Introducing Azizi's New Cultural Blog

Subject: Introducing Azizi's New Cultural Blog
From: Azizi
Date: 27 Mar 13 - 08:15 AM

Around about 10:00 two nights ago [March 25, 2013] I got this great idea to start a new blog. Yes, I'm still going to publish posts on the Pancocojams blog that I started in 2011. But it occurred to me that what the world needed, or -at least what I needed- was a blog that was more focused on certain types of African and African Diaspora cultural music.

Although these words didn't come quite this clearly to me all at once, by about 11:30 PM, I had conceptualized that what I wanted to do was start a blog that "showcases examples of processionals, dances, parades, children's singing games, and other movement arts from African American culture and from other Black & Brown cultures throughout the world."

Thank goodness starting a blog on Google is actually quite easy. The main difficulty that I had with this start-another-blog idea was what to call that blog. I eventually coined the word "zumalala" [pronounced zoo-mah-la-lah]. For the story about that name, check out this post on my pancocojams blog: http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/03/zoom-on-this-how-i-came-to-name-my-new.html.

When you name something you can claim it. So I claimed that name zumalala by filling out the Google start-a-new-blog form. After doing so, I got the link for that new blogspot: http://pancocojams.blogspot.com and then I was on a roll. Long before that same time the next night, I had published my first five blog posts.

The first post focuses on African American church nurses and usher board processionals.

The second & third post focus on Brazilian Jongo dance & music ("Jongo" being an important source of the Samba).

The fourth post focuses on the Jamaican children's ring game entitled 24 boxes.

And the fifth post focuses on the similarities between the body stance, attitudes, and some of the movements shown in a video of Zulu (South African) female dancers and a stomp & shake cheerleading squad from the historically African American university (Winston-Salem State University) in North Carolina.

The hyperlinks to each of those zumalala posts are found in the pancocojams post given above.

I transcribed the words to the Jamaican children's ring that is featured in zumbalala's fourth post and I'll share them in my next post to this thread, as I haven't found them elsewhere on the internet.

If you're interested in the subject matter that I've conceptualized as the focus of that blog, zoom over to zumalala.

Thanks in advance.

Best wishes,

Azizi Powell

Subject: RE: Introducing Azizi's New Cultural Blog
From: Azizi
Date: 27 Mar 13 - 08:24 AM

Here's the words to the Jamaican ring game 24 Boxes:

There she* goes around the ring
Around the ring
Around the ring
And if you see her way over yonder
Tell her you love her
And give her 24 boxes
She can do the 24 boxes
Up and down the 24 boxes

*Change to he [him] when a boy is the middle person.
-snip-

This ring game is performed by a group of Jamaican girls and boys in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Qklj8KPkEg which was published on YouTube by ochoriostube in 2009.

The performance of 24 boxes is very similar to the performances of the contemporary American singing games "Little Sally Walker [was walking down the street] and "(Here we go) ride that Pony". For information about, examples of, and links to those singing games, visit that zumalala post & click the links that are provided in that post.

Of course, in time, those two singing games will also be featured on zumalala.

Subject: RE: Introducing Azizi's New Cultural Blog
From: Mr Happy
Date: 27 Mar 13 - 09:20 AM

Hey Azizi!

Long time!

You might like give this a listen, a South African guy's take on the apartheid days :http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01rg22v/Trevor_Noah_The_Racist/

Subject: RE: Introducing Azizi's New Cultural Blog
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Mar 13 - 09:40 AM

Hi, Azizi! I'll be dropping by!

Subject: RE: Introducing Azizi's New Cultural Blog
From: GUEST,Azizi
Date: 27 Mar 13 - 10:09 AM

Greetings, Mr. Happy.

Thanks for the link. Trevor Noah's very witty & has great comedic skills. I enjoyed most of that radio show.

Subject: RE: Introducing Azizi's New Cultural Blog
From: GUEST,Azizi
Date: 27 Mar 13 - 10:10 AM

Hey, Rapparee!

Good to "hear" from you. Thanks for checking out my blog/s.

Subject: RE: Introducing Azizi's New Cultural Blog
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 27 Mar 13 - 11:08 AM

That sound very interesting, even though I am an outsider.

Subject: RE: Introducing Azizi's New Cultural Blog
From: katlaughing
Date: 27 Mar 13 - 06:57 PM

good work, Azizi, it's nice to see you back! I'll be visiting more. thanks,

luvyakat

Subject: RE: Introducing Azizi's New Cultural Blog
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 27 Mar 13 - 07:06 PM

I have recommended it to my girlfriend whose father is Congolese. She has not had a lot of opportunity to connect with the traditions of her father's ascendants and collaterals.

Subject: RE: Introducing Azizi's New Cultural Blog
From: Bert
Date: 27 Mar 13 - 11:13 PM

Great!

Subject: RE: Introducing Azizi's New Cultural Blog
From: gnu
Date: 28 Mar 13 - 06:51 AM

Good on ya. Only had time to read a bit and have a short listen to the first tune. I'll be back.

Subject: RE: Introducing Azizi's New Cultural Blog
From: GUEST,Azizi
Date: 28 Mar 13 - 11:31 AM

Thanks to all of you.

I appreciate your support.

Richard, no man [or woman] is an outsider when it comes to music. :o)

Subject: RE: Introducing Azizi's New Cultural Blog
From: Azizi
Date: 29 Mar 13 - 08:25 PM

It's two days since I started this thread and I realize that I gave the link to my first cultural blog and not my new one.

The link for the new blog is http://zumalala.blogspot.com

Some here may be interested in the topic of the post that I published today.

