of absolute certainty regarding something important yet ultimately mysterious.
There is a great deal to be said for undertaking an exploration of the meaning in the moral ambiguity and confusion prevailing within the conflicted Brooklyn neighborhood, the confusion initiated by the two understandable, if terrible, deaths. In this instance, one might ask this: If we are not to assign blame, then what is the human alternative in these particular circumstances of murder leading to the madness of mass mayhem.
Prehaps after all it is forgiveness.
As the audience listens to each interpretation of the unfolding story--of what next happened and why--viewers comes to see that each point of view has some validity. There is never merely two sides to a story, that proverbial and simplistic black and white dichotomy. Humans are too complex for easy categorization into a "this" or a "that" camp or an "us vs. them" position. In truth there are often 10 or 15 sides to a story...at least.
The basis of each character's expressed perspective seems to derive from each character's absolute, even dogmatic, belief in the virtue and rightness of his or her own special position. And that "to-the-death" view necessarily derives from each character's accumulated life experiences in these our troubled and conflicted times of racial and religious tension. In a limited sense, that's a kind of certainty in a very uncertain world. It's the sort of certainty that comes from an individual's unquestioned belief in lived experience. But in a clearly profound way, the play asks the viewer to expand the cultural and social understandings of "lived experience" and what might result from external expressions of that lived experience.
Yet it is true that no virtuous act is as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our own standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of acceptance and love, which is forgiveness.
For me, the play brings into dramatic relief that idea of forgiveness as one humane way--whether in Crown Heights and elsewhere--of dealing with cynicism and despair. Those two attitudes of hopelessness seem automatically sometimes to snap into being from the confusion of unresolved social and moral ambiguity.
Forgiveness is one answer to the mess. Genuine forgiveness is one expression that can help relieve seemingly irreconcilable tension and conflict. Forgiveness is usually tough--that much we reasonably know. Forgiveness demands courage, heart.
Jim Boushay Metro Chicago Resources Unlimited Foundation
Playing a Life Playing a Role.......2001-05-18
In Fires in the Mirror, Anna Deavere Smith says, "A character from a play does not have a visible identity until the actor creates a body for that character." She goes on to explain that her goal is "to show that no one acts like anyone else." She does this by focusing on the details of her characters, the physical and liguistic subtleties that make people unique. This issue of "personality" of character is strongly emphasized in her work. When interviewing, she doesn't simply record the dialogue of her characters; she analyzes her characters, seeking to discover the true identity or identities of the people she portrays. What she discovers--and shares with us--is that her characters are not only three dimensional, but three dimensional in a multiplicity of roles. When she's successful, as she is in portraying the Jews and Blacks of Crown Heights in 1991, the underlying racial conflicts and hatreds and biases of her many-masked characters rise to the surface. This is Anna Deavere Smith's craft: She doesn't play a role. She plays a life playing a role.
Comentary on Understanding and Racism.......1998-05-01
Having lived in Brooklyn during the riots as well as the afterward subsequent search for meaning among those immediately involved, I find Smith's work to be exceptional. She does not go to academics or political pundits for explanation, but into the heart of the Crown Heights community itself. There she finds and then portrays complete understanding of cultural differences, allowing explanation to come from the source. One has only to read Smith's work here to see that we as human beings could do alot to combat racism if only we would ask questions and seek understanding first, rather than make assumptions and insist on our own meaning.
Book Description
A major, lavishly illustrated study of contemporary art being produced by the leading artists working in sub-Saharan Africa. Painters, photographers, sculptors and installation artists are represented from nineteen countries: Angola, Benin, Botswana, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Madagascar, Republic of Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania and Togo. Artists include Frédéric Bruly Bouabre, Seydou Keita, Samuel Kane Kwei, Chéri Samba and Malik Sidibé, among many others. African Art Now offers a rare glimpse into the latest currents in contemporary African art, showing how artists share an awareness of both local and global cultures, thereby acknowledging the complex heritage that African artists face today. An important and compelling book that will appeal to anyone interested in contemporary art and culture.
Customer Reviews:
Africa Emerges.......2005-05-09
With the signing of the comprehensive peace treaty between the Khartoum government and the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) in January of 2005 - the oldest running civil war on the African continent came to an end.
