Episode 9
Ancestral Sounds and the Language of Music: Michael Mwenso

Amelia (Amy) Kraehe Race/Remix

 

Semoria Mosley Hi, welcome to Race Remix. I’m Semoria Mosley, a graduate student in the College of Fine Arts at the University of Arizona studying photography video. In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Michael Mwenso band leader, co-founder of Electric Root, Emmy Award winning creator, curator and creative artist. I am so glad to share that conversation with our listeners today.

Hello. How ya doing?

 

Michael Mwenso I’m good, thank you.

 

Semoria Mosley That’s great. I had the pleasure of going to one of your ancestral listening sessions. And I want to first talk about my first impression of you when I first met you. I feel like you’ve already cultivated a place, a space for spirits. And when I first met you, you were very unassuming to me, very confident, very unwavering. And I think that’s the only way you can create a space like that.

And so would you mind telling us what an ancestral listening session is?

 

Michael Mwenso Well, thank you so much for being with me today. And allow me into your space and and for the kind words that you just expounded on. Truly grateful to be here with you and when you came out of the time when George Floyd was really changing the world in a sense of revelation, you know, and me and my co-creative brother friend, we started a company called Electric Root, and it allowed us to start creating a way, a new way to listen to music with people.

And we were doing it on zooms, really. And it’s really came out of a lot of years prior. You know, when I was even in London too, you know, I would try and was create space for people to listen to music together. After the show, we’d go to someone’s house, and we do that in London. But when I got to New York to started doing that more, it just became a thing we did, and it really helped us.

A lot of the musicians in New York, the community that was very blessed to be around and participate in it really developed us to hear music differently and to actually really respect these people that built the music. So, you know, that’s the ancestral part to really respect and love these ancestors. And then, you know, you build community around, listen to the ancestors and listen.

So, it really came out that way, social kind of vibe. And then we started doing it on Zoom some years after. And when all this time was changing, we did that university doing it people. And then now we’re doing it very by, with religions. And it was really a nice everybody. But it’s really just really doing investigative work on ourselves through using the music.

 

Semoria Mosley Yeah. It sounds like you’re challenging the disposability of legacy, like legacy within music, legacy within storytelling. And it’s very interesting that you say that that came about after George Floyd, because in my life, before I was still in contemporary art as my main practice, I was a journalist and I was living in San Diego and I had been freelancing for a while.

I went to a historically Black college, so I knew that I wanted to tell stories differently. That’s just something that moved me and I struggled. I struggled to get opportunities. I struggle for people to see the validity of what I had to say. And it wasn’t until George Floyd was murdered that I got one of the biggest opportunities, and I ended up on the front page of the San Diego Union-Tribune.

And that was really big for me. And that just cultivated a different community inside of me. And it’s very different because I had already had a very interesting relationship with police brutality when Trayvon Martin was murdered. We were in the same age, and that was the first time that … I knew about racism. I understood, but that was the first time that I seen the material.

So in such a new way, it was so modern. And to go back to the music after that, it just seemed like I could hear so much more in what we had to say in the music really took me there, and I think it’s interesting that you’re using it as a vehicle. So I do want to ask you, do you have a personal spiritual practice that led you to Segway into this spirituality embedded in music?

 

Michael Mwenso Very deep. Yeah, I do. I think for me now, in the last few years, it’s really been researching a study, more African spirituality. You know, I was raised in a very Christian upbringing my mother, my aunts, my uncles, very, very Christian. They’re going to Christian schools in England, Roman Catholic schools, Church of England schools. So it was all of that.

But in the last few years, I’ve definitely tried to understand more about spirituality that comes from Black people, particularly Nigerian spirituality, and that’s been very helpful to also use the Bible, which is what you call in IFA as a therapist, as a guide or as these are going seem a few months in is just helpful. Just to talk to is not a magician, is that it’s not magic.

You have to keep your spirit in alignment. And sometimes, sometimes we don’t. You know, I struggle, you know, but it’s nice to have just him to go to and talk to about things, you know. And so that’s been very helpful in knowing more about IFA and, and the richness and the power of color, Ethiopia.

 

Semoria Mosley So it’s very moving. When you think about Black people’s migration in general and how there has been this huge surge, it seems like, and I know people have always been doing it, but it just feels like a huge collective surge of wanting to in turn do that Christian indoctrination. And I grew up Christian like. I grew up going to church feeling the music, though the music.

