Videography + Photography + Music + Blackness = The perfect storm
Kelechi’s use of light & minimalist environment are very inspiring!
———————————————————–
From Director Joel Benson shot with a Canon 7D
“Renowned photographer, Kelechi Amadi Obi, was having a photo session with Nigerian-born international music star, Keziah Jones, and graciously invited me to come watch. I went along with my camera.”
h/t: Kiss My Black Ads
“Hide Yo Kids, Hide Yo Wife, and Hide Yo Husband Cuz Dey Rapin’ Errybody Out Here.” Antoine Dodson
Thanks to your help, I’m excited to announce that I’m a 2010 Black Weblog Awards finalist for best photo blog [insert a "hell fuck yeah" here]. I was astounded to see that there were over 32,000 nominations & I still made the cut [insert a "go boy" here].
In the photo blog category, I’m in good company with four other photographers so this will be interesting because we are all so different.
Outside of my own finalist position, I was very happy to see MANY of my friends listed as finalist in other categories ranging from business, fashion, web, design & culture. So many winners even without this contest that showcases the nest of the Black blogosphere.
While YOU’RE VOTING FOR ME (Tafari’s Mindspill), be sure to check out some of my peeps & consider casting a ballot for them as well. None of them disappoint!
To vote: Visit here & select your blog choices accordingly. And make sure to vote for Tafari’s Mindspill in the “best photography blog” category!
Black Weblog Awards on Twitter for updates on the awards. BTW, vote for me! OK. Thanks. Bye!
Art Credits:
Model: My sexy ass
Photographer: My main home slice Myron Watkins
“If you want me to kiss your ass, then you had to put it in my contract.” Janet Hubert
This past weekend, I visited New York’s Museum of Modern Art & fell in love in the photography gallery. I always fall in love in their portrait gallery so this is really no new news!
What made me fall during my most recent visit was Carrie Mae Weems’ “From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried” presentation.
The presentation consisted of several familiar photos of Negros from US slavery & Africa’s past colored & overlaid with very powerful poetic words.
I stared intensely at these photos & all I could say was WOW, WOW, WOW!
The display seems almost out of place and by this, I mean that I could stand in a room all alone.
When I got home, I, of course I Googled her name & did her resume & was intrigued a) by her procurement of the photos from the Getty & b) her creative process in assembling one cohesive piece.
“I was trying to look at the history of photography and the way in which African Americans had been particularly depicted and inscribed through and in American photography. I used images that were preexisting, and my intervention was to re-inscribe them by making them all consistent, in terms of size and scale and format and adding the use of color so that, for instance, I used the color red to annunciate the image. I wanted to use oval or circular mats because I wanted to have that sense of looking through the photographic lens, which is a round surface…”
I was also quite amazed to learn that the photo presented above sold at Christie’s (auction house) for a cool $25,200. Wow!
You can see the entire display of “From Here I Saw What Happened And Cried” here.
I love discovering Black photo heroes!
Black Magic: Her Hands
Black Magic: Her Smile
Black Magic: Her Skin
Black Magic: Her Being
Black Magic: Her Promise
Black Magic: Her Love
Art Credits:
2010 Tafari Stevenson-Howard
Muse: Tamara Rasberry
The hottest & most intriguing news story these last few days has been the Eyjafjallajokull volcano. I really think the earth is trying to tell us something big! With earthquakes happening everywhere creating havoc & two Icelandic volcanoes halting all Trans Atlantic/intra-European travel while blanketing much of Europe with ash, I wonder what’s next. Well, maybe I don’t want to know.
In other totally unrelated Black news:
Vivica Fox has a new wig line, Guru (hip-hop legend) & Dorothy Height (civil rights pioneer) are dead, Kwame Kilpatrick is guilty of violating parole & Cirque du Soleil announces plans to create Michael Jackson show. What a day in Black history.
Just saying.
Where are your heroes, my little Black ones
You are the Indian you so disdainfully shoot
Not the big bad sheriff on his faggoty white horse
You should play run-away-slave
Or Mau Mau
These are more in line with your history
Ask your mothers for a Rap Brown gun
Santa just may comply if you wish hard enough
Ask for CULLURD instead on Monopoly
DO NOT SIT DO NOT FOLLOW KING
GO DIRECTLY TO STREETS
This is a game you can win.
As you sit there with all your understanding eyes
You know the truth of what I’m saying
Play Back-to-Black
Grow a natural and practice vandalism
These are useful games (some say a skill even learned)
There is a new game I must tell you of
Its called Catch The Leader Lying
(and knowing your sense of the absurd you will enjoy this)
also a company called revolution has just issued a special kit for little boys called Burn Baby
I’m told it has full instructions on how to siphon gas and fill a bottle
Then our old friend Hide and Seek becomes valid
Because we have much to seek and ourselves to hide from a lecherous dog
And this poem I give is worth much more than any nickle bag or ten cent toy
And you will understand all too soon
That you, my children of battle, are your heroes
You must invent your own games and teach us old ones how to play.
