K’naan’s “Wavin’ Flag” is one of the standout tracks from his Troubadour album and has become something of a phenomenon thanks to its timely message of strength and solidarity. Now famed producer Bob Ezrin has brought together top Canadian performers for Young Artists for Haiti, and the group’s rendition of the song takes it to new heights. Performers include K’naan, Nikki Yanofsky, Justin Bieber, Jim Cuddy, Emily Haines, Hedley, The Arkells, Drake, Justin Bieber, Avril Lavigne, Jully Black, Sam Roberts, Kardinal Offishall, and more.
Apple, the labels, and the artists are donating their share of the proceeds to the Feed The Children, World Vision, and War Child charities.
K’naan’s latest album Troubadour available here. Download available via iTunes
I do not think the wonder and natural discovery of African American hair will ever quiet down. Last year, with the premier of Chris Rock’sGood Hair film, and really just a quick uptake in the natural hair community over the past few years – it certainly looks more like the very beginnings of an on going movement to better understanding.
I do not believe natural hair is a trend. I do not believe that if it is not talked about, or the media decides it is no longer en vogue that it is no longer important or relevant. It’s easy to slip into the argument, ‘hair is just hair’…though highly textured/African hair deserves a much higher honor and it’s due respect.
The documentary, A Journey to Understanding by O.M. Ajayi explores the history of African American textured hair. If you have the time, show some love by pressing play or bookmark & share. Click here for a sneak peak.
They’re calling for 8 – 13 inches worth of snow for the East Coast tonight into Wednesday. I live much too close to work to phone in with a snow day apology for the bosses, so I’m a bit miffed the city’s preppin for a shut down & city wide alert, while I’m hunkering down with some homework for class tomorrow night.
Miffed.
But alas, if the days were warmer and the streets were toned with the sun’s heat I’m sure I’ll have something else to complain about. Riiiight.
So! If you were snow-wrecked at home, how would you spend your days?
I’d make sure to download go out and buy this puppy. I….have no words. She’s that good. Own it. Love It.
I’d consider it a lucky day, finding this woman & her beautiful vocals. *(Ummm… free download)
I haven’t purchased….this…yet. Don’t have a reason. Except to say I bought this instead cuz….I’m a softee
This has been on heavy rotation for the past two weeks & will continue as such until I finish putting that book over there and attending to the laundry over…there.
I’d make sure to luv this dude a l’il more. *(too good)
I’m longing for Spring & warmer temps more than I should these days. Lately I’ve been torn between pinning for those illustrious perfect leather strapped boots & sizing up finds for upcoming spring dress purchases. Videos like this certainly do not make these decisions easy, but nonetheless it should at the very least put a smile on your face;-)!
Today marks the first day of Black History Month & while I do want to update and post about the goings on related to all things hair & product, my heart wants so desperately to share something entirely different…if only for today.
Black History Month is a time that I hold dear for reasons – too numerous to count. Author & blogger Lori L. Tharps has a great post up today mapping out a great & easy strategy to enjoying the rest of this month, which has me especially giddy with anticipation because I am certainly not the only one.
I can’t be the only one who enjoys the influx of culture and historical lessons all smashed up for us to ingest in 28 short days. You have the Times today devoting a piece to the newly christened International Civil Rights Center Museum in Greensboro, N.C., and so many other outlets taking part to commemorate such an important mark in history.
Personally, I do feel it is a celebration, and not one made of traditional markings of hats, balloons & presents. The rewards granted towards all people of color are felt each and every day, I feel it each time I walk into work – get on a plan to see my parents – on Nov 2008 when I woke up at 5 a.m. to make a quiet, distinctive walk with neighbors to the voting hall.
It’s that feeling…that is so very welcomed and embraced each time this year.
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A truly beautiful piece in the Washington Post yesterday had me near tears. A mother of two remarks on the rituals of combing her daughter’s hair.
Soon now, these days will be gone from me. As I settle myself on the couch, my 11-year-old daughter, Savannah, brings me her hair basket: comb, water bottle, hair grease, barrettes. She plants herself on the floor, squarely between my knees, and I begin my work. There’s the everyday hair-doing, but wash day takes more time, and slowly I separate the thick, kinky tangle growing from her head. I rub in a dollop of grease — Kemi Oyl or root stimulator lotion, but mostly just dark blue Ultra Sheen (I like the standards) — to make the hair obedient, and part it into sections, clipping each firmly to her head.
