I’m wishing everyone a safe and healthy isolation/quarantine/work-day (for the frontline workers).
Frontline workers risk their mental peace and physical health while assisting communities in being fed, clothed, etc. All folks are impacted by COVID-19 differently. I’ve linked sites/profiles below (NY/NJ based organizations) helping those in need during this uncertain time.
EASTERN LONG ISLAND/Instagram – @colored.colors
JERSEY CITY/Instagram – @solidarity.jerseycity
NYC/instagram+twitter – @mutualaidnyc
GOTHAM’S KEMETIU
Two months ago, I attended Sidewalk Kal’s: Gotham’s Kemetiu Volume 3. The third installation of what I like to call a community celebration. Celebrating what, you ask? Each other! That’s right. After attending; I shared a few questions with the event coordinator who was kind to take time to answer with honesty and straight realness. I’m a bit familiar with what it takes to create a safe space for expression, providing a real platform for hardworking folk who love what they do. So, I was especially excited for this, and I formed questions with that in mind. Speaking with Kal, I learned that he, just like many community organizers, had a tug at heart and his imagination to create this platform. Rising from not seeing what you want to see, for you and those around you, and becoming the force that brings the vision to reality.
We took a unique approach to the interview and I hope anyone who tunes in, enjoys it. Half the questions were written, and the other half were audio recorded. After you’ve read a few written questions, there’s a link where you can listen* to a fellow creative express themselves about passion, growth, and possibilities for the future, preservation of culture, and decolonizing all minds through the power of music.
The bandcamp link below is where you can support their most recent release BLACK IDENTITY EXTREMIST, and all releases prior:
✽✽✽✽.
NJ-native creator/musician, Sidewalk Kal chats about their moving experience and premise behind Gotham’s Kemetiu.
Sidewalk Kal! For the world that’s being introduced to you, who are you/what do you do?
SK: Peace, I’m Sidewalk Kal. I’m grateful to be alive, I’m a money magnet, I’m the descendant of displaced Africans in the Western empire of America, and I am a practitioner in this highly advanced African art form/culture that we call Hip Hop.
You dropped 17-track Black Identity Extremist in November, Congrats on that! A power-packed collection. Track 3 being MAX HUMILITY with the only feature, AKAI SOLO. Cannot go wrong when AKAI’s pen involved.
And, opening the collection with SPIRIT WORK.
“This is spirit work, you think I’m rappin” – I love that.
SK: Thank You!
To me it speaks to using a craft/gift to assist growth and shedding, right. Along with the inevitability of some misinterpreting or even downplaying the meaning of it all. Can you define what SPIRIT WORK means to you? The track, and a bit on the personal journey.
SK: Spirit Work, the song,is kind of like half affirmations half getting sh*t off of my chest but all framed with this recent understanding I’ve come to that the power in song is the same power of the law of attraction, manifestations, etc.
The project itself was borne out of -in my opinion- the urgent need for revolutionary messaging as it relates to Pan Africanism, Decolonization of our paradigms as African ppl, etc. There’s been an absence of messaging that wakes us up as a people but there’s an abundance of messaging to my people by my people and reinforced by non-Black dollars that is self-destructive, self-deprecating, and self-defeating. We’ve seen that negative messaging work through our own magic, this music. It didn’t start with the music but it’s continued to catalyze the worst aspects of our plight and normalize it. I assert the same magic can work in the opposite direction if the pen is sharp and the music’s heavy and the content is powerful.
Who are some writers or producers you could see yourself combining forces with through sound in the future?
SK: To be honest I’m grateful for whoever the universe puts in my path and it’s productive and positive. I’m very interested in working with more Black artists and builders throughout the entire diaspora and Continental Africa as well as here in the American Empire. I also really wanna work with dope Black women also, producers, MCs, engineers, strategists, instrumentalists, vocalists etc. African women make things happen.
Below, Kal goes into what moved him to put Gotham’s Kemetiu together. Kal mentions others within their network who are also doing big things! What visions he had in mind while doing it, ancestors, music and more!
Open your mind, turn on your ears and tune in.
https://sidewalkkal.bandcamp.com ** to support.
