The Department of African and African American Studies

Hosted by
The Department of African and African American Studies
- Presents -
TALIB KWELI
Friday, April 13, 2012
12:00 PM
Metropolitan State College of Denver
Tivoli Student Union - Turnhalle
(Auraria Campus)
Depart
ment of African and African American St
udies
Department of African and African American Studies
The Department of African and African American Studies offers an interdisciplinary field of study, which
provides students with opportunities to pursue courses with an African, Caribbean, and African American
focus. In fulfilling this objective, the department recognizes the natural connection between Africans, African
Americans, and the rest of the African Diaspora. The department strives to remove the distortions about Africa
and Black peoples through courses that highlight the rich heritage, histories, achievements as well as cultural
contributions of people of African descent to human civilization. These course offerings enable students to
acquire skills, sensitivities, and knowledge that enhance their functioning more intelligently in a diverse society.
The department’s aim, then, is to develop and produce scholars committed to academic excellence and social
responsibility in the United States and throughout the world.
Trained in traditional areas and in African American Studies, department faculty members bring not only a
breadth and depth of knowledge and understanding of African, Caribbean, and African American Studies to the
college, but also a demonstrated theoretical and practical awareness of their role in the pursuit of a wellrounded education. Faculty in the department are committed to disseminating accurate information,
encouraging creative and critical thinking, and fostering the pursuit of academic rigor. The professional
development activities of the faculty are an extension of the department’s instructional program and
community service. These initiatives reflect scholarly and activist interests, and their commitment to providing
information and interpretations significant to African people and the larger society.
In addition to the comprehensiveness of its academic program, the department sponsors a full calendar of
events in celebration of African and African American culture. Such programming provides another opportunity
for the department to enhance its instructional program. The Department offers a high-quality Bachelor’s
degree program as well as a minor.
Depart
ment of African and African American St
udies
Sankofa Lecture Series
The core intent of the lecture series is to make known and address social inequities in society. As a genre, rap
music holds a provocative position at the intersection of cultural resistance and linguistic anthropology.
Therefore, the use of Hip-Hop culture as medium to analyze and address social inequities engenders
participation from people with broad cultural, ethnic, and socio-political interests.
The Sankofa Lecture Series is an inaugural initiative of the Department of African and African American
Studies. This initiative draws from paradigms of knowledge rooted in the tradition of Black intellectual thought,
engagement, and activism. Principles of Sankofic learning assert that in order to deal with issues germane to
the present and future, one must unapologetically look to a past that has shaped social ideologies, institutions,
and practices. The Sankofa Lecture Series meets this objective by inviting scholars, activists, artists, and
community leaders to campus in an effort to foster learning opportunities that complement subject-specific
instruction, and innovative ways of sharing knowledge. These goals are in congruence with Metro State’s
commitment to academic diversity.
History - The Watts Prophets® are a group of poets and musicians from Watts, Los Angeles, California.
Like their contemporaries, The Last Poets, the group combined elements of jazz music and spoken word
performance, making the trio one that is often seen as a forerunner of contemporary hip hop music. Formed in
1967, the group comprises Richard Dedeaux, Father Amde Hamilton (born Anthony Hamilton), and Otis O'
Solomon (also billed as Otis O'Solomon Smith). Anthony Amde Hamilton was the third American to be ordained
as a priest of the ancient Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.
Keynote Speaker
Keynote Speaker
Born Talib Kweli Greene in Brooklyn, New York, Kweli
was the first of two sons born to college professors--his
father is a sociology professor and his mother is an
English language professor. He began writing poetry,
short stories, and plays in elementary school.
A far cry from the image-driven gangster rappers of the late 1990s, emcee Talib Kweli strives to
"reconcile left-wing idealism with the anything-goes attitude of hip hop," according to critic Kelefa Sanneh
in the New York Times. He seems "determined to move hip hop past materialism," noted Jon Pareles in
the New York Times. An emcee "with a social conscience, a liquid flow, and an unending gift of
wordplay," Kweli is "one of the most astute and prominent voices in the hip-hop underground," remarked
Ken Capobianco in the Boston Globe. After releasing Mos Def and Talib Kweli Are Black Star with emcee
Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def) in 1998, and Reflection Eternal with deejay Hi-Tek in 2000,
Kweli was ready to break out of the underground. His full-length solo debut, Quality, released in 2002,
was hailed as one of the most important hip-hop releases of the year, effectively bringing him into the
hip-hop limelight. In fact, he was one of the most admired and respected rappers on the major-label
circuit during the mid-2000s, best evidenced by Jay-Z's famous Black Album rhyme: "If skills sold, truth
be told/I'd probably be, lyrically, Talib Kweli." In anticipation of his next solo album, Kweli collaborated
with producer Madlib on the digital-only Liberation. In August of that same year, Kweli issued the fulllength album Eardrum on his own label, Blacksmith. Debuting at number two on the Billboard 200 and
selling 60,000 copies in its first week, Eardrum was Kweli's best-selling album to date.
