December 11, 2024 • 41 mins
Music is everywhere. It’s in our cars, doctors’ offices, shopping malls, movies, and video games. There’s no question that music is ubiquitous, but is anyone really listening? What does it mean to truly listen? What happens when we tune in, not only to the soundwaves of music, but also the vibrations of community, the echoes of ancestors, and the whispers of dreams? For musician and storyteller Michael Mwenso, Black music is a portal to self-discovery and ancestral connection. It is a living, breathing language that bridges the past, present, and future. He sits down with artist Semoria Mosley for a conversation about the art of listening, a collective practice that promotes community, healing, and spirituality. Their conversation will change how you listen to music.
Michael Mwenso is a bandleader, co-founder of Electric Root, and EMMY Award winning creator. He devotes his energy to spreading the message of Black music to uplift, heal, and empower individuals and divided communities across the US.
This episode is co-hosted by Semoria Mosley, an artist and School of Art MFA student at the University of Arizona.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Race remix mix.
Hi, welcome to Race Remix.
I'm Semoria Mosley,a graduate student in the College of Fine
Arts at the University of Arizona studyingphotography video.
In this episode,I had the pleasure of speaking
with Michael Mwenso bandleader, co-founder of Electric Root,
(00:21):
Emmy Award winningcreator, curator and creative artist.
I am so glad to share that conversationwith our listeners today.
Hello. How ya doing?
I'm good, thank you. That's great.
I had the pleasure of going to one of yourancestral listening sessions.
And I want to first talkabout my first impression of you
(00:44):
when I first met you.
I feel like you've alreadycultivated a place, a space for spirits.
And when I first met you,you were very unassuming
to me, very confident, very unwavering.
And I think that's the only wayyou can create a space like that.
And so would you mind telling uswhat an ancestral listening session is?
(01:09):
Well, thank you
so much for being with me today.
And allow me into your space and and forthe kind words that you just expounded on.
Truly grateful to be here with you and
when you came out of
the time when George Floyd
(01:30):
was really changing the worldin a sense of
revelation, you know, and me
and my co-creative brother
friend, we started a company
called a Electric Root,and it allowed us to start
creating a way,a new way to listen to music with people.
(01:51):
And we were doing it on zooms, really.
And it's really came out of a lot of
years prior.
You know, when I was
even in London too,
you know, I would try and was create spacefor people to listen to music together.
After the show, we'd go to someone's houseand we do that in London.
But when I got to New York
(02:11):
to started doing that more, it just becamea thing we did, and it really helped us.
A lot of the musicians in New York,
the community that was very blessedto be around and participate
in it really developed usto hear music differently
and to actually really respectthese people that built the music.
So, you know, that's the ancestral part toreally respect and love these ancestors.
(02:34):
And then, you know, you buildcommunity around, listen to the ancestors
and listen.
So it really came out that way,social kind of vibe.
And then we started doing it on Zoomsome years after.
And when all of this time was changing,we did that university doing it people.
And then now we're doing it very by.
Hmm... With religions.
And it was really a nice everybody.
(02:55):
But it's really just really doinginvestigative
work on ourselves through using the music.
Yeah.
It sounds like you're challenging the
disposability of legacy,
like legacy within music, legacywithin storytelling.
(03:15):
And it's very interestingthat you say that
that came about after George Floyd,because in my life, before
I was still in contemporary artas my main practice, I was a journalist
and I was living in San Diegoand I had been freelancing for a while.
I went to a historically Black college,
so I knew that I wanted to tell storiesdifferently.
(03:36):
That’s just something that moved meand I struggled.
I struggled to get opportunities.
I struggle for people to see the validityof what I had to say.
And it wasn'tuntil George Floyd was murdered that I got
one of the biggest opportunities, and
I ended up on the front pageof the San Diego Union-Tribune.
(03:57):
And that was really big for me.
And that just cultivateda different community inside of me.
And it's very different because
I had alreadyhad a very interesting relationship
with police brutalitywhen Trayvon Martin was murdered.
We were in the same age,and that was the first time that ...
(04:21):
I knew about racism.
I understood, but that was the first timethat I seen the
material.
So in such a new way,it was so modern. And
to go back to the music
after that,it just seemed like I could hear
(04:42):
so much more in what we had to sayin the music really took me there,
and I think it's interestingthat you're using it as a vehicle.
So I do want to ask you,do you have a personal spiritual practice
that led you to Segway
into this spirituality embedded in music?
(05:04):
Very deep.
Yeah, I do. I
think for me now, in the last few years,
it's really been researching a study,
more African spirituality.
You know, I was raised in a very Christian
upbringing my mother,my aunts, my uncles, very, very Christian.
(05:28):
They're going to Christian schoolsin England, Roman Catholic
schools, Church of England schools.
So it was all of that.
But in the last few years,I've definitely tried
to understand more about spiritualitythat comes from Black people,
particularly Nigerian spirituality,
and that's been very helpfulto also use the Bible,
(05:49):
which is what you call in IFAas a therapist, as a guide
or as these are goingseem a few months in is just helpful.
Just to talk to is not a magician,is that it's not magic.
You have to keep your spirit in alignment.
And sometimes, sometimes we don't.
You know, I struggle, you know, but
(06:09):
it's nice to have
just him to go toand talk to about things, you know.
And so that's been very helpfulin knowing more about IFA
and, and the richness
and the power of color,
Ethiopia.
So it's very
(06:31):
moving.
When you think about Black people'smigration in general
and how there has been this huge surge,it seems like, and I know
people have always been doing it, butit just feels like a huge collective surge
of wanting to inturn do that Christian indoctrination.
And I grew up Christian like.
(06:52):
I grew up going to church
feeling the music, though the music.
It was just next level.
And that's the thing that brought you backis just that it was just different.
And but yeah, undoing that indoctrination
and using music to do that personally.
My grandfather, he's a remote workerand growing up everybody would say
(07:16):
like this, like you go to a remote worker,like, why would you do that?
And people are all familiar.
Fruit work resides in hotel,
which is in enslaved
mystic practice that was used to
combat the circumstances of the timeand is something
that was a culmination of differentAfrican needs
(07:41):
becausewe've been grouped on this plantation now
and while I'm doing the indoctrination,I have to keep saying that
because it's really beis really big to take that step for
and move past what you've been taught.
That's what I think of John the Conqueror.
Is he?
John the Conqueror always comesand he saves and I call on that.
(08:05):
And so it's interestingto think about ancestor veneration.
Well,
that's never been lost on
us, even even within Christianity,because I will say
Black
people rip the dead in a different way.
And it's very in the everyday culture.
(08:27):
Like if somebody died a year
ago, you could be going pope weeksand they got the R.I.P.
shirt on or you're in your houseand you see so many people on the wall
that you've never seen before.
But your granny is like,
No, that's your Aunt Maybelline,even if you don't know that.
So the way you venerate ancestorsin your ancestral listening sessions,
(08:51):
when it's the first time you learn
that ancestors were important to you.
Is that question going to be just
absolutely relevant?
Maybe because I dealt with deathearly in my life,
You know,my stepfather died a slow death. So,
(09:11):
you know, I saw we went to the mortuary.
My mom, I remember seeing him, you know,and maybe that's a way, but and then
but now as I grow older, everyonea lot of people,
everyone I knew as a child, Gomez's death.
You know what I think about every day,Even like, you know, my life,
my father's dead.
The guy who raised me deadbecause I was dead.
(09:33):
My close is on the dead.James Brown's dead.
They were know that.
And it's not easy, but it's joyful.
It is joyful because I still pray to them
so they're not dead. Like what you saying?
Sadly, Christianity did do that.
It made us see deathas we had a Black in Africa tradition.
Some of the dead is happytime. We're going to do the funeral.
(09:54):
The we change our clothesevery day. And his party.