That post provides information, comments, and an example of a Gospel line dance song.

Gospel line dance music is a relatively recent sub-genre of African American Gospel music. I'd date the inception of Gospel line dancing to around 1997 when Kirk Franklin recorded his hit Gospel record "Stomp". Like other line dance songs, much of or all of the lyrics to Gospel line dance records are consist of the singer "calling out" the steps for that particular dance (for instance "turn to the left/turn to the right/ now stomp!/ now back it up). The religious references are the only difference between Gospel line dance songs & other line dance songs. I mentioned the instructional dance songs, but Gospel line dancing is also done to Gospel music that wasn't specifically recorded for the purpose of line dancing and therefore don't include instructional dance step lyrics.

Given that in the United States dancing to religious music has LONG been considered an anathema, the idea of Gospel line dancing is a very significant change.

Here's the link to that post http://zumalala.blogspot.com/2013/03/dana-divine-gospel-slide-video-lyrics.html which showcase the 2007 example of Gospel line dance song by Dana Divine entitled "Gospel Slide". I also included my transcription of that song since I couldn't find one online.

Now you can really zoom over to check out zumalala. :o)

Best wishes,

Azizi Powell

Subject: RE: Introducing Azizi's New Cultural Blog
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 30 Mar 13 - 08:16 AM

You rock.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle


What a name your parents stuck you with...consult a French dictionary for "A zizi."

Subject: RE: Introducing Azizi's New Cultural Blog
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 30 Mar 13 - 03:09 PM

Azizi,
Visted both your sites.
Big Mistake.
I got into the "I'll just watch one more clip and then I'll quit" trap.
I bookmarked them and I'll be back.

I remember watching American Bandstand and doing the stroll back in the day, but of course I had no idea where it really came from.

I was also a Presbyterian back in the day. I think my Baptist friends were both appalled and envious that we were allowed dance in what we called the church's fellowship hall.

A friend tells this story. Her dad called her one night and said, "It's finally happened. The Southern Baptists have banned sex." "My God, Daddy," she replied, "why did they do that?" "It's too much like dancing," said her father.

Russ (Permanent GUEST)

Subject: RE: Introducing Azizi's New Cultural Blog
From: Azizi
Date: 30 Mar 13 - 08:48 PM

Thanks, Russ.

I appreciate your visit to my blogs and I also appreciate your comment.

Best wishes,

Azizi

Subject: RE: Introducing Azizi's New Cultural Blog
From: Stringsinger
Date: 31 Mar 13 - 05:53 PM

Azizi, the first stirrings of American jazz was in Congo Square in New Orleans where people came to dance, play percussion and party. It would be interesting to me to find out what that music sounded like.

Your blog is terrific and well-needed since not enough research has been done in African-American song and dance and its roots in other countries. I'm sure you have researched
Zora Neale Hurston and her contribution to African-American folklore. Her favorite song
was "John Henry" and it plays like a dance tune. There is an antecedent, "The Circumcision
Ritual from Barbira" which has a similar tune. The movement of John Henry's "shaker" as well as the wielding of the nine pound hammer has been choreographed by modern interpretive dancers.

Tracing back the tunes and dances to other parts of the world is an important task.

As I mentioned to you before, Bessie Jones and Bess Hawes book "Step It Down" is a classic document of Georgia Sea Island music.

Some further research needs to be done on the Menhaden fishing community off the coast of Virginia. It's a small fish that used to be used for industrial purposes and the African-American fishermen had their own songs. It well might be the cultural root of "Micheal Row The Boat Ashore". It needs exploring.

Tony Thomas has done great research on the evolution of the "Black banjo", the actual
players of the instrument that was disseminated throughout the Southern U.S. as a dance instrument.

Black banjo

The African-American song was really never separated from the dance forms. These ring games and dance forms need to be documented and made to be reproduced.

The song "Jump Down, Turn Around, Pick a Bale of Cotton" is a dance tune which I've seen done. It might even be the precursor of "Jump Jim Crow" which was popularized by a white minstrel showman, "Daddy" Rice. Much of the dance music and banjo was taken from actual slave players by white showmen and popularized in the same way the Sam Phillips appropriated rhythm and blues (race records) for Elvis Presley and others on his Sun record label.

You may or may not know that the Broadway "folk opera" Porgy and Bess was written in Folly Beach, N.C. in the summer when the Gershwins and DuBose Heyward spent time researching the "praise houses" in the black community. George was reputed to have joined in with the local singer/dancers.

Keep up the good work. It's well needed.

Subject: RE: Introducing Azizi's New Cultural Blog
From: GUEST,azizi
Date: 01 Apr 13 - 08:29 AM

Thank you for your comment, Stringsinger.

I appreciate the information that you shared.

Thanks in particular for mentioning the Menhaden fishing community I'd not heard of this community before. Also, thanks in particular for including a link to that Black banjo post. I favorited that blog.

Best wishes, Azizi

Subject: RE: Introducing Azizi's New Cultural Blog
From: GUEST,Azizi
Date: 01 Apr 13 - 09:36 AM

UPDATE:

I changed my new cultural blog's name to zumalayah http://zumalayah.blogspot.comfor a couple of reasons (mostly because there was a wordpress blog with that other name). But "zumalayah" rhymes with the "jambalayah", the name of one of my cultural blogs.* So it's all good.

*My other cultural website is Cocojams, and my other cultural blog is pancocojams. Each of these sites have the overarching goal of sharing information and examples of music, dance, and other customs from African American culture, African culture, and other cultures of the African Diaspora.

Thanks for your support.