Pan African Festival

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The Twin Cities’ inaugural Pan-African Festival, which runs from August 6-11, will highlight the Twin Cities’ prominent place as home to thousands of immigrants from all parts of Africa. Bringing together artists from Minneapolis to Mogadishu, Nairobi to Kingston, Monrovia to Madison, and many other places throughout the African diaspora, the Festival will celebrate not only the artistic expression of the African diaspora, but also the possibilities for collaboration and alliance in the land of 10,000 lakes. Pan African Festival and AfriFest
Pan African FestivalIncludes music, movies, dance, spoken word and hip hop and moreAugust 6-11
AfriFestAugust 14-17Includes business expo, soccer tournament and performances612.281.6318

Organized by the Diverse Emerging Music Organization (DEMO), a Twin Cities non-profit organization dedicated to fostering new musical talent, as well as the Twin Cities music community as a whole, this year’s Festival builds on last year’s AfriFest, held in August 2007 at Currie Park. Organized by a number of the same people organizing the Pan African Festival, AfriFest brought together not only a number of Twin Cities-based musicians from throughout the African diaspora, but also the late reggae superstar Lucky Dube. “We really wanted to build on AfriFest, but it was important for us that we keep it community-based and non-profit,” says Rachel Joyce, one of the main organizers of the Festival. Continue Reading

Art note: Intergenerational exhibit REmixes Hmong traditions

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REmix is an exhibit on display this month at the Homewood Studios gallery. The exhibit attempts to not only forge connections among the Hmong community in the Twin Cities—one of the largest Hmong communities in the country—and the more established local communities, but also among generations within the Hmong community. On Saturday July 19th, Ka Vang will read selections from her latest work, Riding Shotgun: Women Write About Their Mothers; there will also be a reading by Shannon Olson. The event will be hosted by performance artist Katie Ka Vang, who was recently featured as part of the Asian American Theater Festival. The closing reception will be held on July 25th; on the 26th, Yer Yang will lead a paj ntaub workshop at Homewood as part of FLOW, the Northside Arts Crawl. Continue Reading

A 40th birthday blowout for the Electric Fetus

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Even among the many storied independent record stories in the Twin Cities—Treehouse, Eclipse, Roadrunner, Hymie’s, Fifth Element—the Electric Fetus, which turns 40 this week, stands out. From its 1968 founding on the West Bank through its 1972 move to 4th and Franklin to the present, the Fetus has cemented its place as one of the best music stores not only locally, but nationally. For information about the Electric Fetus anniversary celebration, including a complete schedule of in-store performances, see electricfetus.com. On Friday, which has been declared “Electric Fetus Day” by Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, the Fetus takes over First Avenue. In the Mainroom will be Tony Glover and V3, The New Standards, Polara, and fan favorites the Hypstrz and Doomtree. Continue Reading

A focus on college at Somali Education Night

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Last Friday night, over 80 attended the seventh annual Somali Education Night, an event founded by Mahamoud Wardere and held at the Somali Education Center in Minneapolis. The Somali Education Center offers not only afterschool programs for students in grades K-12, but also adult education and summer programs. Wardere said that the event was organized because he wanted to help Somalis get a better understanding of how to access a good education. The focus this year was specifically on higher education, to have “students exposed to the university,” according to Wardere—who has worked as a teacher at Washburn High School, is a formal mayoral candidate, and has worked as a representative for Norm Coleman’s St. Paul office. Representatives from five colleges were present to give information and answer questions about their respective colleges: the University of Minnesota, the University of Phoenix, Normandale Community College, St. Continue Reading

Welcome to the movement: NCMR opening

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KFAI’s Janis Lane-Ewart’s remarks at the opening of the 2008 National Conference for Media Reform welcomed people from around the country and around the globe to the Twin Cities, a nexus of so much media and cultural activity, both around KFAI’s Cedar-Riverside home and the many communities and coalitions that have sought to create media justice in the Twin Cities and beyond. The speakers that followed built on these themes, both criticizing what’s wrong, what people in the media reform movement have accomplished in its short life, as well as where to go from here. Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press, the organization founded by Robert McChesney and the organizers of the NCMR, passionately spoke of the dangers within the contemporary media world, as well as those responsible for such dangers, i.e. Big Media and the weak and overly acquiescent mainstream journalistic outlets. “The corporate media is not a watchdog protecting us from the powerful,” Silver said. “It is a lapdog begging for scraps.”
Silver also talked, though, about the movement’s successes, like the blockage earlier this year of an FCC attempt to further allow large consolidation of multiple media outlets; victories in some of the first battles over Net Neutrality; and making presidential candidates seriously discuss issues of media transparency, freedom, and consolidation. Continue Reading