This way because this a homegoingbecause his life after.
Still living.
They still live. It.
So I pray to James Brown.
I pray to my father.
I prayed to Tom raised meand they come to me in dreams too.
I see that.
I see the dead very deep in dreams.
James Brown came to me two weeks ago.
(10:14):
He was real rich.
I write him down.
Ray Charles has come to me.
The guy who raised mecomes to me every week.
So maybe because of that too.
Because I really know that they're alive.
Like when they come to you in your dreams,it's just like,
Bloody hell, these people are alive.
This was.
That was the one of the thingsI was going to ask you.
(10:35):
Do you dream a lot? Because incredibly.
I was trying to process my dreams
because they've always beenjust this extra layer of communication.
Yes, it is.
And I, it's my route work.
Granted, I asked them, I say grandpapa,this is mangrove, a part of their heart.
(10:55):
Why do I dream so much?
And you say, because you got a giftthat you need to work.
It means something.
Okay, Well, what does that mean?
He says if you are given a giftand you don't work,
it is a disservice to yourselfand it's a disservice to
your life is a disservice to the world.
So he tells me this story.
He says three men sitting on the corner.
(11:16):
A man comes and gives each of them a gift.
The first man gets one penny,second man gets two paintings,
the third man gets three paintings.
The man
who gave them the paintings,he leaves, he comes back a week later.
He asks them all,What did they do with it?
The first man spent it well.
The second man lost it.
(11:37):
The third man buried.
He is where he buried.
The tree grewand the man said he worked his.
You didn't work yours.
You gave it away because you gave it away.
You have nothing.
So I think about that.
I think about how you'reworking your gift.
And when did you realizethat was your gift?
(12:00):
Which what?
But what was it like?
Which part of the thing.
We're talking about? Dream.
So when did you realize Dream?
okay. That's a deep one.
Well, what?
My mother was deportedwhen I was a kid, but
a year
or eight months before she was deported,
we were living togetherand I would have this continuous dream
(12:22):
of my motherleaving me on the train track.
And it happened for monthsno Satoshi would ever have.
And then eight months later,my mom was deported.
So I realized,they were trying to prepare me,
but my mom wasn't going to be around.
So that's when I realized I was dreaming.
Okay, so that's kind of like me.
So I realized, okay,so dreams are warnings,
(12:44):
dreams are revelations,dreams are manifestations,
you know, Soand I realized that very young
because it's like my ancestorswere preparing me to lose my mother.
Because when I'd wake up from that dream.
going to be so sad.
Go to my mom and cry.
Why you left me.
But then she did. She did, didn't.
They took her.But you know what I'm saying.
So I realized, yeah, from a young age
(13:06):
as it is, and it's going deep because notjust dead people that visit me, it's
it's like Jesus saying.
At it's really and I wake up like,
Well, it was nice to see you this night.
Yeah.
But they always have a lot to say.
Do they have a lot to say
when you start a dream like that?
Did you simultaneously also connectwith the music
(13:29):
at the same time, or were they one
before the other?
Look at dreams
a little bit firstand then music after them.
Did they help you understand music.
Well,
I've never really gone there, actually.
(13:49):
No, I just made it.
I think everything is connected.
Everything is connected,I say, because dreams
become like prophecy.
They become like prophecy.
And they.
They let you know that there is more.
Once you begin to dream,you can't really deny what you know.
(14:09):
You may try to suppress it, but,
you know, and onceyou know what you know, you can do it.
You know,and so you can only build upon that.
So when I think about musicas such a spiritual thing, I mean,
they say, Hark the Herald Angels sing.
This is one of I think people who makemusic have one of the highest gifts
to have because it penetratesso deep, it penetrate so deep and
(14:35):
it is the it's the timeline.
I think music is a timeline.
I think music is a portal.
And it's something that just has sustainedwhen everything else has not.
And forfor that to just drop into your world
right after you start dreaming, thatdoesn't seem like a coincidence to me.
(14:56):
At least
I write them down.
But you know I haven't seen it.
You have to practice
dreaming too.
So I always tell people, write them down,because once you start making
your brain damaged, your brain startsto remember them more when you wake up.
(15:17):
But you can't do nothing.
Like don't even go to toiletbecause it will get it gone.
But you as soon as you write in your phoneand I have hundreds of pages.
James Brown came in redand then we went here.
Aretha Franklin touched me a little bit.
Interestingly, either it is like who,you know, write them down because
they are prophecies.
(15:38):
How did you get the idea
for Because I know
this,what you're doing is a collaboration.
It's not just you, but
did you get any inclinationthat something of the sort
or did you ever visualizesomething of this sort for your life,
(16:03):
the way the way you present
your voice and the way you presentyour contribution to the world?
Did you ever imagine it existingin this sort of space, or did you?
You know, I did initially.
I definitely musicand I knew I'd be doing that,
but I didn't think musicwould take me to this.
What did you think?
I don't know.
(16:23):
I'll just be shaking and breakingand singing on the stage and boom, boom.
And that's that's the life.
I didn't think you'd be like,you mean it's going to take you to here,
you know, And that I would share my lifein this way, too.
I didn't think I just thought of as orjust pause and trauma and like, sad times,
you know, it was a lot of beautiful timesas a child, but it was a love.
But now just to be able to share itwith people in a way, a testimony.
(16:48):
So so that's been very, very helpful.
Yeah.
Sort of open.
Yeah.
You've inspired me.
You've inspired me in a way.
When I think about music,especially where I'm from, like
everybody loves music,everybody wants to do music,
(17:08):
everybody wants to
make a way for themselves with somethingthat they're very passionate about.
And where I'm fromis not that many avenues.
It's kind of hardto think creatively outside of the box
about where you want to go with thingsbecause people focus a lot on stability
and they're not wrong for thatbecause historically, how life has been,
(17:30):
you do need to focus on stability,
but often parents and mentors
in the name of projection can
downsize your dreams.
How much support did you have
as a child back in your earlyand in your early twenties?
(17:51):
Cause I feel like I'm so you're like 26,you say, like a teenager?
I don't know. It's interesting.
I feel like, you know, you set.
The agenda. But
what kind of
support did you havein figuring the language of yourself?
Well.
I was lucky.
I had had a lot of support.
(18:12):
I had this amazing man that cameinto my life when I was deployed.
And he was you couldn'tget no more support than that.
He was so free,you know, And so enabled me to
to dream.
You know,my mother was incredibly supportive.
You know, she was the one
taking me to see James Brown, too,and trying to get me onstage.
And, you know, I'mpushing through the backstage.
(18:32):
You know, she was there, you know, SoI had a lots of mentors, great musicians.
You know, James Brown was supportive,like James Brown.
Let me on stage as a kid,kind of getting it like, well, you.
Tell us the stories.We really want to know.
James Brown from South Carolina. So.
Yes, yes, yes, South Carolina.
And they love it as they claimthe family like, you know, James Brown.
(18:55):
That's was funny because he was thenAugusta, Georgia, claims.
To know and they can't have
South Carolina. Now.
That's true is of a Georgia Atlanta suchand of course and.
So I like. Georgia and anybody else.
James Carolina please tell us.
I went crazy about 1011.
I discovered James Brown and
(19:18):
just just went crazy,you know, by every video that was HMV.
You know, every tape was tape them.
And then I got to meet him, you know,I got to meet him like a year
of that kind of discovered him.I got to meet him.
He came to London.
And from that moment on, you know,I just kept on stalking him
a little bit, you know, like, you know,you know, like first year, you know,
(19:40):
in my second year in ninth Burgerreally tried to get him.
And my mother, she was theshe was the one who really enabled
that kind of energy to happenand says of the first time meeting him.
And then the first year we got him and and
it was amazing.