Art Credits:
Poem: “Poem for Black Boys” by Nikki Giovanni
Guess who was recently interviewed by the Kiss My Black Ads blog. Me mofo!
In other good news:
- One of my head shot clients just informed me that she got called for an HBO show audition! I love making people look great!
- I’m doing my first shoot in my studio space this weekend.
In my best Ashanti voice. “Oww baby!”
You may have heard the sad news that Emmy winning TV writer, producer & loved blogger David Mills aKa “Undercover Black Man” passed week.
David’s sudden death came as a huge shock! His last blog post was 3/29/10 & it has been flooded with messages of condolences.
Another factor of this loss is that David was a writer on the upcoming HBO show “Treme,” which deals with the drama in New Orleans post Hurricane Katrina. Treme is set to debut April 11, 2010 & you can see a preview of Treme here. I’ll be watching!
David’s talent, humor & love of music will surely be missed!
So a related lighter note, my girl Thembi of “What Would Thembi Do” pointed to me to one of David’s blog posts where he interviewed Eldridge Cleaver.
The interview covered a lot of ground but my point of interest was the topic of fashion. Yes fashion. Who knew that Angry old Eldrigde could have had people talking at NYC fashion week?
Here is a portion of the interview:
MILLS: A few years ago, you were in the news for designing pants for men with a pouch in front to contain the genitals. Whatever became of those pants?
CLEAVER: As far as a business venture? I’m not a businessman so I wasn’t able to do any spectacular business. I lost money. But from an aesthetic point of view, from the point of view of clothing, I think this whole thing has been misunderstood.
My design had to do with an argument against what’s being done with our clothing. Who controls our clothing? If you notice, the clothing industry is dominated by homosexuals. They want men and women to look basically the same.
There are a lot of problems involved in the design of men’s clothing. The way our clothing is designed right now requires a man to wear his genitals in either his right or his left pants leg. There are a lot of implications to that. Scientifically, it’s been determined that that structure generates a lot of heat that has a decomposing effect on sperm. There’s a whole warping effect that comes from wearing your genitals in your pants leg.
There’s a lot of evil in society that comes from clothing. Most of us are completely ignorant of this. One of the things that distinguishes us from animals is that we have the control of our second skin. This is a great power, because we can go underwater, we can go to the moon, we can go to the desert, to Alaska, because we just don’t have scales or hair. We have a technology where we manage our second skin.
This is a sacred responsibility, yet like many other things it is dealt with frivolously. And one of the most obnoxious things that is happening today is what the homosexuals are doing to our clothing.
If you view your pants as an extension of the fig leaf – which is what clothing really is, symbolically speaking – you begin to see that this is very intimately connected with the whole condition of man in the world. Scripturally, the fig leaf came about as a fallout from the fall of man. And I think from that point on, we’ve made a lot of trouble for ourselves by the way we handle our clothing.
All that I can say is, I’m sure he hated Ms Celie’s “FolksPants!” Nothing more. Nothing less.
You can read more from the interview here:
Q&A: Eldridge Cleaver (pt. 1)
Q&A: Eldridge Cleaver (pt. 2)
Q&A: Eldridge Cleaver (pt. 3)
Kinda funny where conversations can lead when discussing Easter outfits. Thx Thembi!
This evening I visited the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History for the Black Women Rock event, which was hosted by Detroit’s foxy poet Jessica Care Moore. While enjoying the sites & sounds, I snapped a few images of FluxPhonic during their 1st performance.
You may recall me photographing Fluxphonic’s promo shots a few weeks ago. And I’m sure you will be excited for me to know that this photo made the cover of their recently released EP.
It was truly a great night of Black women rocking the stage with raunchiness, rock & roll, painting, poetry & everything in the middle!
Check here for a few outtakes from Fluxphonic’s highly energetic performance.
Fluxphonic: Facebook | Myspace
My mother & I discussed the census the other day along with the racial categories listed this time around.
During the conversation, I asked what she preferred to be called; Black, Negro, AA etc. She answered with Colored, which was somewhat of a surprise. Her preference is because Colored was listed on her birth certificate (born 1953). Overall she’s cool with either Colored or Black.
She also discussed her memories of becoming Black in the 60/70s, Black liberation, & how James Brown & the Black Panthers ignited a firestorm of Black awareness through music & action respectively.
Really interesting how since the 1950s we moved from Colored > Negro > Black > African American. What will we be next?
Side Notes:
- In Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech, he used the terms Negro 15 times and black 4 times. Perhaps this was the beginning to the racial classification shift in terms.
- My birth certificate states that my race is Black.
- Both of my daughter’s birth certificates state no race at all.
- My grandfather named my mother (Stella) after after a 1953 Detroit boxing match titled “Stella’s Main Attraction.” My grandmother went into labor with her the night of the fight.