Griot Workshop: Preserving Our Culture

I shall be leading the next Griot Workshop, on The Role of the Modern Griot, in London on the 12th of March 2013.  This workshop will be hosted by Black History Studies.  With special guest, photographer Charlie Phillips. 

I hope you will join us.  Click here for more information. 

The Griot Workshops use storytelling and creativity to help us to discover and explore our cultural inheritance.  We reinforce a positive sense of cultural identity through celebrating our African ancestors, heroes and sheroes.  

5 Bloggers Reveal How They Overcame Their Biggest Blogging Challenge

Saw this interesting blog recently:  

5 Bloggers Reveal How They Overcame Their Biggest Blogging Challenge

Black bloggers have particular experiences - and particular responsibilities.  In Secrets of the Black Bloggers, I asked bloggers how they overcame their biggest challenges, and how they achieved their blogging goals.  

Black bloggers are modern griots.  Click here to read more.  

The Black Blogger as Modern Griot

I am delighted to announce the launch of my new ebook, Secrets of the Black Bloggers.


The griot was part of an ancient oral tradition in areas of West Africa from which many of our ancestors originated.

If you have seen Roots or read the book, you will know a little bit about the griot.

The role of the griot was to remember the history and customs of the community, and to share them orally with others in the village or clan, passing them down to the next generation. So the griot was vital in helping the community to define its identity.

During slavery times, although forbidden to read or write, our ancestors still managed to record their stories – either by memory or through scribbling away in secret.

We are fortunate to have access to many of their words today.

In the 21st century, bloggers fulfil the functions of the griot. We record the lives and experiences of our people digitally. Living in the information age, we can now share our words globally.

We record the doings of our people, our lives and the events which affect us – be they local, national or global.

As February is recognized as Black History Month in the U.S.A., we are particularly called upon to recall our history, comment on it and share it.

There are always forces at work striving to eradicate our history, our memories and, in truth, our lives.

Yet many Black bloggers, by putting the news and views of the community at the forefront of our work, ensure that our history continues to remain alive. The news and opinions we blog about today are a living history, which continues to inform a larger and larger readership.

The 16 bloggers I have interviewed in Secrets of the Black Bloggers are continuing this tradition of the griot. Writing our stories. Sharing our truths.

What may be different is that we comment in ways that are unashamedly biased and opinionated. Every voice has a place, and every blogger has the freedom to express his or her point of view.

I am sure you will enjoy Secrets of the Black Bloggers as much as I have. These bloggers will entertain, inform and inspire you.

Please leave your comments below.

This blog contains hundreds of Black history resources.  Go here to check out some of my Black history blogs. 

International Sharing and Communication

It's so important that we, as people of African heritage, share information and communicate with one another. Whether we live in the UK, the U.S.A., Africa, the Caribbean or anywhere in the world, we share common experiences.

I just came across this article. A young student was banned from giving a speech about how the Eurocentic curriculum in his school had damaged him and other Black students: http://www.frostillustrated.com/full.php?sid=1265

Although this happened in the States, it could easily have happened here in Britain and it affects all of us in the Diaspora.

I also just found this link: Basic Black Griot, A Conversation with [the playwright] Wole Soyinka.

The page asks: How would you describe the relationship between Africans and African Americans? Should there be a relationship between the two cultures or is that a “feel-good” sensibility that has no basis in fact?

Check it out and leave your comments.

In my work, I make no bones. I publish work from the UK, the U.S.A., African, the Caribbean and everywhere else there are African people. We did not stop being Africans when they put us into the slave ships.

We must keep dialoguing and communicating with each other. This is vital in order for all of us to survive and thrive.

Click here to read my article on Celebrating Black Heroes and Sheroes.

Click here if you want to submit your article or story.