My hands are slower and gentler now than they were when she was younger and I was younger, with a career to chase, and an older daughter who had her own head of hair for me to do, and another baby yet to come.
Sometimes, if I was pressed for time, I could get by with a few surface brush strokes and a liberal application of gel to make the girls passably presentable, but it took 20 minutes of work to make them look special. Twenty minutes to make them feel pretty so that neighbors would comment on the straightness of their parts. Twenty minutes to be reassured that I’d sent my children into the world making clear that they were valued and loved. Twenty minutes. Every day. Minimum. Apiece. For me to feel assuaged that if one day, please, God, no, they suddenly disappeared, I could persuade the 24-hour cable networks that my girls really were worthy enough to be news– because, after all, black mothers can’t recall a time where missing black women and children got national media attention.
Sometimes, this obsessive blog thing tends to pay off when you stumble upon something as poetic and downright beautiful as this piece written by Tami, of ‘What Tami Said’ today.
Right now, the back left side of my hair is strangely puffy, fuller than the rest of my head. The curls there are stretched out and winding this way and that. You may surprised to hear me say that I am NOT having a bad hair day. I am; however, in the throes of hand-in-nap disease.
From my own experience, and the stories of other women, I’ve learned that a curious thing often happens when a black woman “goes natural.” First, she is curious, but a little fearful of what lies under all those years perming or weaving or wigging. The decision to stop relaxing can be far from…relaxing. How could it be when society reinforces the idea that if curly hair is a problem, kinky hair is an abomination? It is not beautiful or professional or presentable. Fashion models don’t rock TWAs. The girl nextdoor never has dreads. CEOs don’t sport twists or BAAs. That’s what we’re told, anyway. For years, she has headed to the salon at the first sign of a wave at her roots. Girl, I need a touch up! This shit is NAPPY! Now, she is expected to believe that the same thing she has sought to hide for decades is a good thing.
So, she watches her new growth and hopes that her nappy is not too nappy. There is even a hair-typing scale to obsess over. Please, please let me be more 3A than 4C. Perhaps she spends no small amount of time looking for lotions and potions that will create curls where there are only kinks and zigzags or to give the illusion of wet, shiny tendrils. This behavior–the symptom of a mind still fettered to misguided notions about race and beauty–hopefully does not last for long.
Freedom eventually does come. She learns to stop wishing her hair was other than it is. She learns that naps–whether loose and curly or tight and kinky–can be beautiful. She experiments and discovers that her thick 4a hair makes gorgeous, plump twists; or that her 4c tresses spring into a kick-ass afro; or that her 3a curls look elegant in an up-do. She learns to “do you” as they say. And it clicks that a beauty scale that preferences appearance based on how closely it conforms to that of the majority culture is as useless as it is biased.
And then she falls in love. I did.
Folks who think only straight and silky hair is worth a loving touch are missing something delightful. Running your hand over textured hair (With the owner’s permission!) is addictive. I start at the back. First, my fingers usually find the smooth, neat curls at the nape of my neck. I pull them and they spring back into place. I wrap the strands around my fingers absentmindedly. My hands then crawl further up my head to the crown, where the texture is tighter and a little more coarse. I examine the differences in texture, touching the bumps and waves–smooth here, crinkly there. Before long I am separating my curls, pulling them apart where they have clumped together. And when that is done, when my loose hair is no longer a series of curls but a mass of brown cotton candy, I start wrapping the strands together into twists. Then I pull the twists out again. The result–usually a section of my hair is fluffier and puffier and less uniform than the rest, due to my stretching and stroking. It is relaxing and sensuous. Last night, while catching up on a season one disc of the Fox show Fringe, I discovered I had plaited my whole head.
I can’t help it. Such is “young love.” I adore the feel of my hair. I yearn to touch it. It is hard not to fondle it. And that is so much better than hating it.
