Kalamu Responds to Black IT Uses

Books by Kalamu ya Salaam

* * * * *

Kalamu ya Salaam Responds

"Liberated zones in cyberspace"

rudy,

look forward to talking with you about i-t and cyberwork. as you know, i am a bit reluctant to jump into the ideological fray around technology because i would prefer to let our work speak and perfer to try to achieve some deep understanding of what's going on globally through observation and participation rather than through arguing and polemic-ing.

two notes:

1. be cautious about saying black folk, and young black males in particular, are not into the cybercommunity.

i seeing the driving force as "digital technology" and not computers per se, or even cyberspace, even though both are integral aspects of the changing paradigm. when we look at our situation in terms of digital technology we see that young black males have been a defining force in shaping the use of that technology in music production, and increasingly in video production.

i believe it is obvious that many of us are into music, but do we realize how much of that music is self-produced using computers in homes/garages/lofts, etc.? moreover, black music producers have set the standard for how to produce music and what contemporary music should "sound" like.

increasingly, i am seeing more and more young folk picking up cameras. there is a real revolution going on in terms of cultural production. does this digital revolution look like anything in the past? no, it does not, not even like blakploitation films, or stuff from oscar michauex's era.

i think many of we older cats are blind to the new, because we keep looking for something we can relate to, we keep expecting the new to be a direct extension of the old. unfortunately, that's just not the way it is.

the world is different, very, very different from when we were coming up and we either deal with what is or get ignored and left behind.

2. breath of life is far more successful than i had hoped it would be. we have subscribers from all over the world. we have folks from argentina to europe linking us on their websites. we're not even a month old yet. but it's growing fast and furious. in fact when we put the beta up, we had to quickly go live because the response was so strong.

yes, it takes a lot of time to do breath of life, at least it takes a lot of time to do it the way we want to do it, the way we will continue to do it. a lot of time and energy. mtume is in for the long haul. he understands. and yes, we are paying the cost to be the boss. it is not only commercial free in terms of ads, but we ain't selling nothing either (other than providing a link for those who might want to purchase a given album).

ideologically--and i'm probably going to write a short manifesto on this point--we ain't pimping nor prostituting, i.e. we neither are using it to sell something we got nor or we letting others use bol to sell something they got. the cost is negligible compared to the freedom and self-respect we gain.

but we can talk about all of that when i see you. my second point is that breath of life is only a taste of things to come. i am moving e-drum to kalamu.com and will be dropping "see the light--a neo-griot video website" some time this fall. we are taking our time and constructing solid foundations that will support an expanded superstructure, i.e. we are making it possible to grow and expand without having to change the basic underlying structure, without having to switch servers/host, without having to redesign websites.

about seven years ago i purchased the domain name "kalamu.com" and just sat on it until i was at a point where i could use it effectively. now's the time. we are in motion and we're not the only ones. there is a lot going on, a hell of a lot.

so, yeah, a community can be built, especially by those of us carving out liberated zones in cyberspace, in fact, thanks to dropping this note to you, i've just hit on the title for the neo-griot manifesto, part 2, i.e. "liberated zones in cyberspace"!

stay strong/be bold

kalamu

Breath of Life: A Conversation about Black Music (Music Blog)

* * * * *

posted 7/11/05 / posted 27 June 2008