It is no coincidence that Andre Magnin published this book of the Pigozzi Collection at that time. Africa Emerges from a lost decade (perhaps century) to become a far more important part of the global landscape in this millenium.
The study and understanding of African culture will be an important part of the welcoming of these nations into the world economy. The time is now.
This book is a must read for those seeking a glimpse of the future of Africa. Jean Pigozzi's vision and Andre Magnin's tireless efforts have assembled, with absolutely no doubt, the preeminent collection of African Art on the planet today. They are early - agreed, but they are on to something very important.
But don't buy the book because the work is important; buy it because it presents some of the most visually beautiful, funny and compelling artwork you have seen in a long time. I promise you this will be the most looked-at art book on your coffee table.
Book Description
THE WAY WE WORE takes a unique look back at African American style moments. Utilizing personal photographs, it explores the stylish beginnings of a diverse group of African American tastemarkers, examining a time when some individuals literally pulled it all together; or, for others, a time of trial and error. This is an exploration of African American the fabulous and the faux pas.
Customer Reviews:
Fabulous Evolution of Black Fashion!.......2006-10-11
This book is really great becuase it emphasizes how crucial a role African-American fashion has played over the years. The photographs in the book are nostalgic-- A visual trip down memory lane as I recalled outrageous fashions from the 70's and 80's. I also went to the Black Style Now exhibit at the Museum of the City Of New York, which was equally fabulous. I think the book finally gives credit to the importance of African American fashion from the 1940's onward.
This book is a fashion lover's dream!.......2006-10-10
As an African American woman in the fashion biz, I know how little there is to represent black fashion's history out there. This book is great; it's filled with tons of candid celebrity photos and fabulous fashion. I know I'm buying this for my sister for the holidays.
Book Description
African American artists Hale Woodruff and Nancy Elizabeth Prophet both worked in Paris before they become colleagues in Atlanta. When Woodruff began teaching drawing and painting at Atlanta University in 1931 he opened a new era of art instruction. After Prophet arrived to teach sculpture in 1934, the art offerings expanded exponentially. By the mid-1930s, the Coordinated Art Program at Atlanta University Center was the place in the southeast for African Americans to study art. This generously illustrated book considers the artists' lives and their impact as teachers and mentors. Hale Woodruff (1900-1980) was born in Cairo, Illinois. After briefly attending the Herron Art School and the Art Institute of Chicago, he took a job at the Senate Avenue YMCA in Indianapolis, where he met some of the leading figures of the time, including W. E. B. DuBois, Charles S. Johnson, Walter White, and Countee Cullen. After winning several prizes for his drawings, he left for Paris in 1927. When he joined the newly formed Atlanta University Center, he viewed teaching as his chance to impart a sense of cultural and social responsibility to his students and encouraged them to portray black experience in America honestly. The annual exhibition he initiated became the most important national exhibition for African American artists. Nancy Elizbeth Prophet (1890-1960) was born and raised in Warwick, Rhode Island, and in 1918 became the first African American to graduate from the Rhode Island School of Design. In 1922 she went to Paris, where she studied under the acclaimed sculptor Victor Joseph Jean Ambrose Segoffin and received the prestigious Otto Kahn and Greenough prizes. She was associated with the New Negro Movement, which called on African American artists to learn from African practitioners and to develop their own cultural style. Her arrival in Atlanta added the three-dimensional component necessary for the Atlanta University Center to initiate a degree-granting program in art.
Amazon.com
In fiction, film, and TV, vampires are a dominant trend of the young millennium. Is it is because the blood-suckers are a perfect metaphor for corrupt politicians and corporate executives? Because alternative sexualities are gaining acceptance? Because the idea of living forever (even if undead) is so alluring? The reasons are unclear. What is clear is that the hottest subgenre (in both popularity and sensuality) is the vampire-huntress subgenre, thanks to Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter and Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer. With L.A. Banks's debut novel, Minion, a tough, sexy new vampire huntress challenges the dominance of Anita Blake and Buffy.
Damali Richards is a rising star of Warriors of Light Records--but her fans would never guess that she is also the most important vampire hunter in a millennium. However, unfortunately for the inexperienced young huntress, the vampires and demons have both discovered her existence. An age-old war escalates to unprecedented heights of violence as the dark forces strive to slay Damali before she comes of age and gains her full powers.
