Griot Party Experience
Griot Party Experience is an evening of authentic and inspiring storytelling to heal the soul. Long time KBCS contributor, Logic Amen directs this event which features griots such as IamChamel, Monique Franklin, Deaunte Damper, Halisi, Na’eem Shareef, Mecca Amen and many others.
Griot Party Experience is January 13th, 8 pm at Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute (104 17th Ave South, Seattle, Washington 98144)
Listen in on KBCS’s series of interviews with some of the griots from this event (more will be added as they’re produced):
Na’eem Shareef is a former Seattle Chapter, Black Panther Party member. Shareef describes his experiences of serving in the community as a teen Party member.
Halisi, mom of seven children, is a spoken word artist and coach. She describes how she navigates motherhood and her passions. Halisi also shares tips on self care as a mother working in what she calls ‘the new earth’
Local music artist and rapper, IamChamel reflects on the journey into freestyling, and how rhyming has the power to build and heal and also to hurt within the community.
Mecca Amen describes what it was like for him when his relationship with his father transformed from one of battling authority, to one of respect.
Joy Sparks is the founder of Hella Black Books aka the Black Book Fairy. Sparks speaks with Griot Party Experience Director and KBCS Producer, Logic Amen about her background and why she started her business of selling Black centered books.
Producers: Yuko Kodama, Logic Amen and Widder Sessions
Photos: Logic Amen
Beats: Logic Amen
Fleeing Myanmar (aired August, 2023)
Mohamed Imran has been a student in Washington after having fled Burma years ago as an 12 years old.
Imran describes his journey to the US and how he has stayed active in working for his community.
Producers: Laura Florez, Lucy Braginski and Yuko Kodama
Photo and drawing: Widder Sessions
Curating the Audience – Monique Franklin
Monique Franklin is the Founder of Inspired Child, an organization that uses black art forms to encourage self awareness and empowerment and to strengthen the local Black community. She explains why it’s important to her to ‘not only curate the artwork, but the audience’.
Producer: Yuko Kodama (special thanks to Logic Amen for help with the story)
Photo: from Monique Franklin
Learning Lushootseed in an Environment of Intergenerational Trauma (aired August 2023)
Tribal Canoe Journey 2023 Protocol (aired August 2023)
The InterTribal Canoe Journey, otherwise referred to as “canoe journey” or “tribal journey” are a Coast Salish tribal event to bring back the ancestral cultural ways of using cedars canoes on the Salish Sea as a means to live in relation. Canoe journeys started in the 1980s and have grown over the years.
Muckleshoot Tribe hosted Intertribal Canoe Journey 2023, welcoming 120 canoes to its shores. Canoe families came from as far north as Juneau Alaska, British Columbia’s Campbell River and Ahousat areas, and as far south as Southern California.
On August 6, the 2023 Intertribal Canoe Journey ended with protocol at Muckleshoot. Listen to sounds and voices of the people there.
Producers: Yuko Kodama, Lucy Braginski and Widder Sessions – Special thanks to Maizy Brown Bear for help with this story
Photos: Widder Sessions and Maizy Brown Bear
Muckleshoot protocol
Line for dinner at Muckleshoot canoe journey protocol
Danny Stevenson – Muckleshoot tribal member
Jenel Hunter Muckleshoot tribal member
Stanley Jones Cowichan First Nations and Katrina “Alex” Johnson Ahousaht/Mowachaht First Nations (British Columbia)
Black Belt Eagle Scout
Katherine Paul or KP is the music artist behind Black Belt Eagle Scout. Her music has influences of alternative rock and traditional indigenous singing and drumming. Paul is enrolled in the Swinomish tribe and is from Colville and Inupiaq lines. She grew up in a family of indigenous drummers, singers and dancers. Paul shares her approach and relationship with her music with KBCS’s Yuko Kodama.