It was just next level. And that’s the thing that brought you back is just that it was just different. And but yeah, undoing that indoctrination and using music to do that personally. My grandfather, he’s a remote worker and growing up everybody would say like this, like you go to a remote worker, like, why would you do that? And people are all familiar.

Fruit work resides in hotel, which is in enslaved mystic practice that was used to combat the circumstances of the time and is something that was a culmination of different African needs because we’ve been grouped on this plantation now and while I’m doing the indoctrination, I have to keep saying that because it’s really be is really big to take that step for and move past what you’ve been taught.

That’s what I think of John the Conqueror. … John the Conqueror always comes, and he saves and I call on that. And so, it’s interesting to think about ancestor veneration. Well, that’s never been lost on us, even within Christianity, because I will say Black people rip the dead in a different way. And it’s very in the everyday culture.

Like if somebody died a year ago, you could be going pope weeks, and they got the R.I.P. shirt on or you’re in your house and you see so many people on the wall that you’ve never seen before. But your granny is like, no, that’s your Aunt Maybelline, even if you don’t know that. So, the way you venerate ancestors in your ancestral listening sessions, when it’s the first time you learn that ancestors were important to you?

 

Michael Mwenso Is that question going to be just absolutely relevant? Maybe because I dealt with death early in my life, You know, my stepfather died a slow death. So, you know, I saw we went to the mortuary. My mom, I remember seeing him, you know, and maybe that’s a way, but and then but now as I grow older, everyone a lot of people, everyone I knew as a child, Gomez’s death.

You know what I think about every day, Even like, you know, my life, my father’s dead. The guy who raised me dead because I was dead. My close is on the dead. James Brown’s dead. They were know that. And it’s not easy, but it’s joyful. It is joyful because I still pray to them so they’re not dead. Like what you saying?

Sadly, Christianity did do that. It made us see death as we had a Black in Africa tradition. Some of the dead is happy time. We’re going to do the funeral. The we change our clothes every day. And his party.

 

Semoria Mosley This way because this a homegoing because his life after.

 

Michael Mwenso Still living.

 

Semoria Mosley They still live it.

 

Michael Mwenso So I pray to James Brown. I pray to my father. I prayed to Tom raised me and they come to me in dreams too. I see that. I see the dead very deep in dreams. James Brown came to me two weeks ago. He was real rich. I write him down. Ray Charles has come to me. The guy who raised me comes to me every week.

So maybe because of that too. Because I really know that they’re alive. Like when they come to you in your dreams, it’s just like, Bloody hell, these people are alive.

 

Semoria Mosley This was. That was the one of the things I was going to ask you. Do you dream a lot?

 

Michael Mwenso Because incredibly.

 

Semoria Mosley I was trying to process my dreams because they’ve always been just this extra layer of communication.

 

Michael Mwenso Yes, it is.

 

Semoria Mosley And I, it’s my root work. Granted, I asked them, I say grandpapa, this is mangrove, a part of their heart. Why do I dream so much? And you say, because you got a gift that you need to work. It means something. Okay, Well, what does that mean? He says if you are given a gift and you don’t work, it is a disservice to yourself and it’s a disservice to your life is a disservice to the world.

So he tells me this story. He says three men sitting on the corner. A man comes and gives each of them a gift. The first man gets one penny, second man gets two paintings, the third man gets three paintings. The man who gave them the paintings, he leaves, he comes back a week later. He asks them all, What did they do with it?

The first man spent it well. The second man lost it. The third man buried. He is where he buried. The tree grew and the man said he worked his. You didn’t work yours. You gave it away because you gave it away. You have nothing. So I think about that. I think about how you’re working your gift. And when did you realize that was your gift?

 

Michael Mwenso Which what? But what was it like? Which part of the thing.

 

Semoria Mosley We’re talking about dreams. So, when did you realize your dream?

 

Michael Mwenso Okay. That’s a deep one. Well, wait. My mother was deported when I was a kid, but a year or eight months before she was deported, we were living together, and I would have this continuous dream of my mother leaving me on the train track. And it happened for months no Satoshi would ever have. And then eight months later, my mom was deported.

So, I realized, they were trying to prepare me, but my mom wasn’t going to be around. So that’s when I realized I was dreaming. Okay, so that’s kind of like me. So I realized, okay, so dreams are warnings, dreams are revelations, dreams are manifestations, you know, So and I realized that very young because it’s like my ancestors were preparing me to lose my mother.