Damali is an appealing heroine, the concept is intriguing, and the series is promising. However, the first novel is rocky. Damali is a vampire-killing martial artist, and Minion presents an epic struggle between good and evil, yet the novel neglects to include a climactic battle between Damali and the bad guys (or much of a climax at all; a sequel is obviously forthcoming). Another problem is that Damali's teacher withholds crucial information from not only the huntress, but also her guardians, who should have learned everything many years ago. In contrast, the characters frequently tell each other things they already know. Readers craving the twisted erotic charge of the Anita Blake novels or the Buffy-Spike relationship may be dissatisfied that sexual tension is less important to Minion; and readers seeking Hamiltonian melodrama may also be disappointed. --Cynthia Ward
Book Description
All Damali Richards ever wanted was to create music and bring it to the people. Now she is a spoken-word artist and the main talent for Warriors of Light Records. But come nightfall, she hunts vampires and the other night demons that others dismiss as myth or fantasy. She and her Guardian team don't have the luxury of such delusions. Now a group of rogue vampires have been killing the artists of Warriors of Light and their rival, Blood Music. Damali soon discovers that behind these attacks is the most powerful vampire she has ever encountered-and it is Damali that he is after. But his unholy intentions have also drawn other dark forces, and Damali finds herself being pulled deeper into a vast and horrifying vampire underworld.
Customer Reviews:
Buffy knock off.......2007-10-02
I'll keep this short and to the point. This book is nothing more than a Buffy knockoff. A very bad Buffy knock off. As another reviewer stated, "Buffy in the Hood" with really bad writing. I got tired of always reading about the characters giving each other a pound on the fist...like they did on page 9, page 15...page 35. Oh and again on page 50. Then on page 60. And yet again on page 103. Don't forget the fist pounding on page 169 and 209. I could go on but I think you get the idea. Fist pounding ad nauseum.
Super Reader.......2007-08-04
This is a little like a cross between Guy N. Smith's Sabat, and Angel. A hip, urban vampire sort of thing, with gangsters and nightclubs etc.
The woman in question is a Neteru, a superhuman with a mission : fanger-finishing off. She has a crew to help that know about her, an old almost-boyfriend that becomes involve with the vampire rulers and will become bait, and some good monster hunting scenes.
While the cover etc. seems to fit it into the whole romance thing, that isn't that large an element, any more than a detective book or thriller with a female lead, really.
Some of it might be a touch clunky on setup, particularly some of the crew trying to be cool, but as a quick action book, nothing wrong with this, and I wouldn't be averse to looking at others.
Slow start..........2007-07-09
It's OK...This book started off slow but then picked up a bit in the middle. Not sure if it picked up enough to keep me reading though.
An extended prologue...........2007-06-23
I steered clear of this series for a while because the first book didn't sound like an interesting read from the publisher's description or from reader reviews. Since I didn't go in with a lot of expectations, I wasn't that shocked with my initial lack of interest in the book. To be honest, after reading a third of the way through I was tempted to take the book back to the book store for a refund. The story plot is pretty weak, though once you get past the first book, a plot does begin to coalesce in the other books. While it does set the stage for the future installments, its flow is very choppy and the use of Ebonics does not help. Each character is raggedly fleshed out but not well enough to either empathize or relate to any of them.
However, I still gave it 3 stars because, all previous criticisms aside, it still showed promise of developing into something better. The author's ethnic flavor on the well-worn vampire theme was off the beaten path in verbatim and prose. Many readers typically associate the vampire story from a Euro-centric perspective, understandably. Looking beyond the African American flavor, the author, her story, and her writing style were a refreshing change from my other authors, i.e. Anne Rice, Kelley Armstrong, and Laurell K. Hamilton. I look forward to the next installments.
introduction to a great series.......2007-05-31
Ok, this book isn't the best but once you read The Awakening it all starts to pick up. Looking back this book is more of an introduction to the characters and how they all came together to be a family. We also get the introduction to Carlos. The second book picks up and is a fantastic read but i do suggest you read this granted it is a slow start but it will fill in any blanks for book 2.
Average customer rating:
- Great mix of enthusiasm and erudition
- Fela Deserves Better
- Surprisingly Good
- A Masterpice on a Musical Icon
- Everybody Say YEAH YEAH!!