You know, like JamesBrown is notorious for doing
(20:01):
soundcheck, horror rehearsals,
explaining to okay,like all throughout his career,
basically from 1955 to like 2000, 2002,
he he would rehearse the band for hoursbefore the gig songs they already know.
Same song 50 times He stopped around 70
you like because he didn'treally have to like, strain myself.
(20:24):
This is rubbish anymore.
But so by 50 is it did that you know like
so sometimes the band's rehearsingright up to the gig, you know.
But I got him in the soundcheck and usingthe good mood because James Brown Moody
and he recognized me
and, and I said to him,you know, I said, you know,
I just referred to a song from a long timeago, that new game where you play to
(20:50):
make it, but you can't do demos, then
this is like a show from 1964,you know, it was dead.
You hear me a minute?
And then I played a little organ too.
He let me play when he left me up there.
Then he's rehearsing the bandwith the band.
Then he pointed me to play the organ.
I do this solo, you know,He stops Ban on the solo.
(21:10):
What's your name again?
I said, Michael Mwenso you know.
What's he saying?
Come down and then. You sound good, son.
You sound good.
I can do the splitsto pull with his. Right?
Right there. I can sing and dance too.
Would you want to sing?Give it up. Turn it loose.
Go back to what I'm saying.
And I'm doing this place.I'm doing a camel walk.
(21:31):
I'm doing the robot.I'm doing the boogaloo up to James Brown.
He stops the song. Midway says,You got a suit?
I said,Yes, sir. You coming on stage tonight?
Thank God
we pack the gray suit, the oversizegray suit
right here.
You see the video?
It's like what's happening? But. But.
And that was a start.
My relationship with my new footfor the last ten years of his life
(21:53):
until he died, 2006.
So that was he didn't have to do that.
He did that for at least a good 45 years.
After that,
you know, he would always be in ahe would always be, you know, embracing.
Sometimes he's in a bad mood.
He says, you know, but he did that for me.
He did that for me.
Who is deep.
Yeah.
(22:13):
Complicated man, but deep spirit.
I couldn't imagine that I'm not even you.
And I feel like I was just on stagewith James Brown.
That means he's around. That's the. Wow.
Was that was the first James Brown recordyou ever heard.
And who played it for you?
Well, I was close with
(22:35):
the headmaster's children
at school.
I was going to and it was it wasthey took us to they took me to Asda,
one of those show know shopping placesand they had tapes there.
And it was a choice between, no,I love Shirley Bassey to too.
There's a Shirley Bassey tape with a JamesBrown tape and I a James Brown.
(22:56):
It was was invest in my memorybecause he was the person my mother
and my auntsNigel would dance to when they were kids.
So whenever they would connectwith Aunty Cleo, may she rest in peace.
My mother,they would bring up James Brown.
So James Brown was always there
because whenever my mum went towhere we sit does all the kids.
James Brown You know, when I see my mumand I really bonding
(23:18):
and so let me get thisJames Brown guy again.
Jesus Christit just went crazy after that.
how you.
It's like a backwards thing
for a lot of people, for a lot of BlackAmericans before everybody's an American.
But for a lot of Black Americans, though,there's a struggle.
There's a struggle with trying to connect
(23:41):
with othersin the African diaspora, with Africa.
I mean, of course there is a route.
You get you going, okay, okay.
You know, love
music has been that segue way.
That makes it a lot easier.
And to hear your parents danceas a James Brown.
yeah.
Makes methink of the first time I heard Fela Kuti.
(24:03):
Hey, I lost my mother.
I lost my mind.
I was like,
All right, you mean to tell me they they
shaking in gyratein jiving like that there.
And it was so
it was also so political
in that that did exist here.
But it was
(24:24):
you had to say in a different way,in the way that he said.
It was just so it was just so intensethat it really shook me.
Well, Fela Kuti is interestingbecause we talk about
like how we're disconnectedand we connected in diaspora.
He's a Nigerian boy that goes to England,
to Guildhall to study jazz music.
(24:45):
And then after leaving Guildhallrealized this to be a jazz
musician finds James Brown musicand then goes Nigeria, then creates.
So he was influencedby the African American music in England
jazz and then Jamesvery to get back to that stuff.
That's the thing.
James Brown and also LouisArmstrong were the only really two
(25:07):
Afro-American kingsthat they were superstars in Africa to.
Really. Crossover.
As. Well.
Yeah,not everyone crossed over like that, but
James Brown, Louis Armstrong, Bessemer,like they went to, they got to Africa.
So what were your beginning
influence is in music?
(25:29):
Or maybe like,what was the beginning genre that just
opened the world up for you?
Well, I was blessed to live with this
man who had this amazing vinyl collection.
He had every
I mean, he loved Man McHenry, love him.
He loved his Blackness,you know, like he had African music.
He was the first one to acknowledge me.I'm African.
He had African ties.
(25:49):
I didn't even notice white man, you know.
So in this man,we're talking my missus on.
This, the term Black film.
Okay. HomelessJonathan Black shorts. Yeah.
And he had everybody blues, jazz,funk, gospel, mainly Jetsons.
Just that, you know.
So it was I was very lucky that phoneticthis of his way
of loving Black music came to me becauseand I loved all the music he loved.
(26:13):
And he loved music cause, you know,you really
these want to maybe understandcountry music to a whole nother shape, but
his ability to love music
in a deep way helped and taught me
cause I knew we would see music like thatOne week.
B.B. King next week,Hugh Masekela next week,
(26:36):
something goes to go see a musical.
You know, it was just like that,you know, it was broad.
So are your influences from time?
Would you primarily play in your ancestrallistening sessions, or is it?
Yeah.
Or that music I plays is frombeing around that man because he played
(26:57):
at music Big old BessieSmith collection, big old Mahalia Jackson.
You know, I do it as a as a, as a
it's a love letter to him,to the ancestral communities.
He is my ancestorThat helped me to listen.
I love that.I love that.
The fact that you focus on ...Black music
(27:17):
in the ancestral sessions
And Black women, sometimeswe just focus on the Black women.
Black womenand that's the session that I had.
Okay, I appreciated that day.
Yeah, you were making space
for Black womenbecause I hear them differently.
I hear them differently.
I even with my mom, like
(27:38):
before, they were such
growing painsbecause of generational divides,
wanting to pursue just a different lifethan what she had.
Like there was a hardcoming to terms with that understanding.
They were just we weren't getting there.
And it wasn't until, again,I started coming into my womanhood
(28:00):
that I understood, Wow,she was a Black woman before.
Like she has experiences as a Black womanbefore being a mother,
you are not simply a mother like you have,
just the way that you view the worldbased off
your experience there,I'm not going to be able to tap into.
We could talk about it, but I'm still notgoing to really understand that.
(28:23):
And it just made me see her as a person.
And when you play those songs
by women who you're educating me who have
I mean like brokethe stratosphere in ways that
I benefit from, we all benefit from.
But I had no idea.
(28:44):
I think about that a lot.
And sometimes I cry about that, like how
we won't always be knownfor the amount of work that we do
and the amount of work that likeI was on the laurels of people
who will never get to meet me,who couldn't even have the space
(29:04):
to think about me at the timethat they are doing what they're doing.
But yet I'm living my life because of it.
And so that just made me feel so goodto learn
more of those womenbecause of you for you to
voluntarily
pick their role and play play it well.
(29:26):
Everything is a choice.
And that was the choice.
And I appreciate you for making it, and
I really do.
So, what’d you eat today?
You know, I'm thinking about it, you know,
because we're going togo back to the hotel
and I got some Indian foodthat that that we want to get.
(29:47):
I didn't I didn't get to eatas much as I wanted to.
So I'm going to get into some Indian foodafter we meet this
that's going to be nice.
Then we have a wonderful thingwe're going to do after that,
have a visitwith some beautiful human beings
that have gone through some strugglesin life, incarceration etc., etc.