Because when I’d wake up from that dream. going to be so sad. Go to my mom and cry. Why you left me. But then she did. She did, didn’t. They took her. But you know what I’m saying. So, I realized, yeah, from a young age as it is, and it’s going deep because not just dead people that visit me, it’s it’s like Jesus saying.

 

Semoria Mosley At it’s really and I wake up like, well, it was nice to see you this night. Yeah. But they always have a lot to say. Do they have a lot to say when you start a dream like that? Did you simultaneously also connect with the music at the same time, or were they one before the other?

 

Michael Mwenso Look at dreams a little bit first and then music after them.

 

Semoria Mosley Did they help you understand music?

 

Michael Mwenso Well, I’ve never really gone there, actually. No, I just made it. I think everything is connected.

 

Semoria Mosley Everything is connected, I say, because dreams become like prophecy. They become like prophecy. And they. They let you know that there is more. Once you begin to dream, you can’t really deny what you know. You may try to suppress it, but, you know, and once you know what you know, you can do it. You know, and so you can only build upon that.

So, when I think about music as such a spiritual thing, I mean, they say, Hark the Herald Angels sing. This is one of I think people who make music have one of the highest gifts to have because it penetrates so deep, it penetrate so deep and it is the it’s the timeline. I think music is a timeline. I think music is a portal.

And it’s something that just has sustained when everything else has not. And for for that to just drop into your world right after you start dreaming, that doesn’t seem like a coincidence to me.

 

Michael Mwenso At least I write them down. But you know I haven’t seen it. You have to practice dreaming too. So, I always tell people, write them down, because once you start making your brain damaged, your brain starts to remember them more when you wake up. But you can’t do nothing. Like don’t even go to toilet because it will get it gone.

But you as soon as you write in your phone, and I have hundreds of pages. James Brown came in red and then we went here. Aretha Franklin touched me a little bit. Interestingly, either it is like who, you know, write them down because they are prophecies.

 

Semoria Mosley How did you get the idea for Because I know this, what you’re doing is a collaboration. It’s not just you, but did you get any inclination that something of the sort or did you ever visualize something of this sort for your life, the way the way you present your voice and the way you present your contribution to the world?

Did you ever imagine it existing in this sort of space, or did you?

 

Michael Mwenso You know, I did initially. Definitely music and I knew I’d be doing that, but I didn’t think music would take me to this.

 

Semoria Mosley What did you think?

 

Michael Mwenso I don’t know. I’ll just be shaking and breaking and singing on the stage and boom, boom. And that’s the life. I didn’t think you’d be like; you mean it’s going to take you to here, you know, And that I would share my life in this way, too. I didn’t think I just thought of as or just pause and trauma and like, sad times, you know, it was a lot of beautiful times as a child, but it was a love.

But now just to be able to share it with people in a way, a testimony. So that’s been very, very helpful. Yeah. Sort of open.

 

Semoria Mosley Yeah. You’ve inspired me. You’ve inspired me in a way. When I think about music, especially where I’m from, like everybody loves music, everybody wants to do music, everybody wants to make a way for themselves with something that they’re very passionate about. And where I’m from is not that many avenues. It’s kind of hard to think creatively outside of the box about where you want to go with things because people focus a lot on stability and they’re not wrong for that because historically, how life has been, you do need to focus on stability, but often parents and mentors in the name of projection can downsize your dreams.

How much support did you have as a child back in your early and in your early twenties? Cause I feel like I’m so you’re like 26, you say, like a teenager?

 

Michael Mwenso That’s interesting.

 

Semoria Mosley I feel like, you know, you set.

 

Michael Mwenso The agenda.

 

Semoria Mosley But what kind of support did you have in figuring the language of yourself out?

 

Michael Mwenso Well, I was lucky. I had had a lot of support. I had this amazing man that came into my life when I was deported. And he was so supportive, you couldn’t get no more support than that. He was so free, you know, and so enabled me to dream. You know, my mother was incredibly supportive. You know, she was the one taking me to see James Brown, too, and trying to get me onstage.

And, you know, I’m pushing through the backstage. You know, she was there, you know, So I had a lot of mentors, great musicians. You know, James Brown was supportive, like James Brown let me on stage as a kid, kind of getting it like, well, you.

