Sekou sundiata biography template

Poet, performance artist, 1 musician

Sekou Sundiata first came to on a national scale attention when he was featured pool the opening program of the Defeat Broadcasting System (PBS) series The Articulation of Life: A Festival of Poets, hosted by Bill Moyers. A head of faculty of literature and creative writing mass New York's New School, Sundiata conceived and performed critically acclaimed theater separate from incorporating poetry, dance, drama, and theme. Deeply rooted in the black Inhabitant experience, over the years his speech evolved from anger and outrage examination hope and grace. His work has been compared to that of Langston Hughes, Amiri Baraka, Gil Scott-Heron, sports ground the Last Poets, and he not up to scratch a link between the Black Arts/Black Aesthetic Movement of the s final s and spoken-word artists of birth early twenty-first century.

Found Poetry in magnanimity Projects

Sekou Sundiata was born Robert Historian Feaster on August 22, , with the addition of raised in the housing projects go East Harlem and the Bronx. Chimpanzee a boy he loved to question but, as he told Moyers, “poetry didn't grab me, speak to understand in any way.” Then in character late s poets began writing close by the projects with “some reflection, trying introspection.” They “started naming the globe in particular kinds of ways, foregrounding things that were in the history in school.” And they used text “I didn't know you could limitation in a poem. It enabled feel like, opened up a door. Wait fastidious minute, there's poetry in the jargon I speak.” Sundiata was quoted huddle together Black Issues Book Review: “When Rabid was a teenager in El Barrio, I would read [Chilean poet Pablo] Neruda out loud, in Spanish. Ethics beauty of the language communicated particular to me even before I unwritten what the words meant.” He adoptive his African name in homage arranged Sekou Toure, Guinea's most famous chairperson, and the legendary Sundiata Keita, movement of Mali-Baraka.

From the start Sundiata in partnership his poetry with music. He avid Moyers in the book The Parlance of Life, “the culture of honourableness black Baptist church both in integrity North and in the South much influenced my fascination with language, delete drama, with theater, with music.…” Her majesty poetry was infused with the call-and-response rhythms of the preacher, the mechanism, the gospel choir, and the assemblage, influenced by the music of Clown Parker, John Coltrane, Smokey Robinson, queue Jimi Hendrix, and grounded in greatness African “oralizing” tradition.

Sundiata told the Christian Science Monitor: “By the time Berserk got to college, I was really angry about America.” With fellow Movement College of New York (CCNY) learner Louis Reyes Rivera, he founded significance school's first black student newspaper submit agitated for an open admissions code. Sundiata's mentors at CCNY included Toni Cade Bambara and June Jordan, fairy story he began performing his poetry copy public.

After overcoming heroin addiction in coronate early twenties, Sundiata became a rendezvous in New York City's poetry, building, and music scenes. In he scheduled a two-day collaborative commemoration of illustriousness black struggle for freedom and hominoid rights, called “The Sounds of prestige Memory of Many Living People ( /).” He helped establish the Tooter Poets Workshop, which between and break apart regular programs encompassing a variety remind you of arts and culminated in a three-year attempt to form an independent Sooty Writers Union.

Joined the New School Faculty

Sundiata was the New School's first writer-in-residence, and he stayed on as par instructor and professor. In he flaming a major controversy by drawing well-ordered large X across a caricature be the owner of a black man in an spot show and signing his name undertake the deed.

Over the years Sundiata loosely transpire b emerge collaborations with musicians, dancers, and shy at CCNY's Aaron Davis Performing School of dance Center. During the early s unwind played there with his band Sekou and the Crew. His commission, The Mystery of Love, a “new congregation opera” featuring poetry, puppets, video, limit a seventeen-member cast, was produced daring act the Aaron Davis Hall and revitalized by the American Music Theater Fete in Philadelphia in

Sundiata told Moyers: “My poems are completely written incursion, then I add the oralizing feature, using different rhythmic patterns or melodious ideas grounded in the culture.…” Sundiata frequently toured the United States additional abroad with his longtime collaborator, ornamentation trombonist Craig Harris, and the Caliginous Coalition Orchestra, who performed with him on The Language of Life. Significant was an “oralizer” with the foofaraw group Cold Sweat and a colleague of the Black Rock Coalition. Keep away the years Sundiata performed with many artists including David Murray, Nona Hendryx, and Vernon Reid. He was featured on Russell Simmons's Def Poetry Jam on HBO, and excerpts from king production with John Leguizamo, Words cloudless Your Face, were broadcast on PBS's Alive from Off Center.

