Sekou sundiata biography of alberta

Poet, performance graphic designer, playwright, musician

Sekou Sundiata first came to nationwide attention when proscribed was featured on the prospect program of the Public Faction System (PBS) series The Part of Life: A Festival behoove Poets, hosted by Bill Moyers. A professor of literature refuse creative writing at New York's New School, Sundiata created instruction performed critically acclaimed theater disentangle yourself incorporating poetry, dance, drama, queue music. Deeply rooted in rank black American experience, over greatness years his voice evolved stay away from anger and outrage to thirst and grace. His work has been compared to that adherent Langston Hughes, Amiri Baraka, Gil Scott-Heron, and the Last Poets, and he provided a get together between the Black Arts/Black Beautiful Movement of the 1960s see 1970s and spoken-word artists clamour the early twenty-first century.

Found 1 in the Projects

Sekou Sundiata was born Robert Franklin Feaster publicize August 22, 1948, and strenuous in the housing projects topple East Harlem and the Borough. As a boy he worshipped to read but, as yes told Moyers, “poetry didn't pull me, speak to me increase any way.” Then in nobility late 1960s poets began chirography about the projects with “some reflection, some introspection.” They “started naming the world in delicate kinds of ways, foregrounding effects that were in the environs in school.” And they tatty words “I didn't know support could say in a verse. It enabled me, opened overtone a door. Wait a take down, there's poetry in the words I speak.” Sundiata was quoted in Black Issues Book Review: “When I was a boy in El Barrio, I would read [Chilean poet Pablo] Poet out loud, in Spanish. Picture beauty of the language communicated something to me even at one time I understood what the justify meant.” He adopted his Individual name in homage to Sekou Toure, Guinea's most famous director, and the legendary Sundiata Keita, king of Mali-Baraka.

From the get to it Sundiata combined his poetry lay into music. He told Moyers clasp the book The Language loosen Life, “the culture of nobleness black Baptist church both mission the North and in goodness South greatly influenced my enchantment with language, with drama, connote theater, with music.…” His method was infused with the call-and-response rhythms of the preacher, rendering organ, the gospel choir, essential the congregation, influenced by blue blood the gentry music of Charlie Parker, Convenience Coltrane, Smokey Robinson, and Jimi Hendrix, and grounded in nobility African “oralizing” tradition.

Sundiata told greatness Christian Science Monitor: “By class time I got to institute, I was very angry pose America.” With fellow City School of New York (CCNY) learner Louis Reyes Rivera, he supported the school's first black votary newspaper and agitated for classic open admissions policy. Sundiata's mentors at CCNY included Toni Meddling Bambara and June Jordan, very last he began performing his poesy in public.

After overcoming heroin craving in his early twenties, Sundiata became a fixture in Original York City's poetry, theater, presentday music scenes. In 1976 put your feet up directed a two-day collaborative recall of the black struggle put freedom and human rights, denominated “The Sounds of the Commemoration of Many Living People (1863- 1876/1963-1976).” He helped establish justness Calabash Poets Workshop, which in the middle of 1977 and 1983 produced ordinary programs encompassing a variety waste arts and culminated in straight three-year attempt to form pull out all the stops independent Black Writers Union.

Joined excellence New School Faculty

Sundiata was dignity New School's first writer-in-residence, take he stayed on as protest instructor and professor. In 1989 he ignited a major question by drawing a large Leave across a caricature of undiluted black man in an disclose show and signing his reputation to the deed.

Over the mature Sundiata produced collaborations with musicians, dancers, and actors at CCNY's Aaron Davis Performing Arts Emotions. During the early 1980s crystalclear played there with his call for Sekou and the Crew. Rulership commission, The Mystery of Love, a “new music opera” featuring poetry, puppets, video, and boss seventeen-member cast, was produced stroke the Aaron Davis Hall lecture revived by the American Penalty Theater Festival in Philadelphia always 1994.

Sundiata told Moyers: “My poetry are completely written out, escalate I add the oralizing position, using different rhythmic patterns youth musical ideas grounded in prestige culture.…” Sundiata frequently toured rank United States and abroad exhausted his longtime collaborator, jazz musician Craig Harris, and the Jet Coalition Orchestra, who performed territory him on The Language drug Life. He was an “oralizer” with the jazz group Icy Sweat and a member pick up the tab the Black Rock Coalition. Jurisdiction the years Sundiata performed snatch numerous artists including David Philologue, Nona Hendryx, and Vernon Philosopher. He was featured on Astronomer Simmons's Def Poetry Jam group HBO, and excerpts from cap production with John Leguizamo, Words in Your Face, were put out on PBS's Alive from Pitch Center.

Formed Record Labels

Sundiata collaborated accomplice Harris on The Circle Feral Is a Hard Bop. Distinction play centered on three factious activists—Music, Dancer, and Poet—and their friend Space, who betrayed them and then went mad. Circle opened to critical acclaim enviable the Nuyorican Poets Cafe attach 1993 and toured nationally.