 

Semoria Mosley Tell us the stories. We really want to know. James Brown from South Carolina. So. Yes, yes, yes, South Carolina. And they love it as they claim the family like, you know, James Brown.

 

Michael Mwenso That was funny because he was then Augusta, Georgia, claims him too.

 

Semoria Mosley You know and they can’t have him, South Carolina.

 

Michael Mwenso Now. That’s true is of a Georgia Atlanta such and of course and.

 

Semoria Mosley So, I like.

 

Michael Mwenso Georgia and anybody else.

 

Semoria Mosley Keep that Carolina, but please tell us.

 

Michael Mwenso I went crazy about 10, 11, I discovered James Brown and just went crazy, you know, buy every video that was HMV. You know, every time I taped him. And then I got to meet him, you know, I got to meet him like a year of that kind of discovered him. I got to meet him. He came to London.

And from that moment on, you know, I just kept on stalking him a little bit, you know, like, you know, you know, like first year, you know, in my second year I really tried to get him. And my mother, she was the one who really enabled that kind of energy to happen and says of the first time meeting him.

And then the first year we got him and and it was amazing. You know, like James Brown is notorious for doing soundcheck horror rehearsals, explaining to okay, like all throughout his career, basically from 1955 to like 2000, 2002, he would rehearse the band four hours before the gig songs they already know. Same song 50 times. He stopped around for 70 you like because he didn’t really have to like, strain myself.

This is rubbish anymore. But so, by 50 is it did that you know like so sometimes the band’s rehearsing right up to the gig, you know. But I got him in the soundcheck and using the good mood because James Brown Moody and he recognized me and, and I said to him, you know, I said, you know, I just referred to a song from a long time ago, that new game where you play to make it, but you can’t do demos, then this is like a show from 1964, you know, it was dead.

You hear me a minute? And then I played a little organ too. He let me play when he left me up there. Then he’s rehearsing the band with the band. Then he pointed me to play the organ. I do this solo; you know, He stops the band after the solo. What’s your name again? I said, Michael Mwenso you know.

What’s he saying? Come down and then. You sound good, son. You sound good. I can do the splits too. Right? Right there. I can sing and dance too. Would you want to sing? Give it up. Turn it loose. Go back to what I’m saying. And I’m doing this place. I’m doing a camel walk. I’m doing the robot.

I’m doing the boogaloo up to James Brown. He stops the song. Midway, he says, you got a suit? I said, yes, sir. You coming on stage tonight? Thank God we pack the gray suit, the oversize gray suit right here. You see the video? It’s like what’s happening? But. But. And that was a start. My relationship with my new foot for the last ten years of his life until he died, 2006.

So that was he didn’t have to do that. He did that for at least a good 45 years. After that, you know, he would always be in a he would always be, you know, embracing. Sometimes he’s in a bad mood. He says, you know, but he did that for me. He did that for me. It was deep.

Yeah. Complicated man, but deep, spiritual.

 

Semoria Mosley I couldn’t imagine that I’m not even you. And I feel like I was just on stage with James Brown.

 

Michael Mwenso That means he’s around. That’s him.

 

Semoria Mosley Wow. Was that was the first James Brown record you ever heard. And who played it for you?

 

Michael Mwenso Well, I was close with the headmaster’s children at school. I was going to and it was it was they took us to they took me to Asda, one of those show know shopping places and they had tapes there. And it was a choice between, no, I love Shirley Bassey to too. There’s a Shirley Bassey tape with a James Brown tape and I a James Brown.

It was invest in my memory because he was the person my mother and my aunts Nigel would dance to when they were kids. So, whenever they would connect with Aunty Cleo, may she rest in peace. My mother, they would bring up James Brown. So, James Brown was always there because whenever my mum went to where we sit does all the kids.

James Brown You know, when I see my mum and I really bonding and so let me get this James Brown guy again. Jesus Christ it just went crazy after that.

 

Semoria Mosley It’s like a backwards thing for a lot of people, for a lot of Black Americans before everybody’s an American. But for a lot of Black Americans, though, there’s a struggle. There’s a struggle with trying to connect with others in the African diaspora, with Africa. I mean, of course there is a route.

 

Michael Mwenso You get you going, okay, okay.