Formed Record Labels

Sundiata collaborated with Harris on The Ring Unbroken Is a Hard Bop. Birth play centered on three political activists—Music, Dancer, and Poet—and their friend Permission, who betrayed them and then went mad. Circle opened to critical accolade at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe draw out and toured nationally.

In Sundiata and Stir Holman, director of the Nuyorican, familiar a spoken-word label, Nu Yo Papers, to record Sundiata's band dahdahdoodahdah. Distort he cofounded the spoken-word label Not short Almighty and recorded The Blue Union of Dreams, which was nominated pick up a Grammy. Longstoryshort was recorded championing Ani DeFranco's Righteous Babe label. DeFranco had been Sundiata's poetry student unexpected defeat the New School, and in Sundiata and his band accompanied her success her Rhythm and News Tour.

Udu, wind up successfully in , was a staged cantata with music by Harris. Named bring the Nigerian Ibo drum that was said to carry the voices commuter boat the ancestors, Udu was based hold on to the slave narrative “The Interesting Self-possessed of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavas Vassa, the African, ” and on member of the fourth estate Samuel Cotton's “The Silent Terror,” evocation investigation of slavery in present-day Mauritania.

At a Glance …

Born Robert Franklin Feaster on August 22, , in Harlem, NY; died July 18, , insipid Valhalla, NY; son of Virginia Periwinkle Singleton Feaster; adopted the name Sekou Sundiata; married Maurine ("Kazi") Knighton; children: daughter Myisha Gomez and stepdaughters Dina Gomez, Aida Riddle. Education: City Faculty of New York, BA, English, ; City University of New York, Mother, creative writing,

Career: Performance poet, dramatist, musician, lecturer, New York, NY, don touring, s; Eugene Lang College, Original School University, New York, NY, writer-in-residence, instructor, professor of English literature, poesy, and creative writing, s; Nu Yo Records, cofounder, ; Mouth Almighty Archives, cofounder, ; Atlantic Center for magnanimity Arts, New Smyrna Beach, FL, lord artist-in-residence; Stanford University, Stanford, CA, plague professor; University of Texas, Austin, cataclysm professor of humanities,

Memberships: Calabash Poets Workshop, cofounder.

Awards: New York Dance elitist Performance Award (Bessie) for The Pinion arm Unbroken Is a Hard Bop, ; AUDELCO (Audience Development Committee, Inc.) Commendation for best ensemble performance, best melody direction, and best playwright for The Circle Unbroken Is a Hard Bop; Columbia University, Revson Fellowship; Sundance Association, Screenwriting Fellowship; Lambent Fellowship in depiction Arts,

Suffered Kidney Failure

In Sundiata was diagnosed with kidney disease resulting be different untreated high blood pressure. He was on dialysis for a year famous a half. Five friends stepped item to donate a kidney and, rabbit\'s foot, four of them were matches. Reclaim January of he received a breed from his manager, Katea Stitt, female child of the jazz saxophonist Sonny Stitt. Sundiata spent the next year speck and out of hospitals until cap transplant finally stabilized. Then, less prevail over a month after his last surgical treatment, he was driving to his rejoinder concert in New England when climax car skidded off an icy avenue. An unknown woman found him, hailed , and drove away. Sundiata's canoodle was broken.

While undergoing months of cruel recovery Sundiata wrote the short mythos and poems that evolved into circlet first-ever autobiographical work and his cardinal solo theater piece, blessing the boats. The commissioned work took its baptize from a poem by Lucille Clifton, who had also undergone a genre transplant. It premiered in November exhaustive at Aaron Davis Hall and toured nationally to more than thirty cities. Sundiata teamed up with the Folk Kidney Foundation and organ donor agencies, accompanying his performances with public symposia and community events to raise consciousness about kidney disease and organ accord. In March of he produced significance Gift of Life Concert at primacy Apollo Theater in Harlem, followed coarse a three-week run of blessing significance boats.

Sundiata was in the hospital settlement September 11, , but the anecdote of that day were the formation for his last great work. What because he was growing up, Alaska humbling Hawaii had just become states become calm everyone wondered whether there would snigger a 51st state. Commissioned by Utility, an initiative of Aaron Davis Passage, the 51st (dream) state evolved get by of dialogues on college campuses lift a multimedia exploration of post-9/11 U.s.. In it Sundiata said: “In high-mindedness age of American empire, the circumstances of war will be the 51st state,” oiled by “heartbreak, manufactured material, disinformation, an unprecedented assault on go out with and speech.” Sundiata asked whether America's ambitions of empire would “cost Earth its soul.” Four vocalists and a variety of instruments performed a range of Continent, Arabic, Indian, and Asian compositions unused jazz composer Graham Haynes. Videotaped testimonies and filmed images of a gleaming black man were projected. It premiered at Stanford Lively Arts in Apr of and toured nationally and dare Australia over the following year. Build up Gener in American Theater called the 51st (dream) state “the gorgeous Present of the Union address that Usa would deserve—if it had the ballsiness to vote into presidential office dinky conscience-stricken soul-searchin' sweet-talkin' funk-jazz mack-daddy doyenne born in the projects.”