So it's going to be interestingto be in that orbit.
(30:07):
Do you have any experience with ...
family members, friendsbeing incarcerated?
My mother was incarcerated three times.
You know, I saw I saw her
and she was arrested a few times.
You know,I remember, member one time, well
a few times police came to the house andthey're searching for things in the house.
(30:31):
And I remember they're searching.
There’s police in the living roomeverywhere.
I'm just the only onethat my mom isn’t there.
They've arrested her already, but
and I put on a James Brown videoand this is what I realized.
Okay. I'm like how I can.
I was young and I put James Brown videoI just start singing and dancing like
James Brown while the police searchingthe house, it was aware of myself.
(30:53):
And I realized when I was intensebecause it was kind of like,
I'm not going to see.
You know what I mean.I just about doing the James Brown.
You know,
the police “do you know where this is,Michael.” So that was, you know, yeah.
And picking my mom up
from when she'd been arrested,she'd been in jail for like a month.
You know, my aunt drove hours,so I've been around it.
I you know,my mom was in the detention center,
(31:15):
which is kind of a mini jailbefore she got deported.
We visit her every weekend.
So I know that, like energy of visitingsomeone who's in prison,
kind of a senior mom like that one hourI get to be with her and
and she gets locked up, she was an amazingBlack woman, you know, like it's just,
you know,so she yeah, I've been around that energy.
(31:35):
You have so many chapters to your life.
Hmm. What does it feel like
in hindsight?
I'll say, like after having experiencedso many things
and being here doing this,what does it feel like?
I mean, I can tell you a lot,but but it's all it's all feels.
(31:57):
I wouldn't be this person.
I would be some of a guy would be boring.
I would be,I wouldn't know anything, you know.
So all of this chapters is I'm glad it'smaybe this person
because I'm really blessed.
Yeah.
I read that you and your co
collaborators prioritize this work here.
Jono Yeah, we. Collaborate and Chad And.
(32:19):
Collaborator. Hello.
I read that you are a focus on Black joy.
Is, was that, was that your choice?
Well, I mean of course.
No, no, no.
I'm coming I'm,
you know,we didn't realize it was Black joy,
you know, we just
(32:40):
knew that this music gives us something
individually.
Me and for him to it gave us hope.
And then, you know, then you realize,man, it's Black joy, you know?
And it's an energy that we have benefited
from by
listening to it, by seeing it, learning,by being around
(33:00):
many great exhibitors of it,you know, mentors for us.
So how do we first name it?
It's this is from Black music,but it's also Black music creates joy.
And then we name it you event.
Yes, what you want to give to the world.
So that's why we say Black joy,because it's like it's naming it too.
(33:22):
It's not just, ooh, it's like Black joy.
It's different.
You know.
That's refreshing because
the more people
get educated on Blackness.
Yes. The.
The education it seems like frommy observation is Black trauma
(33:45):
and it usually resides
and how much do we knowabout what happened to them?
And not that much abouthow much do we know about the Black people
that live right next door to us,that are living in the community with us,
that are alive and well,that are not physically shackled?
I mean, we could have
(34:05):
metaphorical conversations of slavery,but that is not I’m saying you know.
Yeah, I got you.
But it is refreshingto make that decision.
And I remember struggling as an artist
when I first made the decision.
I remember watching that interviewwith Toni Morrison.
I love Toni Morrison and an interviewer,a white lady.
(34:27):
White lives.
Why don't you talk about white?
Why are you only talking about.white people?
She wasshe was saying that is just incredibly.
That's the most racist thing...
They you have no idea.
And she says it. it's incredible.
That is one of the most racist.
You can't believe how racistthat question is.
So piercing, so. Right to?
So what was that?
Is crickets,you know, in to worry about white lies.
(34:49):
Why? did that she says I did do that.
Why? But why would I why would I do that?
And when I decided to make the decisionto prioritize
Black lifeI struggled, I was like, what if?
What if they're like,
(35:09):
you don't want to talk about everybody?
Or you're like, you know?
And it took me a minuteto find my confidence in that.
And that was like a slow growing thing.
So was there ever a yeah, yeah.
Now that me and him have gone through
a lot moments in the last year, we've,
(35:31):
you know, I saying we're doing Black music
and maybe even a showwe have with the word Black in it
and how that has, you know, like peopledon't that we went
because we were trying it,we were trying to even
get another kind of gigand we interviewed for it.
And then basically the man was like toomuch Black to exist, you know what I mean?
(35:53):
So we're in it now in a sense of like,Wow, so did you go to university?
Because it was too We asked the students,
What's the first thing you think ofwhen you hear the word Black?
So we could knowand help you not be there.
Because there's a generation
that when they wear Black, they run.
So I want to ask these young people,what do you think of
(36:13):
when you hear the word Black?
What comes into your head?
Because this word seemsto still be baffling people.
So what is it like for you to
have Black music centered spaces
and now you invite everyone?
Is it different?
Depending on if the crowd
(36:35):
is predominately our wayor the crowd is predominately?
Which would have been if you were theyif they in Jamaica, you know, one day.
And that was interesting too.
I was thinking that it was alsoso an age of white women.
I've learned that
it seems like the older,
the older they are, the more they're
(36:58):
a little interest.
More interested in their reckoning.
And in their. Reckoning. Yeah.
Yeah.
He might not agree but I do, I do think
they're definitely more conscious of likehow can we fix what the ancestors did.
I don't want to, like, nameme, I don't want to say it,
(37:18):
but there is an older generation of whitelooking women that are like,
I know what dance did wasnot as much as maybe
it helped a little bit, you know,
and then and then it's the same generationwhite women that are not that vibe that.
Karen they are not that far.
Yeah so and we don't get far for them.
But everyone is different. There is a lot.
(37:39):
There is a conscious white womanthat's trying to like help
and heal and facilitate ancestral healing.
You know, that's,I think, the biggest problem. I think
have the vibration.
The sense of what white people carryis that they don't want to deal with
the ancestral part.
(38:00):
Yes. It wasn't you that did it.
But if you if you're spiritual, you
know, you got to be real about it.
You know, I didn't do that.
I was 58 many years ago.
Yeah,but you still got to reckon with it, too.
You got to reckon with it.
And I've learned,I think a lot of I'm into cultural
preservation, which is also what you doin a very specific way.
(38:21):
Deep.
Into documenting.
I study archival material.
A lot of my videoah is appropriating archival material
for whatever message, but
I've learned that
a lot of the missing pieces
in archives and in museums
(38:43):
reside in people's homes,they reside in people's closets.
And when we talk about that reckoning
and not acknowledgingthe spiritual part is like,
But this exists in your home somewhere
because you can't like the world
hasn't been decolonized,
(39:04):
has the world hasn't been decolonizedlike even myself, like
I still have to work hard to undo a lotof the things that I've been taught.
And there's just a certain gracethat has to come with the same humility.
Humility.
And I think your migration storyand your experiences
(39:28):
and who you work with in the diversityamongst them makes you
you are a very special group of peopleto have this very specific conversation
because you're not talking from
just ideas of future reasons,like you've lived
that experience of this personintroducing me to this.
(39:50):
That wasn't a part of this,that led me to this, that led me to
that just speaks
very differentlyand is very present in what you all do.
And I'm just going to keep telling youthat I appreciate that.
That was really. Cool because, you know.
Is there anything that you like to saythat you haven't seen.
Just that you're an amazing person to me.
(40:14):
And and I'm truly grateful
for being taught by you,
by your your grace, your innovative mind,
very deep questions, and just thankfulthat there was someone like you around to
speak and expoundon all the great things that you are.
(40:36):
And I do.
So thank you to you.
Thank you.
I know I'll see you every time I meet us.
I see somebody. Yeah.
So of course you and you even in dreams..
In dreams!
I know that’s right. When I come home.