 

Semoria Mosley You know, love music has been that segue way. That makes it a lot easier. And to hear your parents dance as a James Brown. yeah. Makes me think of the first time I heard Fela Kuti. Hey, I lost my mother. I lost my mind. I was like, all right, you mean to tell me they shaking in gyrating and jiving like that there.

And it was so it was also so political in that that did exist here. But it was you had to say in a different way, in the way that he said. It was just so … it was just so intense that it really shook me.

 

Michael Mwenso Well, Fela Kuti is interesting because we talk about like how we’re disconnected, and we connected in diaspora. He’s a Nigerian boy that goes to England, to Guildhall to study jazz music. And then after leaving Guildhall realized this to be a jazz musician finds James Brown music and then goes to Nigeria, then creates. So, he was influenced by the African American music in England, jazz and then James very to get back to that stuff.

That’s the thing. James Brown and Louis Armstrong were the only really two Afro-American kings that they were superstars in Africa to …

 

Semoria Mosley Really.

 

Michael Mwenso … crossover.

 

Semoria Mosley Ah. Wow.

 

Michael Mwenso Yeah, not everyone crossed over like that, but James Brown, Louis Armstrong, Bessemer, like they went to, they got to Africa.

 

Semoria Mosley So, what were your beginning influence is in music? Or maybe like, what was the beginning genre that just opened the world up for you?

 

Michael Mwenso Well, I was blessed to live with this man who had this amazing vinyl collection. He had every I mean, he loved Man McHenry, love him. He loved his Blackness, you know, like he had African music. He was the first one to acknowledge me. I’m African. He had African ties. I didn’t even notice white man, you know.

 

Semoria Mosley So, in this man, we’re talking my missus on.

 

Michael Mwenso This, the term Black film.

 

Semoria Mosley Okay.

 

Michael Mwenso Homeless Jonathan Black shorts. Yeah. And he had everybody blues, jazz, funk, gospel, mainly Jetsons. Just that, you know. So, it was I was very lucky that phonetic this of his way of loving Black music came to me because and I loved all the music he loved. And he loved music cause, you know, you really these want to maybe understand country music to a whole nother shape, but his ability to love music in a deep way helped and taught me. Cause I knew we would see music like that one week.

B.B. King next week, Hugh Masekela next week, something goes to go see a musical. You know, it was just like that, you know, it was broad.

 

Semoria Mosley So, are your influences from overtime that you primarily play in your ancestral listening sessions, or is it?

 

Michael Mwenso Yeah. Or that music I plays is from being around that man because he played at music Big old Bessie Smith collection, big old Mahalia Jackson. You know, I do it as a as a, as it’s a love letter to him, to the ancestral communities. He is my ancestor That helped me to listen.

 

Semoria Mosley I love that. I love that. The fact that you focus on …Black music in the ancestral sessions

 

Michael Mwenso And Black women, sometimes we just focus on the Black women.

 

Semoria Mosley Black women and that’s the session that I had. Okay, I appreciated that day. Yeah, you were making space for Black women because I hear them differently. I hear them differently. I even with my mom, like before, they were such growing pains because of generational divides, wanting to pursue just a different life than what she had. Like there was a hard coming to terms with that understanding.

They were just we weren’t getting there. And it wasn’t until, again, I started coming into my womanhood that I understood, wow, she was a Black woman before. Like she has experiences as a Black woman before being a mother, you are not simply a mother like you have, just the way that you view the world based off your experience there, I’m not going to be able to tap into.

We could talk about it, but I’m still not going to really understand that. And it just made me see her as a person. And when you play those songs by women who you’re educating me who have I mean like broke the stratosphere in ways that I benefit from, we all benefit from. But I had no idea. I think about that a lot.

And sometimes I cry about that, like how we won’t always be known for the amount of work that we do and the amount of work that like I was on the laurels of people who will never get to meet me, who couldn’t even have the space to think about me at the time that they are doing what they’re doing.

But yet I’m living my life because of it. And so that just made me feel so good to learn more of those women because of you for you to voluntarily pick their role and play play it well. Everything is a choice. And that was the choice. And I appreciate you for making it, and I really do.

So, what’d you eat today?

 

Michael Mwenso You know, I’m thinking about it, you know, because we’re going to go back to the hotel and I got some Indian food that that that we want to get. I didn’t I didn’t get to eat as much as I wanted to. So, I’m going to get into some Indian food after we meet this that’s going to be nice. Then we have a wonderful thing we’re going to do after that, have a visit with some beautiful human beings that have gone through some struggles in life, incarceration etc., etc. So, it’s going to be interesting to be in that orbit.