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Fela: Life And Times Of An African
Michael Veal
Manufacturer: Temple University Press
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Fela: From West Africa to West Broadway
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Music Is the Weapon of the Future: Fifty Years of African Popular Music
ASIN: 1566397650 |
Book Description
Why black people suffer today
Why black people don't have money today
Why black people haven't travelled to the moon today
THIS is the reason why:
We were in our homeland, without troubles
We were minding our own business
Some people came from a faraway land
They fought us and took our land
They took our people as slaves and destroyed our towns
Our troubles started at that time
Our riches they took away to their land
In return they gave us their colony
They took our culture away from us
They gave us their culture which we don't understand
Black people, we don't know ourselves
We don't know our ancestral heritage
We fight each other every day
We are never together at all —
THAT is why black people suffer today
Musician, political critic, and hedonist, international superstar Fela Anikulapo-Kuti created a sensation throughout his career. In his own country of Nigeria he was simultaneously adulated and loathed, often by the same people at the same time. His outspoken political views and advocacy of marijuana smoking and sexual promiscuity offended many, even as his musical brilliance enthralled them. In his creation of afrobeat, he melded African traditions with African-American and Afro-Caribbean influences to revolutionize world music.
Although harassed, beaten, and jailed by Nigerian authorities, he continued his outspoken and derisive criticism of political corruption at home and economic exploitation from abroad. A volatile mixture of personal characteristics—charisma, musical talent, maverick lifestyle, populist ideology, and persistence in the face of persecution—made him a legend throughout Africa and the world. Celebrated during the 1970's as a musical innovator and spokesman for the continent's oppressed masses, he enjoyed worldwide celebrity during the 1980's and was recognized in the 1990's as a major pioneer and elder statesman of African music. By the time of his death in 1997 from AIDS-related complications, Fela had become something of a Nigerian institution.
In Africa, the idea of transnational alliance, once thought to be outmoded, has gained new currency. In African-America, during a period of increasing social conservatism and ethnic polarization, Africa has re-emerged as a symbol of cultural affirmation. At such a historical moment, Fela's music offers a perspective on race, class, and nation on both sides of the Atlantic. As Professor Veal demonstrates, over three decades Fela synthesized a unique musical language while also clearing—if only temporarily—a space for popular political dissent and a type of counter-cultural expression rarely seen in West Africa. In the midst of political turmoil in Africa, as well as renewal of pro-African cultural nationalism throughout the diaspora, Fela's political music functions as a post-colonial art form that uses cross-cultural exchange to voice a unique and powerful African essentialism.
Customer Reviews:
Great mix of enthusiasm and erudition.......2007-07-25
I have just finished this book and it was a thoroughly enjoyable and enlightening read. To be sure, this is an academic book, and it reads like one. But Veal is an excellent writer and his tone is appropriate for the depth he brings to his subject. This book takes the reader on a rich journey through about 50 years of African popular music. But it also does much more than that. I learned a huge amount about Fela's roots, the political background of his family, and the cultural and political backdrop of post-independence Nigeria. Since I am interested in African music and African culture, I read this book alongside Karl Meier's "This House Has Fallen" and they made perfect sense together. I really understood Fela as an embodiment of Nigeria's triumphs and tragedies.
The review by "spice-the-cat" leaves me baffled. It doesn't sound as if this reviewer has read the same book as the rest of us. Yes, Veal does take an admiring stance on Fela, but throughout the book he also takes Fela to task for all of his inconsistencies. There are several sections that examine the inconsistent and problematic aspects of Fela's behaviour toward women. Fela's poor treatment of his musicians is touched on several times. There is an entire chapter devoted to the theme of Fela's privileged origins, the de facto class advantage it gave him over the musicians, women and other members of his "Kalakuta" commune, and his abuse of this advantage. The physical "discipline" meted out to commune members is also chronicled several times (chapter five and seven), and again, Veal takes a clearly critical stance. Fela's relationship with the "magician" Professor Hindu is presented in a way that reveals it to be fraudulent and delusional. Veal's way of highlighting these points is not polemical or simplistically judgmental. He presents all of the available evidence, pro and con, and allows the reader to draw his/her own conclusions. I think this approach is appropriate for such a controversial, complex and hotly-contested figure as Fela. I agree with the other reviews on this site, all of which praise the book's objectivity.