I will. Okay, cool.
Yeah.
From the journey of becomingto being Michael Mwenso and I have invited
(40:57):
you into a diasporic conversationon how to bring dreams into reality.
Thank you so much for listening, andI hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
Thank you for joining a race remix today.
This episode is made possible throughthe generous donations of our sponsors
and the efforts of our team of students,staff, faculty and community partners.
(41:17):
If you enjoyed this conversation,listen to more episodes
at RaceRemix.Arts.Arizona.Edu
Race remix mix.
Hi, welcome to Race Remix.
I'm Semoria Mosley,a graduate student in the College of Fine
Arts at the University of Arizona studyingphotography video.
In this episode,I had the pleasure of speaking
with Michael Mwenso bandleader, co-founder of Electric Root,
(00:21):
Emmy Award winningcreator, curator and creative artist.
I am so glad to share that conversationwith our listeners today.
Hello. How ya doing?
I'm good, thank you. That's great.
I had the pleasure of going to one of yourancestral listening sessions.
And I want to first talkabout my first impression of you
(00:44):
when I first met you.
I feel like you've alreadycultivated a place, a space for spirits.
And when I first met you,you were very unassuming
to me, very confident, very unwavering.
And I think that's the only wayyou can create a space like that.
And so would you mind telling uswhat an ancestral listening session is?
(01:09):
Well, thank you
so much for being with me today.
And allow me into your space and and forthe kind words that you just expounded on.
Truly grateful to be here with you and
when you came out of
the time when George Floyd
(01:30):
was really changing the worldin a sense of
revelation, you know, and me
and my co-creative brother
friend, we started a company
called a Electric Root,and it allowed us to start
creating a way,a new way to listen to music with people.
(01:51):
And we were doing it on zooms, really.
And it's really came out of a lot of
years prior.
You know, when I was
even in London too,
you know, I would try and was create spacefor people to listen to music together.
After the show, we'd go to someone's houseand we do that in London.
But when I got to New York
(02:11):
to started doing that more, it just becamea thing we did, and it really helped us.
A lot of the musicians in New York,
the community that was very blessedto be around and participate
in it really developed usto hear music differently
and to actually really respectthese people that built the music.
So, you know, that's the ancestral part toreally respect and love these ancestors.
(02:34):
And then, you know, you buildcommunity around, listen to the ancestors
and listen.
So it really came out that way,social kind of vibe.
And then we started doing it on Zoomsome years after.
And when all of this time was changing,we did that university doing it people.
And then now we're doing it very by.
Hmm... With religions.
And it was really a nice everybody.
(02:55):
But it's really just really doinginvestigative
work on ourselves through using the music.
Yeah.
It sounds like you're challenging the
disposability of legacy,
like legacy within music, legacywithin storytelling.
(03:15):
And it's very interestingthat you say that
that came about after George Floyd,because in my life, before
I was still in contemporary artas my main practice, I was a journalist
and I was living in San Diegoand I had been freelancing for a while.
I went to a historically Black college,
so I knew that I wanted to tell storiesdifferently.
(03:36):
That’s just something that moved meand I struggled.
I struggled to get opportunities.
I struggle for people to see the validityof what I had to say.
And it wasn'tuntil George Floyd was murdered that I got
one of the biggest opportunities, and
I ended up on the front pageof the San Diego Union-Tribune.
(03:57):
And that was really big for me.
And that just cultivateda different community inside of me.
And it's very different because
I had alreadyhad a very interesting relationship
with police brutalitywhen Trayvon Martin was murdered.
We were in the same age,and that was the first time that ...
(04:21):
I knew about racism.
I understood, but that was the first timethat I seen the
material.
So in such a new way,it was so modern. And
to go back to the music
after that,it just seemed like I could hear
(04:42):
so much more in what we had to sayin the music really took me there,
and I think it's interestingthat you're using it as a vehicle.
So I do want to ask you,do you have a personal spiritual practice
that led you to Segway
into this spirituality embedded in music?
(05:04):
Very deep.
Yeah, I do. I
think for me now, in the last few years,
it's really been researching a study,
more African spirituality.
You know, I was raised in a very Christian
upbringing my mother,my aunts, my uncles, very, very Christian.
(05:28):
They're going to Christian schoolsin England, Roman Catholic
schools, Church of England schools.
So it was all of that.
But in the last few years,I've definitely tried
to understand more about spiritualitythat comes from Black people,
particularly Nigerian spirituality,
and that's been very helpfulto also use the Bible,
(05:49):
which is what you call in IFAas a therapist, as a guide
or as these are goingseem a few months in is just helpful.
Just to talk to is not a magician,is that it's not magic.
You have to keep your spirit in alignment.
And sometimes, sometimes we don't.
You know, I struggle, you know, but
(06:09):
it's nice to have
just him to go toand talk to about things, you know.
And so that's been very helpfulin knowing more about IFA
and, and the richness
and the power of color,
Ethiopia.
So it's very
(06:31):
moving.
When you think about Black people'smigration in general
and how there has been this huge surge,it seems like, and I know
people have always been doing it, butit just feels like a huge collective surge
of wanting to inturn do that Christian indoctrination.
And I grew up Christian like.
(06:52):
I grew up going to church
feeling the music, though the music.
It was just next level.
And that's the thing that brought you backis just that it was just different.
And but yeah, undoing that indoctrination
and using music to do that personally.
My grandfather, he's a remote workerand growing up everybody would say
(07:16):
like this, like you go to a remote worker,like, why would you do that?
And people are all familiar.
Fruit work resides in hotel,
which is in enslaved
mystic practice that was used to
combat the circumstances of the timeand is something
that was a culmination of differentAfrican needs
(07:41):
becausewe've been grouped on this plantation now
and while I'm doing the indoctrination,I have to keep saying that
because it's really beis really big to take that step for
and move past what you've been taught.
That's what I think of John the Conqueror.
Is he?
John the Conqueror always comesand he saves and I call on that.
(08:05):
And so it's interestingto think about ancestor veneration.
Well,
that's never been lost on
us, even even within Christianity,because I will say
Black
people rip the dead in a different way.
And it's very in the everyday culture.
(08:27):
Like if somebody died a year
ago, you could be going pope weeksand they got the R.I.P.
shirt on or you're in your houseand you see so many people on the wall
that you've never seen before.
But your granny is like,
No, that's your Aunt Maybelline,even if you don't know that.
So the way you venerate ancestorsin your ancestral listening sessions,
(08:51):
when it's the first time you learn
that ancestors were important to you.
Is that question going to be just
absolutely relevant?
Maybe because I dealt with deathearly in my life,
You know,my stepfather died a slow death. So,
(09:11):
you know, I saw we went to the mortuary.
My mom, I remember seeing him, you know,and maybe that's a way, but and then
but now as I grow older, everyonea lot of people,
everyone I knew as a child, Gomez's death.
You know what I think about every day,Even like, you know, my life,
my father's dead.
The guy who raised me deadbecause I was dead.
(09:33):
My close is on the dead.James Brown's dead.
They were know that.
And it's not easy, but it's joyful.
It is joyful because I still pray to them
so they're not dead. Like what you saying?
Sadly, Christianity did do that.
It made us see deathas we had a Black in Africa tradition.
Some of the dead is happytime. We're going to do the funeral.
(09:54):
The we change our clothesevery day. And his party.
This way because this a homegoingbecause his life after.
Still living.
They still live. It.
So I pray to James Brown.
I pray to my father.
I prayed to Tom raised meand they come to me in dreams too.
I see that.
I see the dead very deep in dreams.
James Brown came to me two weeks ago.
(10:14):
He was real rich.
I write him down.
Ray Charles has come to me.
The guy who raised mecomes to me every week.
So maybe because of that too.
Because I really know that they're alive.
Like when they come to you in your dreams,it's just like,
Bloody hell, these people are alive.