Black Belt Eagle Scout will be headlining the 50 Years of Music and Ideas KBCS event this Wednesday evening at 7:30 at the Tractor Tavern, Alongside Richard Simeonoff and Mr. Sam.
50 Years of Music and Ideas KBCS Event
Wednesday, December 20, 2023 at Tractor Tavern (5213 Ballard Ave NW Seattle, WA 98107) 7:30 pm (Doors open at 6:30)
Producers: Yuko Kodama and Widder Sessions
Photo: by Nate Lemuel
The Houston family property in Renton
This is a story about the Houston family who is seeking reparations from Renton School District in what they say was an unfair acquisition of their family’s former land in Renton. They were part of a vibrant Black community there in the 1950s.
Producers: Gol Holghooghi and Yuko Kodama
Photo: Photo taken by Rob Pearson
John Houston with his family including his daughters. He said ‘I have seven grandchildren who I would like to see go to college’.
A Sephardic Hanukkah
Today is the first day of Hanukkah.
KBCS spoke with Dr. Devin Naar, University of Washington Sephardic Studies Program Chair and Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies about Hanukkah celebration rituals in Sephardic Jewish culture.
Listen to an interview about Sephardic Hanukkah delicacies like bunuelos, a Ladino song titled Ocho Kandelikas and other details about Hanukkah in the Sephardic style.
Flory Jacoda, composer of Ocho Kandelikas, performing the song
Ocho Kandelikas rendition sung by Idina Menzel.
Producers: Yuko Kodama and Lucy Braginski
Conditions in Gaza
As of yesterday, Day 36 of the Israel Palestine conflict, Jewish Voice for Peace health committee reported over 11,000 killed. (67% of this number are women and children) Over 27,000 are injured. 270 health facilities have been attacked, 60% of hospitals and 71% of primary health centers are shut down.
198 medical staff, and over 45 journalists have been killed. 1.6 million people (67% of Gazans) are internally displaced. Electricity had been out for 31 days and there is no fuel.
Local physician, author, filmmaker and activist, Dr. Alice Rothchild has been working in solidarity with Palestinian medical organizations since 2004. She’s an author on healthcare in Palestine, the latest book one being Condition Critical, Life and Death in Israel/Palestine. Dr. Rothchild has more recently, written children’s books set in Palestine. A young adult novel, Finding Melody Sullivan came out earlier this year, and a middle grade book, Old Enough to Know, will drop later this year. Dr. Rothchild also directed the documentary, Voices Across the Divide, available free on vimeo. She speaks about what she’s witnessed in Gaza and her journey in understanding conditions there.
Producer: Yuko Kodama and Lucy Braginski
Photo: from Dr. Alice Rothchild
Families in Solidarity with Palestine
In Gaza, Israeli attacks have killed 8,000 women and children (70% of fatalities). Today, the two largest hospitals in Gaza have stopped functioning as they’ve run out of fuel and are surrounded by Israeli forces.
Meanwhile, yesterday, 300-400 hundred people gathered in Seattle’s Columbia Park for a Ceasefire march around the block and rally for families and children. Participants sang songs, painted murals and prayer flags for Palestine, and wrote postcards addressed to state elected officials to demand a ceasefire.
Listen to some sounds and voices from the event. You may hear the rain in some of the clips.
A longer highlight of this event will broadcast tomorrow on KBCS during the Grit at 7 am.
Producer: Yuko Kodama
Photos: Yuko Kodama
second row – Miwa Nietering (age 6), Nazia Siddiqi
third row – Rose Waterstone and Cypress Waterstone (age 10)
fourth row – Loren, Zachary, Theo, Tony and Didi; mural of handprints
sixth row – the march was around the block
seventh row – Macy Ratliffe “Don’t let the world forget about us. Free Palestine”
eighth row – table to write post cards to Washington state elected officials
ninth row – artwork by Ruth Wilson Gilmore
tenth row – art tent to contribute to the mural and to create prayer flags