Throughout his career Kweli has used Hip-Hop culture as a tool for activism. In 1999, he was heavily
involved in a musical project to protest the shooting death of Haitian immigrant Amadou Diallo by New
York City police officers. He and 40 other emcees put together the Hip-Hop for Respect EP, which
targeted the issue of police brutality. Kweli also was featured on the 2002 AIDS benefit album Red Hot +
Riot, which features the songs of Nigerian musician Fela Kuti, who died of the disease. Since 2011, Talib
Kweli has served as the headliner for the initiative “Rap Sessions: Community Dialogues on Hip-Hop.”
Rap Sessions continues its commitment to engaging the most difficult dialogues facing the hip-hop
generation. Past participating institutions include Princeton University, Brown University, University of
California-Berkeley, Vanderbilt University, University of California-Los Angeles, and Harvard Law School.
His latest album “Gutter Rainbows” was recorded with the help of incredibly talented musicians from
across the country. As a boy growing up in Brooklyn, Kweli saw gutters that ran with dirt, oil and water,
revealing a shimmering rainbow to his child’s eyes. Drawing its title from this memory, this album puts at
the raw center what his music has been doing for years, finding and preserving the beautiful in the
hideous; the rainbows in the gutter. Weaving the lyrical and the gritty, the autobiographical with an
honest, no-holds-barred hip-hop spirit, Kweli sticks fiercely to what feels true to him in creating the sound
of this album. Without being tied to any particular label’s conception of what his sound should be or when
his work should hit his fans, Kweli is free to build his most personal album yet in both content and
motivation.
Sankofa Lect
ure Series Committee
Sankofa Lecture Series Committee
Dr. B. Afeni McNeely Cobham
Chairperson
Ms. Amber Mitchell ‘12
Co-Chair and Student Coordinator
Hospitality, Tourism and Events Management
Dr. Winston Grady-Willis
Professor and Chair
African and African American Studies
Sankofa Lecture Series Sponsors and Partners
The Office of Institutional Diversity at Metropolitan State College of Denver
Institute of Women’s Studies and Services, Metropolitan State College of Denver
Student Activities Office, Metropolitan State College of Denver
Student Government Association, Metropolitan State College of Denver
Office of Student Life, University of Colorado – Denver
Office of Student Life, Community College of Denver
The Association of Sisters in Higher Education, University of Denver
The Center for Multicultural Excellence, University of Denver
Thank You t
o Everyone!
Thank You to Everyone!
Artists
Artists
Artists
Suzi Q. Smith
Contact: [email protected]
DJ ‘DealzMakesBeats
Contact: [email protected]
Cafe Cultura Artist Collective
Contact: [email protected]
Adri Norris
Contact: www.adriennenorris.com
Patrick McGriff
Contact: [email protected]
Fr. Anthony ‘Amde’ Hamilton
Contact: [email protected]
Dia DJAbsolute Beshara
Absolute Studios
[email protected]
Musa Cunningham (BlackSunCinema)
Contact: [email protected]
Ietef Vita (DJ Cavem)
Contact: [email protected]
Caroline Pugh, Photographer
Contact: [email protected]
Emmanuel Armendarez
Contact: [email protected]
Randi Fleckenstine
contact: [email protected]
Raquib Hakeem
Flyer Designer
Tanya Cooper
Program Designer
[email protected]
Joe Halter, Assistant Director
Student Life, UC Denver
John Mosley, Sales & Events Manager
Auraria Campus Use & Support Services
Matt Brinton, Assistant Director
Student Activities, Metro State
Jehrin Clark, Coordinator
Accommodations
Natley Farris Beverly, Co-Chair
ASHE at DU
Sodexo Catering
Parking & Transportation Services
Russell Takeall, Coordinator
Denver Public Art University
Katie Sewell, Assistant Director
Office of Student Life, CCD
AHEC Media Services
Auraria Police Department
Domonic Velarde, Administrator
African and African American Studies
Dr. Myron Anderson
Office of Institutional Diversity
Tracey Adams Peters, Director
CME at DU
Joe Wallace, Transportation Coordinator
Wallace Enterprises
Accounts Payable
Blacksmith Music Group
*Special Thanks to All the wonderful student volunteers*