As far as the academic tone of the book, I think it is great to have a topic in black/African popular music treated with the seriousness that it deserves. This ultimately does justice to the subject.
I urge anyone interested in African music to read this book!
Fela Deserves Better.......2007-06-30
I have mixed feelings about this book and while any book about Fela Kuti is to be welcomed, I don't think this is the definitive one and I do think that Fela's legacy deserves better.
There is no doubt that the author is probably the most well informed of all those who have written about this iconic figure, the man who was the most important musician ever to come out of Africa. The research is unquestionably thorough and there is as much detail as any admirer would wish to know. The problem, for me, is that any biographer should be invisible in the work he's writing. Michael Veal, unfortunately, isn't and at times his presence looms larger than the subject of his book.
Throughout the narrative there are long sections where the author writes an analysis of Fela and his relationship to the African experience. These passages are written in the most stilted and uncomfortable academic manner. The effect of this is to give the impression that the work is a cut and paste job between outside sources and one of the author's academic theses, an impression which renders the book an uncomfortable mix of good biography and dull collegiate essaying. There were times when reading these sections I wondered just what Fela would have made of this awkward literary style - and I suspect he would have been dismissive and written a song which parodied it.
The other fault with the book is the distinct lack of objectivity from the author. That Michael Veal is in awe of the man is not in doubt, but awe is not the best starting place for a biography. The dichotomy of the contrasting aspects of Fela's personality is acknowledged on many occasions, but there is absolutely no attempt to analyse the negative aspects of his character. There is no examination of how Fela's stance in representing the poor and downtrodden contrasts with his ill treatment of his band members, there is no analysis of how, later in life such a forceful personality came under the influence of such an obvious charlatan as Dr Hindu and there is no mention, whatsoever, of the violence and brutality meted out by Fela's own people to those who lived in his commune. Details of which are well documented by other authors and numerous journalists. A biography should look at all aspects of the subject's life and this one fails the reader with excessive bias and a lack of balance.
Michael Veal's involvement in maintaining interest in Fela and his music is to be welcomed. His active support in the ten years since the death of this icon and his involvement in facilitating the current availability of much of Fela's early, and more obscure work, is nothing short of admirable. Perhaps the final step would be a wholesale edit of this biography to produce a balanced and more readable work. Then, perhaps, we would have the definitive story of Fela Kuti.
Surprisingly Good.......2004-06-01
Fela was a true artist - a man committed to his music, who was intelligent and aware enough to see the disgrace of what his country had become. Despite beatings, arrests and the murder of his mother, he simply refused to remain silent about what was going on in Nigeria and Africa.
But if his music was merely okay, he'd be a footnote in music history. As it was, Fela produced some of the most challenging, abrasive, rhythmic and simply awesome music ever produced.
I thought that it would be impossible for a book to capture and explain this truly wild soul - but this one did a very good job. Amazingly, it began life as an academic paper. "Amazingly" because it is vibrant, detailed and completely entertaining.
A Masterpice on a Musical Icon.......2002-12-10
Michael - has managed to do what very authors have been able to do with Fela's Biography....lay down a balanced view point of the great but yet very complicated man. This book here caputres not just the actions but the Philosophy behind such actions. What i found very informative about this book is the amount of education I received on the History of African music - it kinda sets you on the right track to research more. Fela was no doubt a legend during and after his lifetime and Mr veal captured that well. I very good read - a must read for any african/african american youth.
Everybody Say YEAH YEAH!!.......2001-10-17
First I 'd like to thank Michael Veal for the work he did on this book. It is the best book I have read so far. My parents are Nigerian, however I have lived in the US all my life. I have always been a big fan of Fela (introduced to his music by my Dad), but never fully understood the reason he did some things he did, or some of his lyrics. Now I do. The book is really deep-rooted, cutting across all boudries, giving me an insight into Nigeria and the man called FELA in a way nobody has ever been able to. This book has changed my attitude towards life forever. May God bless Fela, and may he rest in peace forever!
