Connecting Cultures: Searching for Yoruba Roots in America
Assignment: Make African visual art and artifacts relevant to those who love MC or rap artists-- the poet-priests of hip-hop, including African-American superstars like Kanye West and Jay Z.
Method: Brainstorming from books, internet, playlists, whatever.
Starting point: Africa is too large a concept, too diverse a land mass. How can we narrow down the scope? Most of our artifacts are from west and central Africa. If we are linking mother Africa with 21st-century African-American culture, we need to take that trip via the Atlantic slave trade, also out of west Africa.
And which African people were most affected by the Atlantic slave trade? At a glance, it seems to be the Yoruba people. Since we have several Yoruba pieces worth exploring, this seems like a perfect starting place.
First impressions: For me, rap is about ritualized language within ritualized beats, tales of power (or loss of power) by a resonant baritone, this call answered by the voices of his people, his followers, his audience, his "congregation."
In my simplistic way, I can easily make the leap from the 21st-century MC back to the indigenous religion of Yorubaland. See my diagram:
But looking at the authentic influences and genuine parallels is a complex business and I'm still studying...
To be continued...
