Culture Currents

by Audrey T. Williams The AfroSurreal Writers Workshop of Oakland – and friends – will share from their speculative works in progress, followed by a moderated panel discussion. During the panel, three Bay Area writers and poets...

The Fourth Annual Poetry Battle of All the Sexes was hosted by your favorite revolutionary poets, media-makers, poverty scholars and cultural workers at POOR Magazine. Here are the winners’ poems - by Jewnbug, Vivian Thorp and Dee Allen.

After reading an article that criticized Serena Williams’ physique, I threw my hands up in disgust and allowed the “angry Black woman” inside me to explode. The New York Times article wasn’t just an attack on Williams, but an attack on all women. It seems women who decide to challenge stereotypical notions of femininity are openly rejected. The idea that a woman cannot be athletic and beautiful is just preposterous.

Black Lives Matter no matter how you embrace or argue it – we are in the reckoning and there is no going back. Trying to figure it out from the head will get you wherever it gets you. Go to the heart and you will be there.

The Maqusi Towers in Gaza City look a bit like U.S. housing projects. The neighborhood consists of several tall apartment buildings grouped together in the northern part of town. It is also ground zero for Gaza's growing hip-hop community. On a recent evening in one small but well-decorated apartment, a dozen rappers and their friends and families relaxed, danced, smoked flavored tobacco and rapped the lyrics to some of their songs.

To write with laughter, heart, fire and humility – to get those words down and draw the reader in – to make the reader warm with the fire of poetry, wet with the tears of memory, full with the soup of experience – leaving the reader satisfied and inspired to change the world – that is what the writer does.

Leroy Stanfield is a Bay Area comedian on the rise, who some may know from his company, GoBaby Productions, and others may know him from his crew, The Bay Boys of Comedy. He is not just a comedian but a community man, who is doing what he thinks will help to quell all of the street violence in Oakland. At the end of July, he is organizing Oakland’s First Annual Comedy Superfest Weekend.

In the wake of racial tension the United States is currently facing, renowned chef and author Tunde Wey has been making his way around the nation hosting a dinner series titled Blackness in America. On Tuesday night, he teamed up with Caleb Zigas of La Cocina, Fernay McPherson of Minnie Bell’s Soul Movement, Reem Assil of Reem’s California and Birite Market to host a conversation about racial and social inequalities that African Americans residents face daily in their communities over dinner in the Bayview’s Southeast Community Center.

The opening night film of the San Francisco Black Film Festival this year is “93 Days,” costarring San Francisco legendary actor Danny Glover, about ebola coming to Nigeria. Danny Glover will be in attendance opening night for a Q&A at the old SF Yoshi’s, 1330 Fillmore St., on Thursday, June 15, 6-9 p.m. The film was inspired by the heroic actions of the doctors and nurses who were at the heart of the fight against ebola in Lagos, their bravery and sacrifice and their decision to stay and fight instead of taking flight in the face of danger.

So what is 3UFirst and how does it bring billions back to our community? 3UFirst was created specifically to solve the major problems in the Black community. The focus is on creating jobs, business and investment opportunities, building wealth, sponsoring, funding the best programs locally and across the country, solving the other problems in our community, and donating 50 percent of the net profits back into the community.

New Roots Theater Festival centers BIPOC artists bringing joy and celebration in dance, song, music, poetry and theater for two days running, Oct. 16-17.

DJ Fresh is a legend in the arena of DJing around the world but he is also known for his contributions of putting out lesser known artists right here in the Bay Area. DJ Fresh is a dude who you may catch hanging out with Bicasso of Living Legends fame one day, and the next day he might be in the studio wit’ young hood mascots like Yung Moses, DLO or Sleepy. You can’t put Fresh in the box of being backpacker or gangsta; he’s just hip hop.

Inner City Youth’s Yellow Bus musical convoy left San Francisco’s youth center, traveling through Napa and the Wine Country scenic route to beautiful Clearlake on May 17-19. Twenty-two young people, eight adults and four little folks actively participated; Keith Perry videotaped. On Saturday, May 18, at 9 p.m., ICY performers made their debut at Andre Williams’ Silk’s Bar and Grill.

After graduating from high school, Cory Mickels was working in construction when he had a revelation about his future. “It was there I realized I wanted to work with my head, rather than my hands,” the native of San Francisco’s Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood said. “I went back to the staff at my high school, and they pointed me in the direction of Metro Academies.”

This Friday, March 20, 5-7 p.m., our students will grace the main stage at 3rd on Third – the Bayview’s free arts and culture celebration at Mendell Plaza, Third and Palou. For our students, it’s an honor – and a very big deal – to perform in front of their families, friends and neighbors. Will you join the cheer squad?

by Baba Jahahara Amen-RA Alkebulan-Ma’at 6262 AAAK /April 2022 JC-PG Africans Deserve Reparations! ‘Cause Black Lives Matter! Blessings of Imani (faith) beloved, brilliant, bold, brave and beautiful G-o-ds, Elders, Sis-Stars, Bro-Stars and youthful revolutionaries!  May our Most High...

"My latest release, 'In the Studio with Augusta Collins,' is produced by Emmy award-winning producer Anita S. Woodley. On this album, I am channeling Leadbelly. I am performing my music with something to say about each song." - Oakland blues man Augusta Collins

The long overdue First Annual Mission Latin Jazz Festival features a showcase of exceptional musicians and bands from the Mission District, the Bay Area, California, the U.S., Latin America and beyond. Come celebrate exceptional local, national and international Latin Jazz artists at Brava Theater, 2781 24th St., San Francisco, Oct. 13-14.

In an effort to ensure every student starts school with the tools to succeed, the San Francisco Public Defender’s BMAGIC program will provide backpacks stuffed with school supplies to more than 3,000 youth in the Bayview on Saturday, Aug. 16. The BVHP Annual Back to School Celebration will be held from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the recently renovated Youngblood Coleman Park, 1398 Hudson Ave.

It’s International Women’s History Month and in director Abderrahmane Sissako’s film “Timbuktu” (2014) we meet fierce African women who stand their ground when faced with lashings, stonings and bullets. The setting is Timbuktu, Africa’s Mecca, a sacred historic seat of knowledge and wisdom, which has been ravaged recently by warfare and plunder. Peoples’ lives, antiquities, books, Quranic texts, landmarks and buildings have been destroyed.