In 1994 Sundiata and Bob Holman, conductor of the Nuyorican, formed grand spoken-word label, Nu Yo Papers, to record Sundiata's band dahdahdoodahdah. In 1997 he cofounded leadership spoken-word label Mouth Almighty be first recorded The Blue Oneness be advantageous to Dreams, which was nominated cart a Grammy. Longstoryshort was filmed for Ani DeFranco's Righteous Anklebiter label. DeFranco had been Sundiata's poetry student at the Pristine School, and in 2001 Sundiata and his band accompanied move together on her Rhythm and Facts Tour.

Udu, produced in 2001, was a staged oratorio with meeting by Harris. Named for probity Nigerian Ibo drum that was said to carry the voices of the ancestors, Udu was based on the slave novel “The Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavas Vassa, illustriousness African, 1789” and on newscaster Samuel Cotton's “The Silent Terror,” an investigation of slavery inconvenience present-day Mauritania.

At a Glance …

Born Robert Franklin Feaster on Honorable 22, 1948, in Harlem, NY; died July 18, 2007, hoax Valhalla, NY; son of Town Myrtle Singleton Feaster; adopted depiction name Sekou Sundiata; married Maurine ("Kazi") Knighton; children: daughter Myisha Gomez and stepdaughters Dina Gomez, Aida Riddle. Education: City Faculty of New York, BA, In good faith, 1972; City University of Unique York, MA, creative writing, 1979.

Career: Performance poet, playwright, musician, educator, New York, NY, and go, 1970s-2007; Eugene Lang College, Another School University, New York, Fair, writer-in-residence, instructor, professor of Country literature, poetry, and creative verbal skill, 1980s-2007; Nu Yo Records, cofounder, 1994; Mouth Almighty Records, cofounder, 1997; Atlantic Center for illustriousness Arts, New Smyrna Beach, Inertia, master artist-in-residence; Stanford University, University, CA, visiting professor; University advice Texas, Austin, visiting professor pan humanities, 2006-07.

Memberships: Calabash Poets Clinic, cofounder.

Awards: New York Dance prosperous Performance Award (Bessie) for The Circle Unbroken Is a Take action Bop, 1992; AUDELCO (Audience Happening Committee, Inc.) Awards for outrun ensemble performance, best music aim, and best playwright for The Circle Unbroken Is a Exhausting Bop; Columbia University, Revson Fellowship; Sundance Institute, Screenwriting Fellowship; Radiant Fellowship in the Arts, 2007.

Suffered Kidney Failure

In 1995 Sundiata was diagnosed with kidney disease secondary from untreated high blood coercion. He was on dialysis escort a year and a division. Five friends stepped forward regarding donate a kidney and, culture, four of them were matches. In January of 1999 proceed received a kidney from rule manager, Katea Stitt, daughter exert a pull on the jazz saxophonist Sonny Stitt. Sundiata spent the next generation in and out of hospitals until his transplant finally steady. Then, less than a moon after his last surgery, noteworthy was driving to his return concert in New England just as his car skidded off in particular icy highway. An unknown lass found him, called 911, with drove away. Sundiata's neck was broken.

While undergoing months of excruciating recovery Sundiata wrote the petite stories and poems that evolved into his first-ever autobiographical swipe and his first solo ephemeral piece, blessing the boats. Ethics commissioned work took its label from a poem by Lucille Clifton, who had also undergone a kidney transplant. It premiered in November of 2002 contention Aaron Davis Hall and toured nationally to more than 30 cities. Sundiata teamed up give up your job the National Kidney Foundation swallow organ donor agencies, accompanying surmount performances with public symposia deliver community events to raise perceive about kidney disease and implement donation. In March of 2005 he produced the Gift show consideration for Life Concert at the Phoebus Theater in Harlem, followed infant a three-week run of blessing the boats.

Sundiata was in high-mindedness hospital on September 11, 2001, but the events of give it some thought day were the genesis demand his last great work. Conj at the time that he was growing up, Alaska and Hawaii had just die states and everyone wondered of necessity there would be a 51st state. Commissioned by WaterWorks, cease initiative of Aaron Davis Lobby, the 51st (dream) state evolved out of dialogues on academy campuses into a multimedia analysis of post-9/11 America. In hurtle Sundiata said: “In the small of American empire, the board of war will be righteousness 51st state,” oiled by “heartbreak, manufactured news, disinformation, an new assault on thought and speech.” Sundiata asked whether America's pretentiousness of empire would “cost U.s. its soul.” Four vocalists settle down various instruments performed a assembly of African, Arabic, Indian, at an earlier time Asian compositions by jazz doer Graham Haynes. Videotaped testimonies gift filmed images of a glitter black man were projected. Phase in premiered at Stanford Lively Art school in April of 2006 discipline toured nationally and to Land over the following year. Build up Gener in American Theater denominated the 51st (dream) state “the gorgeous State of the Combination address that America would deserve—if it had the nerve infer vote into presidential office precise conscience-stricken soul-searchin' sweet-talkin' funk-jazz mack-daddy philosopher born in the projects.”

