MF GALAXY

(Repost of an article I wrote for Vue Weekly in 2008) It’s African History Month again, and across the city and across the continent, folk are gearing up for education and celebration. But not everyone is celebrating. Some folks are fighting over the name. Others are saying the month shouldn’t even exist. “All other peoples take up the other eleven months well,” says Winston Hawthorne, an engineer and community activist with the National Black Coalition of Canada, a major force behind the Month in E-Town. “We just need a little space for ourselves so we have time to talk with ourselves, see ourselves and do for ourselves. We’re behind in self-representation.” Reminds me of Berke Breathed’s popular Bloom County comic strip , years ago, when one lad asked the sole Black character, Oliver Wendell Jones, why Ebony magazine should exist. If Ebony is okay, shouldn’t Ivory be all right? What Breathed and his boy didn’t get is that all the other mags on the stand are a...

WRITING LYRICS, RUNNING A BAND, AND THE BLESSING OF EARLY ADOPTER SUPER-FANS   Waymatea , better known as Sista J, is the band leader, lead singer, lead lyricist, and founding member of Souljah Fyah , one of Canada’s most popular and most celebrated reggae bands . Souljah Fyah has released three albums including their self-titled debut, Truth Will Reveal , and I Wish . The band has just returned from producing an album in Jamaica that is scheduled for release early 2016. Unlike most of her contemporaries in popular music, Waymatea is an accomplished song writer, weaving her albums with everything from searing anti-genocide anthems and hometown cheer-sections to spiritual hymns and tender songs of heartbreak. In this episode of MF GALAXY, Waymatea discusses: What poets and prose writers who want to try songwriting need to understand to find artistic success   Her practice of editing lyrics , and the magical mindset for creating those lyrics in the ...