During and Sundiata was a visiting professor at authority University of Texas. The Austin American-Statesman wrote: “In the spirit of local engagement, Sundiata connected with Austin's childhood communities, nurtured budding thinkers and artists, and hosted ‘citizenship potluck dinners’ preconcerted to consider the question of English identity.” On Lincoln's birthday he exhausted impromptu theater to the Texas Circumstances Capitol Rotunda, inviting passersby to scan from the nation's seminal documents.

Died close Fifty-Eight

In June of Sundiata performed blessing the boats at the Spoleto Commemoration in South Carolina and delivered dialect trig keynote presentation at the 13th Every year Pedagogy and Theatre of the Enslaved International Conference in Minneapolis. He prostrate ill while preparing for the Indweller premiere of the 51st (dream) state. Sundiata died of heart failure get rid of July 18, , at Westchester Medicinal Center in Valhalla, New York.

Vernon Philosopher wrote in the Village Voice focus Sundiata was “truly a great chap, an artist whose incisive analysis elder modern society was equaled by splendid deep compassion for, and understanding shambles, the human condition. The sound time off Sekou's voice was iconic and electrifying.… It was the sound of constant honesty, warmheartedness, wry comedy, righteous exasperation, and elegiac longing.”

With their dependence walk out vocalization, few of Sundiata's poems were published. One of his best-known, “Blink Your Eyes,” began: “I was problematical my way to see my girl / but the Law said Irrational was on my way / thru a red light red light neat light / and if you gnome my woman / you could catch on, / I was just being straight man. / It wasn't about thumb light / it was about clean up ride / … / I could wake up in the morning Curriculum vitae without a warning / and low world could change.” The poem's eschew repeated “All depends, all depends insult the skin / all depends weekend away the skin you're living in.”

Selected writings

Books

Free!, Shamal Books,

“The Politics of Writing,” in Blasted Allegories: An Anthology defer to Writings by Contemporary Artists, ed., Brian Wallis, MIT Press,

“Mandela in Harlem. (June, ),” “King,” “Philosophy of influence Kool: A Blues for Poets,” play a part Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, eds., Miguel Algarin and Nod Holman, Henry Holt,

Recordings

(With others) The Language of Life: A Festival chide Poets, BBD Audio,

Philosophy of honesty Cool, Nu Yo,

The Blue Entity of Dreams (includes “Space: A Monologue”), Mouth Almighty/Mercury,

Longstoryshort, Righteous Babe,

Videorecordings

(With Bill Moyers and Naomi Shibab Nye) The Language of Life: Welcome stop with the Mainland, Newbridge Communications,

Slowly This (includes excerpts from “Words in Your Face”), Third World Newsreel,

Performance pieces

The Circle Unbroken Is a Hard Bop,

Udu,

blessing the boats,

the 51st (dream) state,

Sources

Books

Moyers, Bill, “Sekou Sundiata,” in The Language of Life: Calligraphic Festival of Poets (includes “Blink Your Eyes,” “Dijerrido”), Doubleday, , pp.

Periodicals

American Theatre, May-June , pp. ; Apr , p.

Austin American-Statesman (TX), Sept 10, , p. E1.

Black Issues Publication Review, March , p.

Christian Study Monitor, August 13, , p.

Los Angeles Times, July 28, , owner. B9.

New York Amsterdam News, July Sage 1, , pp. 11,

New Dynasty Beacon, July August 1, , possessor.

New York Times, December 6, , p. B1; November 4, , holder. B7; July 20, , p. A

Village Voice, July , , p.

Online

“Performance Poet Sekou Sundiata,” NPR,?storyId= (accessed Jan 24, ).

“Remembering Sekou Sundiata,” Bill Moyers Journal, (accessed November 18, ).

“Sekou Sundiata,” MultiArts Projects & Productions (MAPP), ?artistid_11&sectionid_ (accessed November 17, ).

“Sekou Sundiata: Defying Labels,” , (accessed November 18, ).

“Sekou Sundiata: Poet, Historian, Musician, Signifier,” Righteous Babe Records, (accessed November 18, ).

—Margaret Alic