Death to the System! Populist History & Spoken Word w/ New Orleans Kalamu ya Salaam

Listen to the People Project:
New Orleans Neo-Griot, Kalamu ya Salaam on truth & compassion in action
+ Superdome systems of thought (a poem)

Help reclaim history in the making: anyone can participate in the databased oral history project called Listen to the People, directed by New Orleans own radical historian-dj-educator-activist "neo-griot" truth-teller poet, Kalamu ya Salaam.

"I don't want Bush and Cheney and secretary of defense Rumsfeld and that guy Brown to write the official record," Kalamu explains, announcing the Listen to the People oral histories project for the Gulf South diaspora. This project will be data-based in a demographic grid representative of the diversity of New Orleans, in particular, to be made accessible to the public for non-commercial purposes so that histories, lives, understanding and relief can be better understood and served.

Many thousands of people face cold, isolation and uncertainty in the coming year; much FEMA and Red Cross housing support expires, and in addition, a lack of rebuilding progress, the strange scarcity of trailers, and a cut-throat housing market compound the shock of disaster. Not only does the "Listen to the People" project serve history, but the process of story-collecting itself is a valuable tool with which people in other places can reach out to the peoples displaced by hurricanes Katrina & Rita. "Anyone can participate," Kalamu encourages - even if you don't have a cheap tape recorder, "just reach out and talk to someone". We can embrace the humanity of others whose humanity was so denied in the Days of the Superdome.
Tape it, film it, write it down or just be human and talk with folk; this project needs good people in the rest of the states to help reach out to the displaced and connect their stories into history in the making. For more information contact Kalamu ya Salaam & the "Listen to the People" project at http://www.kalamu.com.
Kalamu ya Salaam himself explains this epic project & its meaning in the first 2/3's of the accompanying video - please help put the Word Out! The last part of the video is a "poem"... it is untitled and indescribable -just prepare for the roof to blown off your hearts and minds.

"Death to the System!"

And may this New Year be filled with friends old and new and the courage to speak and act with compassion.

(This video was recorded live at the Bowery Poetry Club for a poetry Katrina relief benefit on September 30, 2005 in New York City.)

to contact Kalamu ya Salaam: http://www.kalamu.com
more New Orleans free media: http://www.post-katrinapopulistfunk.blogspot.com