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news from kintespace.com ::: Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Contents:

  • ::: Njoki Njehu: What’s Missing in US/Africa Policy? ::: rasx() on film: 2007 ::: My Jimi Hendrix Music Collection (YouTube.com)

::: Njoki Njehu: What’s Missing in US/Africa Policy?

::: ::: http://kintespace.com/p_njoki_njehu0.html

The V-Man of FreakRadio.org (now 101.1 FM) in Santa Cruz interviewed African activist Njoki Njehu of Keyna about the 2003 President Bush trip to Africa. At the time of the interview, Njoki Njehu was based in Washington D.C. and recommended several D.C.-related web sites for world-wide activism: transafricaforum.org, africaaction.org and, of course, 50years.org which is her home organization.

Njoki Njehu makes it clear that the Bush visit to Africa was very different from President Clinton’s as the residents of Island of Gorée, a symbol of the African slave trade, were forced, shortly after dawn, into a football stadium as a “safety precaution” during the administrative visit.

::: rasx() on film: 2007

::: ::: http://kintespace.com/rasx48.html

I’m counting 19 articles about film written for the year 2007. That’s one more than the ones written in 2000 through 2006. It’s becoming clear to me that I am very interested in writing about film. I can only hope the hope of the captive that you are just as fascinated with me as I am!

My journeys allow me to visit Mantan Moreland, Bernie Mac, Jim Brown, Spike Lee, Howard Zinn, Alice Walker (and Spike Lee, again), Akira Kurasawa, Yasujiro Ozu, Fernando Meirelles (The Constant Gardener), Charles Burnett, Jeremy Irons, Tupac Shakur, Quincy Jones, Oprah Winfrey, Regis, Kathy Lee, Basquiat, B. Hall, Al Gore, Ousmane Sembène, Kieslowski, Bukowski, Abbas Kiarostami, Oscar Micheaux, Richard Wright, Steve Martin, Rita Levi-Montalcini and many more!

::: My Jimi Hendrix Music Collection (YouTube.com)

::: ::: http://kintespace.com/p_jimi_hendrix0.html

“Happy New Year first of all. I hope we have a million or two million more…” I have been quoting that one for years but the person I heard it from was Jimi Hendrix about to play “Machine Gun” with Billy Cox and Buddy Miles in one of the greatest concerts in the entire history of Rock and Roll.

You cannot possibly overestimate the impact Jimi Hendrix has on me to this day. You see when my grandmother, my mother’s mother, the sister of Blues guitarist Roy Gaines, heaps compliments on a great instrumentalist she would say, “You tore it up!” And nobody tore up a guitar like Jimi Hendrix. He could literally dismantle and rebuild the device while he was playing it. At about 6:40 in this YouTube.com video you begin to see what I am trying to say but the video goes bad and skips over the sequence!

New technology had to be invented in order to accommodate his mod’s. His work with sound designers on Electric Ladyland helped paved the way for more uses of the synthesizer in music (it is important to remember that this album did not use synthesizers). It is quite an easy task to understand how Jimi Hendrix, one of the most highly paid musicians in history, was bigger than his so-called art form. It has taken decades for most of this video content to be made easily available without documentarian cuts and without regard to pristine sound quality. Get all you can now because even YouTube.com will not last forever!

rasx()