This was.
That was the one of the thingsI was going to ask you.
(10:35):
Do you dream a lot? Because incredibly.
I was trying to process my dreams
because they've always beenjust this extra layer of communication.
Yes, it is.
And I, it's my route work.
Granted, I asked them, I say grandpapa,this is mangrove, a part of their heart.
(10:55):
Why do I dream so much?
And you say, because you got a giftthat you need to work.
It means something.
Okay, Well, what does that mean?
He says if you are given a giftand you don't work,
it is a disservice to yourselfand it's a disservice to
your life is a disservice to the world.
So he tells me this story.
He says three men sitting on the corner.
(11:16):
A man comes and gives each of them a gift.
The first man gets one penny,second man gets two paintings,
the third man gets three paintings.
The man
who gave them the paintings,he leaves, he comes back a week later.
He asks them all,What did they do with it?
The first man spent it well.
The second man lost it.
(11:37):
The third man buried.
He is where he buried.
The tree grewand the man said he worked his.
You didn't work yours.
You gave it away because you gave it away.
You have nothing.
So I think about that.
I think about how you'reworking your gift.
And when did you realizethat was your gift?
(12:00):
Which what?
But what was it like?
Which part of the thing.
We're talking about? Dream.
So when did you realize Dream?
okay. That's a deep one.
Well, what?
My mother was deportedwhen I was a kid, but
a year
or eight months before she was deported,
we were living togetherand I would have this continuous dream
(12:22):
of my motherleaving me on the train track.
And it happened for monthsno Satoshi would ever have.
And then eight months later,my mom was deported.
So I realized,they were trying to prepare me,
but my mom wasn't going to be around.
So that's when I realized I was dreaming.
Okay, so that's kind of like me.
So I realized, okay,so dreams are warnings,
(12:44):
dreams are revelations,dreams are manifestations,
you know, Soand I realized that very young
because it's like my ancestorswere preparing me to lose my mother.
Because when I'd wake up from that dream.
going to be so sad.
Go to my mom and cry.
Why you left me.
But then she did. She did, didn't.
They took her.But you know what I'm saying.
So I realized, yeah, from a young age
(13:06):
as it is, and it's going deep because notjust dead people that visit me, it's
it's like Jesus saying.
At it's really and I wake up like,
Well, it was nice to see you this night.
Yeah.
But they always have a lot to say.
Do they have a lot to say
when you start a dream like that?
Did you simultaneously also connectwith the music
(13:29):
at the same time, or were they one
before the other?
Look at dreams
a little bit firstand then music after them.
Did they help you understand music.
Well,
I've never really gone there, actually.
(13:49):
No, I just made it.
I think everything is connected.
Everything is connected,I say, because dreams
become like prophecy.
They become like prophecy.
And they.
They let you know that there is more.
Once you begin to dream,you can't really deny what you know.
(14:09):
You may try to suppress it, but,
you know, and onceyou know what you know, you can do it.
You know,and so you can only build upon that.
So when I think about musicas such a spiritual thing, I mean,
they say, Hark the Herald Angels sing.
This is one of I think people who makemusic have one of the highest gifts
to have because it penetratesso deep, it penetrate so deep and
(14:35):
it is the it's the timeline.
I think music is a timeline.
I think music is a portal.
And it's something that just has sustainedwhen everything else has not.
And forfor that to just drop into your world
right after you start dreaming, thatdoesn't seem like a coincidence to me.
(14:56):
At least
I write them down.
But you know I haven't seen it.
You have to practice
dreaming too.
So I always tell people, write them down,because once you start making
your brain damaged, your brain startsto remember them more when you wake up.
(15:17):
But you can't do nothing.
Like don't even go to toiletbecause it will get it gone.
But you as soon as you write in your phoneand I have hundreds of pages.
James Brown came in redand then we went here.
Aretha Franklin touched me a little bit.
Interestingly, either it is like who,you know, write them down because
they are prophecies.
(15:38):
How did you get the idea
for Because I know
this,what you're doing is a collaboration.
It's not just you, but
did you get any inclinationthat something of the sort
or did you ever visualizesomething of this sort for your life,
(16:03):
the way the way you present
your voice and the way you presentyour contribution to the world?
Did you ever imagine it existingin this sort of space, or did you?
You know, I did initially.
I definitely musicand I knew I'd be doing that,
but I didn't think musicwould take me to this.
What did you think?
I don't know.
(16:23):
I'll just be shaking and breakingand singing on the stage and boom, boom.
And that's that's the life.
I didn't think you'd be like,you mean it's going to take you to here,
you know, And that I would share my lifein this way, too.
I didn't think I just thought of as orjust pause and trauma and like, sad times,
you know, it was a lot of beautiful timesas a child, but it was a love.
But now just to be able to share itwith people in a way, a testimony.
(16:48):
So so that's been very, very helpful.
Yeah.
Sort of open.
Yeah.
You've inspired me.
You've inspired me in a way.
When I think about music,especially where I'm from, like
everybody loves music,everybody wants to do music,
(17:08):
everybody wants to
make a way for themselves with somethingthat they're very passionate about.
And where I'm fromis not that many avenues.
It's kind of hardto think creatively outside of the box
about where you want to go with thingsbecause people focus a lot on stability
and they're not wrong for thatbecause historically, how life has been,
(17:30):
you do need to focus on stability,
but often parents and mentors
in the name of projection can
downsize your dreams.
How much support did you have
as a child back in your earlyand in your early twenties?
(17:51):
Cause I feel like I'm so you're like 26,you say, like a teenager?
I don't know. It's interesting.
I feel like, you know, you set.
The agenda. But
what kind of
support did you havein figuring the language of yourself?
Well.
I was lucky.
I had had a lot of support.
(18:12):
I had this amazing man that cameinto my life when I was deployed.
And he was you couldn'tget no more support than that.
He was so free,you know, And so enabled me to
to dream.
You know,my mother was incredibly supportive.
You know, she was the one
taking me to see James Brown, too,and trying to get me onstage.
And, you know, I'mpushing through the backstage.
(18:32):
You know, she was there, you know, SoI had a lots of mentors, great musicians.
You know, James Brown was supportive,like James Brown.
Let me on stage as a kid,kind of getting it like, well, you.
Tell us the stories.We really want to know.
James Brown from South Carolina. So.
Yes, yes, yes, South Carolina.
And they love it as they claimthe family like, you know, James Brown.
(18:55):
That's was funny because he was thenAugusta, Georgia, claims.
To know and they can't have
South Carolina. Now.
That's true is of a Georgia Atlanta suchand of course and.
So I like. Georgia and anybody else.
James Carolina please tell us.
I went crazy about 1011.
I discovered James Brown and
(19:18):
just just went crazy,you know, by every video that was HMV.
You know, every tape was tape them.
And then I got to meet him, you know,I got to meet him like a year
of that kind of discovered him.I got to meet him.
He came to London.
And from that moment on, you know,I just kept on stalking him
a little bit, you know, like, you know,you know, like first year, you know,
(19:40):
in my second year in ninth Burgerreally tried to get him.
And my mother, she was theshe was the one who really enabled
that kind of energy to happenand says of the first time meeting him.
And then the first year we got him and and
it was amazing.
You know, like JamesBrown is notorious for doing
(20:01):
soundcheck, horror rehearsals,
explaining to okay,like all throughout his career,
basically from 1955 to like 2000, 2002,
he he would rehearse the band for hoursbefore the gig songs they already know.
Same song 50 times He stopped around 70
you like because he didn'treally have to like, strain myself.
(20:24):
This is rubbish anymore.
But so by 50 is it did that you know like
so sometimes the band's rehearsingright up to the gig, you know.