Book Description
John Thomas Biggers (1924-2001) was a major African American artist who inspired countless others through his teaching, murals, paintings, and drawings. After receiving conventional art training at Hampton Institute and Pennsylvania State, he had his personal and artistic breakthrough in 1957 when he spent six months in the newly independent country of Ghana. From this time forward, he integrated African abstract elements with his rural Southern images to create a personal iconography. His new approach made him famous, as his personal discovery of African heritage fit in well with the growing U.S. civil rights movement. He is best known for his murals at Hampton University, Winston-Salem University, and Texas Southern, but the drawings and lithographs that lie behind the murals have received scant attention—until now.
Theisen interviewed Dr. Biggers during the last thirteen years of his life, and was welcomed into his studio innumerable times. Together, they selected representative works for this volume, some of which have not been previously published for a general audience. After his death in 2001, his widow continued to work closely with Theisen, resulting in a book that is intimate and informative for both the scholar and the student.
Book Description
What the Music Said is a book about communities under siege, but also communities engaged in various forms of resistance, institution-building and everyday pleasures. Beginning with the Be-Bop era, Mark Anthony Neal reads the story of "black communities" through the black tradition in popular music. Exploring the broad range of black cultural experience and expression, Neal locates a history that challenges the view that hip-hop was the first black cultural movement to "speak truth to power."
Customer Reviews:
Interesting Premises.......2002-09-08
In this book Neal theorizes about African-American music, examining the link between early 20th century musics and turn-of-the-millenium music. The author shows connections between social developments and the forms of pop music that black Americans developed. The book is interesting both as a survey of some threads of black music and as an overview of historical changes for African-Amercians in our nation.
The linkages between the two-- the music and the social climate-- are supported by a careful analysis of the music, and more often of the lyrics of some well-known composers. Performance styles are given some attention also. However, Neal is selective about examining only those artists whose work supports his theories. Other artists whose work does not fit the schema are generally ignored. In this sense, the book is not exhaustive. That is fine, actually, as the volume is elegantly structured into six digestible chapters. This maintains the momentum of the writing and allows the reader to remain engaged, to avoid being bogged down in minutia.
Neal does a nice job of examining the African-American societies that have emerged during the 20th century. He looks at how different groups of blacks have related with each other, and how the music serves to both mollify and communicate the tensions and connections between the groups. The roles of work, finances, and community are given emphasis in his theories. As such, he focuses mostly on the middle-class, the working-class, and the under-class blacks. Other groups, such as gays or the wealthy (often the artists themselves), receive less attention.
The author does at times surrender to a hair-splitting approach with the concepts. Sometimes his writing becomes entangled, with long, long sentences that are structured so that the reader becomes lost. This occurs primarily in the later chapters. The index given to the book is fairly incomplete, making cross-referencing difficult. To his great credit, Neal tends to hew closely to common language. This makes the book as a whole accessible to a variety of readers. Overall, I found this to be a educational and insightful volume, and recommend it to anyone interested in popular music, African-American cultural studies, or contemporary history.
On-Point.......2000-04-03
Books Like This state The Facts of the Importance of Black Music not only in America but also WORLDWIDE.How it has shaped the World at Large.How The Beauty&Tragedy of The Music always keeps your Attention.Black Music Has Influenced everything Period.Rock-Roll was Taboo because it was from Blues,Jazz,Funk to Rap all have been Called Taboo because of The Negro Imput.it Plays Out on Society at Large.The Impact is so Strong that thru out History to this day you Get a Watered Down take of it.From What Little Richard had to Put up with thru Pat Boone among others to What The Jackson 5&New Edition deal with all of these Wack Non-Singing White Boy Bands Cashing in on a Style and Not Respecting it.Jimi Hendrix took it back Home for us as did Michael Jackson.cuz all of The Styles are Ours.Miles Davis was Straight Black with it.Marvin Gaye as well.James Brown among many made Statements Heard around the World that Spoke Volumes About Us Here In The United States.
I Love this book, a must- buy for any lover of music.......1999-04-21
I think that this book was very well written and focused very well on how the music of the Black community was a reflection of the status of blacks as well as their position. As a former student of Dr. Neal, I have learned that resistance to oppression does not always come from marches and sit-ins, but music itself can be a form of social protest. If you are a student of African-American history, you must have this book for your collection. Buy it now!
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