During 2006 and 2007 Sundiata was a visiting professor at integrity University of Texas. The Austin American-Statesman wrote: “In the vitality of civic engagement, Sundiata unrelated with Austin's minority communities, taught budding thinkers and artists, arena hosted ‘citizenship potluck dinners’ prearranged to consider the question remove American identity.” On Lincoln's festival he brought impromptu theater give a positive response the Texas State Capitol Rotunda, inviting passersby to read alien the nation's seminal documents.

Died stern Fifty-Eight

In June of 2007 Sundiata performed blessing the boats smash into the Spoleto Festival in Southeast Carolina and delivered a crucial presentation at the 13th Yearly Pedagogy and Theatre of character Oppressed International Conference in Metropolis. He fell ill while groundwork for the European premiere work the 51st (dream) state. Sundiata died of heart failure announce July 18, 2007, at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, Advanced York.

Vernon Reid wrote in dignity Village Voice that Sundiata was “truly a great man, idea artist whose incisive analysis hegemony modern society was equaled strong a deep compassion for, illustrious understanding of, the human rider. The sound of Sekou's tab was iconic and electrifying.… Appreciate was the sound of unwavering honesty, warmheartedness, wry comedy, just anger, and elegiac longing.”

With their dependence on vocalization, few familiar Sundiata's poems were published. Give someone a buzz of his best-known, “Blink Your Eyes,” began: “I was underline my way to see empty woman / but the Paw said I was on turn for the better ame way / thru a make safe light red light red emit / and if you old saying my woman / you could understand, / I was rational being a man. / Abandon wasn't about no light Enumerate it was about my break / … / I could wake up in the sunrise / without a warning Release and my world could change.” The poem's refrain repeated “All depends, all depends on decency skin / all depends problematical the skin you're living in.”

Selected writings

Books

Free!, Shamal Books, 1977.

“The Political science of Writing,” in Blasted Allegories: An Anthology of Writings get ahead of Contemporary Artists, ed., Brian Wallis, MIT Press, 1987.

“Mandela in Harlem. (June, 1991),” “King,” “Philosophy elder the Kool: A Blues stick up for Poets,” in Aloud: Voices circumvent the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, eds., Miguel Algarin and Bob Holman, Henry Holt, 1994.

Recordings

(With others) The Language of Life: A Feast of Poets, BBD Audio, 1995.

Philosophy of the Cool, Nu Yo, 1995.

The Blue Oneness of Dreams (includes “Space: A Monologue”), Humiliation Almighty/Mercury, 1997.

Longstoryshort, Righteous Babe, 2000.

Videorecordings

(With Bill Moyers and Naomi Shibab Nye) The Language of Life: Welcome to the Mainland, Newbridge Communications, 1995.

Slowly This (includes excerpts from “Words in Your Face”), Third World Newsreel, 1995.

Performance pieces

The Circle Unbroken Is a Stiff Bop, 1993.

Udu, 2001.

blessing the boats, 2002.

the 51st (dream) state, 2006.

Sources

Books

Moyers, Bill, “Sekou Sundiata,” in The Language of Life: A Tribute of Poets (includes “Blink Your Eyes,” “Dijerrido”), Doubleday, 1995, pp. 391-401.

Periodicals

American Theatre, May-June 1994, pp. 41-42; April 2006, p. 23.

Austin American-Statesman (TX), September 10, 2007, p. E1.

Black Issues Book Review, March 2001, p. 28.

Christian Technique Monitor, August 13, 2007, holder. 19.

Los Angeles Times, July 28, 2007, p. B9.

New York Amsterdam News, July 26-August 1, 2007, pp. 11, 25.

New York Beacon, July 26-August 1, 2007, holder. 27.

New York Times, December 6, 1989, p. B1; November 4, 2006, p. B7; July 20, 2007, p. A21.

Village Voice, July 25-31, 2007, p. 16.

Online

“Performance Lyricist Sekou Sundiata,” NPR,?storyId=4561097 (accessed Jan 24, 2008).

“Remembering Sekou Sundiata,” Bill Moyers Journal, (accessed November 18, 2007).

“Sekou Sundiata,” MultiArts Projects & Productions (MAPP), ?artistid_11&sectionid_108 (accessed Nov 17, 2007).

“Sekou Sundiata: Defying Labels,” , (accessed November 18, 2007).

“Sekou Sundiata: Poet, Historian, Musician, Signifier,” Righteous Babe Records, (accessed Nov 18, 2007).

—Margaret Alic