But I got him in the soundcheck and usingthe good mood because James Brown Moody
and he recognized me
and, and I said to him,you know, I said, you know,
I just referred to a song from a long timeago, that new game where you play to
(20:50):
make it, but you can't do demos, then
this is like a show from 1964,you know, it was dead.
You hear me a minute?
And then I played a little organ too.
He let me play when he left me up there.
Then he's rehearsing the bandwith the band.
Then he pointed me to play the organ.
I do this solo, you know,He stops Ban on the solo.
(21:10):
What's your name again?
I said, Michael Mwenso you know.
What's he saying?
Come down and then. You sound good, son.
You sound good.
I can do the splitsto pull with his. Right?
Right there. I can sing and dance too.
Would you want to sing?Give it up. Turn it loose.
Go back to what I'm saying.
And I'm doing this place.I'm doing a camel walk.
(21:31):
I'm doing the robot.I'm doing the boogaloo up to James Brown.
He stops the song. Midway says,You got a suit?
I said,Yes, sir. You coming on stage tonight?
Thank God
we pack the gray suit, the oversizegray suit
right here.
You see the video?
It's like what's happening? But. But.
And that was a start.
My relationship with my new footfor the last ten years of his life
(21:53):
until he died, 2006.
So that was he didn't have to do that.
He did that for at least a good 45 years.
After that,
you know, he would always be in ahe would always be, you know, embracing.
Sometimes he's in a bad mood.
He says, you know, but he did that for me.
He did that for me.
Who is deep.
Yeah.
(22:13):
Complicated man, but deep spirit.
I couldn't imagine that I'm not even you.
And I feel like I was just on stagewith James Brown.
That means he's around. That's the. Wow.
Was that was the first James Brown recordyou ever heard.
And who played it for you?
Well, I was close with
(22:35):
the headmaster's children
at school.
I was going to and it was it wasthey took us to they took me to Asda,
one of those show know shopping placesand they had tapes there.
And it was a choice between, no,I love Shirley Bassey to too.
There's a Shirley Bassey tape with a JamesBrown tape and I a James Brown.
(22:56):
It was was invest in my memorybecause he was the person my mother
and my auntsNigel would dance to when they were kids.
So whenever they would connectwith Aunty Cleo, may she rest in peace.
My mother,they would bring up James Brown.
So James Brown was always there
because whenever my mum went towhere we sit does all the kids.
James Brown You know, when I see my mumand I really bonding
(23:18):
and so let me get thisJames Brown guy again.
Jesus Christit just went crazy after that.
how you.
It's like a backwards thing
for a lot of people, for a lot of BlackAmericans before everybody's an American.
But for a lot of Black Americans, though,there's a struggle.
There's a struggle with trying to connect
(23:41):
with othersin the African diaspora, with Africa.
I mean, of course there is a route.
You get you going, okay, okay.
You know, love
music has been that segue way.
That makes it a lot easier.
And to hear your parents danceas a James Brown.
yeah.
Makes methink of the first time I heard Fela Kuti.
(24:03):
Hey, I lost my mother.
I lost my mind.
I was like,
All right, you mean to tell me they they
shaking in gyratein jiving like that there.
And it was so
it was also so political
in that that did exist here.
But it was
(24:24):
you had to say in a different way,in the way that he said.
It was just so it was just so intensethat it really shook me.
Well, Fela Kuti is interestingbecause we talk about
like how we're disconnectedand we connected in diaspora.
He's a Nigerian boy that goes to England,
to Guildhall to study jazz music.
(24:45):
And then after leaving Guildhallrealized this to be a jazz
musician finds James Brown musicand then goes Nigeria, then creates.
So he was influencedby the African American music in England
jazz and then Jamesvery to get back to that stuff.
That's the thing.
James Brown and also LouisArmstrong were the only really two
(25:07):
Afro-American kingsthat they were superstars in Africa to.
Really. Crossover.
As. Well.
Yeah,not everyone crossed over like that, but
James Brown, Louis Armstrong, Bessemer,like they went to, they got to Africa.
So what were your beginning
influence is in music?
(25:29):
Or maybe like,what was the beginning genre that just
opened the world up for you?
Well, I was blessed to live with this
man who had this amazing vinyl collection.
He had every
I mean, he loved Man McHenry, love him.
He loved his Blackness,you know, like he had African music.
He was the first one to acknowledge me.I'm African.
He had African ties.
(25:49):
I didn't even notice white man, you know.
So in this man,we're talking my missus on.
This, the term Black film.
Okay. HomelessJonathan Black shorts. Yeah.
And he had everybody blues, jazz,funk, gospel, mainly Jetsons.
Just that, you know.
So it was I was very lucky that phoneticthis of his way
of loving Black music came to me becauseand I loved all the music he loved.
(26:13):
And he loved music cause, you know,you really
these want to maybe understandcountry music to a whole nother shape, but
his ability to love music
in a deep way helped and taught me
cause I knew we would see music like thatOne week.
B.B. King next week,Hugh Masekela next week,
(26:36):
something goes to go see a musical.
You know, it was just like that,you know, it was broad.
So are your influences from time?
Would you primarily play in your ancestrallistening sessions, or is it?
Yeah.
Or that music I plays is frombeing around that man because he played
(26:57):
at music Big old BessieSmith collection, big old Mahalia Jackson.
You know, I do it as a as a, as a
it's a love letter to him,to the ancestral communities.
He is my ancestorThat helped me to listen.
I love that.I love that.
The fact that you focus on ...Black music
(27:17):
in the ancestral sessions
And Black women, sometimeswe just focus on the Black women.
Black womenand that's the session that I had.
Okay, I appreciated that day.
Yeah, you were making space
for Black womenbecause I hear them differently.
I hear them differently.
I even with my mom, like
(27:38):
before, they were such
growing painsbecause of generational divides,
wanting to pursue just a different lifethan what she had.
Like there was a hardcoming to terms with that understanding.
They were just we weren't getting there.
And it wasn't until, again,I started coming into my womanhood
(28:00):
that I understood, Wow,she was a Black woman before.
Like she has experiences as a Black womanbefore being a mother,
you are not simply a mother like you have,
just the way that you view the worldbased off
your experience there,I'm not going to be able to tap into.
We could talk about it, but I'm still notgoing to really understand that.
(28:23):
And it just made me see her as a person.
And when you play those songs
by women who you're educating me who have
I mean like brokethe stratosphere in ways that
I benefit from, we all benefit from.
But I had no idea.
(28:44):
I think about that a lot.
And sometimes I cry about that, like how
we won't always be knownfor the amount of work that we do
and the amount of work that likeI was on the laurels of people
who will never get to meet me,who couldn't even have the space
(29:04):
to think about me at the timethat they are doing what they're doing.
But yet I'm living my life because of it.
And so that just made me feel so goodto learn
more of those womenbecause of you for you to
voluntarily
pick their role and play play it well.
(29:26):
Everything is a choice.
And that was the choice.
And I appreciate you for making it, and
I really do.
So, what’d you eat today?
You know, I'm thinking about it, you know,
because we're going togo back to the hotel
and I got some Indian foodthat that that we want to get.
(29:47):
I didn't I didn't get to eatas much as I wanted to.
So I'm going to get into some Indian foodafter we meet this
that's going to be nice.
Then we have a wonderful thingwe're going to do after that,
have a visitwith some beautiful human beings
that have gone through some strugglesin life, incarceration etc., etc.
So it's going to be interestingto be in that orbit.
(30:07):
Do you have any experience with ...
family members, friendsbeing incarcerated?
My mother was incarcerated three times.
You know, I saw I saw her
and she was arrested a few times.
You know,I remember, member one time, well
a few times police came to the house andthey're searching for things in the house.
(30:31):
And I remember they're searching.
There’s police in the living roomeverywhere.
I'm just the only onethat my mom isn’t there.
They've arrested her already, but
and I put on a James Brown videoand this is what I realized.