 

Semoria Mosley Do you have any experience with … family members, friends being incarcerated?

 

Michael Mwenso My mother was incarcerated three times. You know, I saw I saw her and she was arrested a few times. You know, I remember, member one time, well a few times police came to the house and they’re searching for things in the house. And I remember they’re searching. There’s police in the living room everywhere. I’m just the only one that my mom isn’t there.

They’ve arrested her already, but and I put on a James Brown video and this is what I realized. Okay. I’m like how I can. I was young and I put James Brown video I just start singing and dancing like James Brown while the police searching the house, it was aware of myself. And I realized when I was intense because it was kind of like, I’m not going to see. You know what I mean.

I just about doing the James Brown. You know, the police “do you know where this is, Michael.” So that was, you know, yeah. And picking my mom up from when she’d been arrested, she’d been in jail for like a month. You know, my aunt drove hours, so I’ve been around it. I you know, my mom was in the detention center, which is kind of a mini jail before she got deported.

We visit her every weekend. So, I know that, like energy of visiting someone who’s in prison, kind of a senior mom like that one hour I get to be with her and she gets locked up, she was an amazing Black woman, you know, like it’s just, you know, so she yeah, I’ve been around that energy.

 

Semoria Mosley You have so many chapters to your life.

What does it feel like in hindsight? I’ll say, like after having experienced so many things and being here doing this, what does it feel like?

 

Michael Mwenso I mean, I can tell you a lot, but but it’s all it’s all feels. I wouldn’t be this person.

I would be some of a guy would be boring. I would be, I wouldn’t know anything, you know. So, all of this chapters is I’m glad it’s maybe this person because I’m really blessed.

 

Semoria Mosley Yeah. I read that you and your co collaborators prioritize this work here.

 

Michael Mwenso Jono. Yeah, we collaborate and Chad collaborate …

 

Semoria Mosley Hello. I read that you are a focus on Black joy. Is, was that, was that your choice? Well, I mean of course.

 

Michael Mwenso No, no, no. I’m coming … I’m, you know, we didn’t realize it was Black joy, you know, we just knew that this music gives us something individually. Me and for him to it gave us hope. And then, you know, then you realize, man, it’s Black joy, you know? And it’s an energy that we have benefited from by listening to it, by seeing it, learning, by being around many great exhibitors of it, you know, mentors for us.

So how do we first name it? It’s this is from Black music, but it’s also Black music creates joy. And then we name it you event. Yes, what you want to give to the world. So that’s why we say Black joy, because it’s like it’s naming it too. It’s not just, ooh, it’s like Black joy. It’s different. You know.

 

Semoria Mosley That’s refreshing because the more people get educated on Blackness.

 

Michael Mwenso Yes. The.

 

Semoria Mosley The education it seems like from my observation is Black trauma and it usually resides and how much do we know about what happened to them? And not that much about how much do we know about the Black people that live right next door to us, that are living in the community with us, that are alive and well, that are not physically shackled?

I mean, we could have metaphorical conversations of slavery, but that is not I’m saying you know.

 

Michael Mwenso Yeah, I got you.

 

Semoria Mosley But it is refreshing to make that decision. And I remember struggling as an artist when I first made the decision. I remember watching that interview with Toni Morrison. I love Toni Morrison and an interviewer, a white lady.

 

Michael Mwenso White lives. Why don’t you talk about white?

 

Semoria Mosley Why are you only talking about …

 

Michael Mwenso … white people?

 

Semoria Mosley She was she was saying that is just incredibly.

 

Michael Mwenso That’s the most racist thing…

 

Semoria Mosley They have no idea.

 

Michael Mwenso And she says it. it’s incredible. That is one of the most racist. You can’t believe how racist that question is.

 

Semoria Mosley So piercing, so. Right to?

 

Michael Mwenso So, what was that? It’s crickets, you know, to worry about white lives. Why did that she says you did do that.

 

Semoria Mosley Why? But why would I why would I do that? And when I decided to make the decision to prioritize Black life I struggled, I was like, what if? What if they’re like, you don’t want to talk about everybody? Or you’re like, you know? And it took me a minute to find my confidence in that. And that was like a slow growing thing.