Several years ago I was in need of help. I needed a place to hide until the wears of being unemployed floated away & conversation with friends, neighbors were no longer strained & overly consumed by patterns of weather. It was a few years after college graduation, I’d recently moved in with my loving grandmother to save on rent in NYC, & was barely getting by to pay my car note at the time. Woe was me, Blah!
My days were literally spent figuring out what to eat for breakfast, sending out resumes mid-noon, lunching on chicken kabobs and fries from the local deli, checking e-mails for replies, then dining on grandmother’s rationing of rice & beans.
You know what…it was all good. Jobless, but far from hopeless it was easy to keep abreast of my own sanity because I had music, I had a channel that was broadcasting in the only luxury I could afford at the time, VH1Soul. That’s right, even in the midst of a jobless moment, I had cable where the only channels ever perused were The Food Network, Bravo & VH1Soul.
VH1Soul gave me my first intro to the talented, beautiful voice that you see below. The moment I was lost:
“….don’t you let those other boys fool you, gotta love that afro hair-do.”
Lost. I was back in a zone of complete love for music, Good Music because it was still happening, someone was still finding & playing it. Ironically enough, it’s that ‘someone’ who’s shutting down the goodness by pulling the plug on VH1Soul. Word came round the sphere earlier this month, and to say that I was heartbroken & disappointed..would be a tragic understatement.
Granted, television & broadcasting networks are NOT what they used to be, and I’m venturing back to only 4 years ago. Drastic changes have propped up, all to benefit advertisers & executives rather than those that essentially matter—>the viewers. Yet finding blogs like Music Nerdery and hearing the same sentiments echoed by our fellow Bella, I knew this wasn’t just a flighty pull of the plug for some. VH1Soul matters to the masses because of those last four letters.
Are you game to have your voice heard? Click here to sign a petition granting you the right to Good Music, and here to show your support via the Save VH1Soul Facebook page. And while you’re at it, stay current on the shenanigans going on over at headquarters by following Music Nerdery.
Y’all remember SoulStage?! Lawd…
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I am officially sidelined today due to a stomach virus thingy that’s wreaking havoc on my body, so essentially all systems haven’t been a ‘go’ since Saturday evening. My energy has been completely zapped, so not washing of the hair yesterday & most likely today….so what’s a stir crazy girl to do!!!
I really do feel as if I’m going a bit bonkers, I HATE staying home, particularity on a rainy Monday when all me fellow 9-5’ers are out commiserating with the world. Sippin on nothing but ginger ale and chicken broth gets old after the first few sips.
But to make do & to help prevent any more inevitable boredom, I’ll post a few reviews that have been waiting in the wings as drafts for a while. No time like the present.
Times like these usually call for updating my music pod, so will be doing just that…starting with this fine fellow. It’s a collection of ‘unreleased’ tracks from Dwele, whom I’m a huge fan of. The full track set was released earlier this month, but personally… there’s no such thing as late if it’s free music;-)!
I’m happy it’s Friday, I’m thankful another week has come & gone…& I am overjoyed to be ‘here.’ I hope I’m not coming off a bit ambiguous, but I always have a select few Mantra’s floating in my brain at any given time…and this one is speaking to me quite loudly today.
That small bit was supposed to segway into something more special, but I’ll just fall back & let you know about a famously Girl Friendly Blog for the ‘modern brown girl’, ‘A Girl’s Guide to Naturelle-Chic‘. I came across Zannëta’s blog a few weeks ago, & she was kind enough to reach out asking me to be featured . The blog is quite addicting, mixing hair profiles with style icons, chic home decor & even gooey homemade recipes I never knew about! Aside from being a certified PJ, I’m no doubt a blog whore…by choice;0), and this one was instantly added to the bill. You can check out my spot here.
Another cool endeavor comes by way of Indie land to help raise awareness of Haiti and it’s current relief efforts. Each day Indie Fixx will silent auction a bevy of beautiful items made & donated by indie crafters, artists and designers. Great things are up for grabs, including a few items from Zaja Naturals, a personal favorite vendor of mine;-). 100% of all proceeds will be donated to the Red Cross Response Fund. Click here or on link below to learn more.
Posting is set to resume as regularly scheduled beginning this weekend. Update on Contest in the coming days as well;-).
~Back to Curly~ 