Okay. I'm like how I can.
I was young and I put James Brown videoI just start singing and dancing like
James Brown while the police searchingthe house, it was aware of myself.
(30:53):
And I realized when I was intensebecause it was kind of like,
I'm not going to see.
You know what I mean.I just about doing the James Brown.
You know,
the police “do you know where this is,Michael.” So that was, you know, yeah.
And picking my mom up
from when she'd been arrested,she'd been in jail for like a month.
You know, my aunt drove hours,so I've been around it.
I you know,my mom was in the detention center,
(31:15):
which is kind of a mini jailbefore she got deported.
We visit her every weekend.
So I know that, like energy of visitingsomeone who's in prison,
kind of a senior mom like that one hourI get to be with her and
and she gets locked up, she was an amazingBlack woman, you know, like it's just,
you know,so she yeah, I've been around that energy.
(31:35):
You have so many chapters to your life.
Hmm. What does it feel like
in hindsight?
I'll say, like after having experiencedso many things
and being here doing this,what does it feel like?
I mean, I can tell you a lot,but but it's all it's all feels.
(31:57):
I wouldn't be this person.
I would be some of a guy would be boring.
I would be,I wouldn't know anything, you know.
So all of this chapters is I'm glad it'smaybe this person
because I'm really blessed.
Yeah.
I read that you and your co
collaborators prioritize this work here.
Jono Yeah, we. Collaborate and Chad And.
(32:19):
Collaborator. Hello.
I read that you are a focus on Black joy.
Is, was that, was that your choice?
Well, I mean of course.
No, no, no.
I'm coming I'm,
you know,we didn't realize it was Black joy,
you know, we just
(32:40):
knew that this music gives us something
individually.
Me and for him to it gave us hope.
And then, you know, then you realize,man, it's Black joy, you know?
And it's an energy that we have benefited
from by
listening to it, by seeing it, learning,by being around
(33:00):
many great exhibitors of it,you know, mentors for us.
So how do we first name it?
It's this is from Black music,but it's also Black music creates joy.
And then we name it you event.
Yes, what you want to give to the world.
So that's why we say Black joy,because it's like it's naming it too.
(33:22):
It's not just, ooh, it's like Black joy.
It's different.
You know.
That's refreshing because
the more people
get educated on Blackness.
Yes. The.
The education it seems like frommy observation is Black trauma
(33:45):
and it usually resides
and how much do we knowabout what happened to them?
And not that much abouthow much do we know about the Black people
that live right next door to us,that are living in the community with us,
that are alive and well,that are not physically shackled?
I mean, we could have
(34:05):
metaphorical conversations of slavery,but that is not I’m saying you know.
Yeah, I got you.
But it is refreshingto make that decision.
And I remember struggling as an artist
when I first made the decision.
I remember watching that interviewwith Toni Morrison.
I love Toni Morrison and an interviewer,a white lady.
(34:27):
White lives.
Why don't you talk about white?
Why are you only talking about.white people?
She wasshe was saying that is just incredibly.
That's the most racist thing...
They you have no idea.
And she says it. it's incredible.
That is one of the most racist.
You can't believe how racistthat question is.
So piercing, so. Right to?
So what was that?
Is crickets,you know, in to worry about white lies.
(34:49):
Why? did that she says I did do that.
Why? But why would I why would I do that?
And when I decided to make the decisionto prioritize
Black lifeI struggled, I was like, what if?
What if they're like,
(35:09):
you don't want to talk about everybody?
Or you're like, you know?
And it took me a minuteto find my confidence in that.
And that was like a slow growing thing.
So was there ever a yeah, yeah.
Now that me and him have gone through
a lot moments in the last year, we've,
(35:31):
you know, I saying we're doing Black music
and maybe even a showwe have with the word Black in it
and how that has, you know, like peopledon't that we went
because we were trying it,we were trying to even
get another kind of gigand we interviewed for it.
And then basically the man was like toomuch Black to exist, you know what I mean?
(35:53):
So we're in it now in a sense of like,Wow, so did you go to university?
Because it was too We asked the students,
What's the first thing you think ofwhen you hear the word Black?
So we could knowand help you not be there.
Because there's a generation
that when they wear Black, they run.
So I want to ask these young people,what do you think of
(36:13):
when you hear the word Black?
What comes into your head?
Because this word seemsto still be baffling people.
So what is it like for you to
have Black music centered spaces
and now you invite everyone?
Is it different?
Depending on if the crowd
(36:35):
is predominately our wayor the crowd is predominately?
Which would have been if you were theyif they in Jamaica, you know, one day.
And that was interesting too.
I was thinking that it was alsoso an age of white women.
I've learned that
it seems like the older,
the older they are, the more they're
(36:58):
a little interest.
More interested in their reckoning.
And in their. Reckoning. Yeah.
Yeah.
He might not agree but I do, I do think
they're definitely more conscious of likehow can we fix what the ancestors did.
I don't want to, like, nameme, I don't want to say it,
(37:18):
but there is an older generation of whitelooking women that are like,
I know what dance did wasnot as much as maybe
it helped a little bit, you know,
and then and then it's the same generationwhite women that are not that vibe that.
Karen they are not that far.
Yeah so and we don't get far for them.
But everyone is different. There is a lot.
(37:39):
There is a conscious white womanthat's trying to like help
and heal and facilitate ancestral healing.
You know, that's,I think, the biggest problem. I think
have the vibration.
The sense of what white people carryis that they don't want to deal with
the ancestral part.
(38:00):
Yes. It wasn't you that did it.
But if you if you're spiritual, you
know, you got to be real about it.
You know, I didn't do that.
I was 58 many years ago.
Yeah,but you still got to reckon with it, too.
You got to reckon with it.
And I've learned,I think a lot of I'm into cultural
preservation, which is also what you doin a very specific way.
(38:21):
Deep.
Into documenting.
I study archival material.
A lot of my videoah is appropriating archival material
for whatever message, but
I've learned that
a lot of the missing pieces
in archives and in museums
(38:43):
reside in people's homes,they reside in people's closets.
And when we talk about that reckoning
and not acknowledgingthe spiritual part is like,
But this exists in your home somewhere
because you can't like the world
hasn't been decolonized,
(39:04):
has the world hasn't been decolonizedlike even myself, like
I still have to work hard to undo a lotof the things that I've been taught.
And there's just a certain gracethat has to come with the same humility.
Humility.
And I think your migration storyand your experiences
(39:28):
and who you work with in the diversityamongst them makes you
you are a very special group of peopleto have this very specific conversation
because you're not talking from
just ideas of future reasons,like you've lived
that experience of this personintroducing me to this.
(39:50):
That wasn't a part of this,that led me to this, that led me to
that just speaks
very differentlyand is very present in what you all do.
And I'm just going to keep telling youthat I appreciate that.
That was really. Cool because, you know.
Is there anything that you like to saythat you haven't seen.
Just that you're an amazing person to me.
(40:14):
And and I'm truly grateful
for being taught by you,
by your your grace, your innovative mind,
very deep questions, and just thankfulthat there was someone like you around to
speak and expoundon all the great things that you are.
(40:36):
And I do.
So thank you to you.
Thank you.
I know I'll see you every time I meet us.
I see somebody. Yeah.
So of course you and you even in dreams..
In dreams!
I know that’s right. When I come home.
I will. Okay, cool.
Yeah.
From the journey of becomingto being Michael Mwenso and I have invited
(40:57):
you into a diasporic conversationon how to bring dreams into reality.
Thank you so much for listening, andI hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
Thank you for joining a race remix today.
This episode is made possible throughthe generous donations of our sponsors
and the efforts of our team of students,staff, faculty and community partners.
(41:17):
If you enjoyed this conversation,listen to more episodes
at RaceRemix.Arts.Arizona.Edu
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