So was there ever…

 

Michael Mwenso Yeah, yeah, now, me and him have gone through a lot moments in the last year, we’ve, you know, I saying we’re doing Black music and maybe even a show we have with the word Black in it and how that has, you know, like people don’t that we went because we were trying it, we were trying to even get another kind of gig and we interviewed for it.

And then basically the man was like too much Black to exist, you know what I mean? So we’re in it now in a sense of like, Wow, so did you go to university? Because it was too We asked the students, What’s the first thing you think of when you hear the word Black? So we could know and help you not be there.

Because there’s a generation that when they wear Black, they run. So I want to ask these young people, what do you think of when you hear the word Black? What comes into your head? Because this word seems to still be baffling people.

So what is it like for you to have Black music centered spaces and now you invite everyone? Is it different? Depending on if the crowd is predominately our way or the crowd is predominately?

 

Michael Mwenso Which would have been if you were they if they in Jamaica, you know, one day.

 

Semoria Mosley And that was interesting too.

 

Michael Mwenso I was thinking that it was also so an age of white women.

 

Semoria Mosley I’ve learned that it seems like the older, the older they are, the more they’re a little interest. More interested in their reckoning.

 

Michael Mwenso And in their.

 

Semoria Mosley Reckoning. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Michael Mwenso He might not agree but I do, I do think they’re definitely more conscious of like how can we fix what the ancestors did. I don’t want to, like, name me, I don’t want to say it, but there is an older generation of white looking women that are like, I know what dance did was not as much as maybe it helped a little bit, you know, and then and then it’s the same generation white women that are not that vibe that.

 

Semoria Mosley Karen they are not that far. Yeah so and we don’t get far for them.

 

Michael Mwenso But everyone is different. There is a lot. There is a conscious white woman that’s trying to like help and heal and facilitate ancestral healing. You know, that’s, I think, the biggest problem. I think have the vibration. The sense of what white people carry is that they don’t want to deal with the ancestral part. Yes. It wasn’t you that did it.

But if you if you’re spiritual, you know, you got to be real about it. You know, I didn’t do that. I was 58 many years ago. Yeah, but you still got to reckon with it, too.

 

Semoria Mosley You got to reckon with it. And I’ve learned, I think a lot of I’m into cultural preservation, which is also what you do in a very specific way.

 

Michael Mwenso Deep.

 

Semoria Mosley Into documenting. I study archival material. A lot of my video ah is appropriating archival material for whatever message, but I’ve learned that a lot of the missing pieces in archives and in museums reside in people’s homes, they reside in people’s closets. And when we talk about that reckoning and not acknowledging the spiritual part is like, but this exists in your home somewhere because you can’t like the world hasn’t been decolonized, has the world hasn’t been decolonized like even myself, like I still have to work hard to undo a lot of the things that I’ve been taught.

And there’s just a certain grace that has to come with the same humility. Humility. And I think your migration story and your experiences and who you work with in the diversity amongst them makes you are a very special group of people to have this very specific conversation because you’re not talking from just ideas of future reasons, like you’ve lived that experience of this person introducing me to this.

That wasn’t a part of this, that led me to this, that led me to that just speaks very differently and is very present in what you all do. And I’m just going to keep telling you that I appreciate that. That was really.

 

Michael Mwenso Cool because, you know.

 

Semoria Mosley Is there anything that you like to say that you haven’t seen.

 

Michael Mwenso Just that you’re an amazing person to me. And and I’m truly grateful for being taught by you, by your your grace, your innovative mind, very deep questions, and just thankful that there was someone like you around to speak and expound on all the great things that you are. And I do. So thank you to you.

 

Semoria Mosley Thank you. I know I’ll see you. Every time I meet, I see somebody. Yeah.

 

Michael Mwenso So of course, you and you even in dreams..

 

Semoria Mosley in dreams! I know that’s right. When I come home.

 

Michael Mwenso I will.

 

Semoria Mosley Okay, cool. Yeah. From the journey of becoming to being Michael Mwenso and I have invited you into a diasporic conversation on how to bring dreams into reality. Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

 

Amelia (Amy) Kraehe Thank you for joining a race remix today. This episode is made possible through the generous donations of our sponsors and the efforts of our team of students, staff, faculty and community partners. If you enjoyed this conversation, listen to more episodes at RaceRemix.Arts.Arizona.Edu