2:01BIt’s good. I’m enjoying it. It’s a lot of work.
2:03AYes.
2:04BI’m still enjoying it regardless.
2:05AVery good. Very good. Well, that’s a good attitude. That’s a positive attitude. So before we talk about African language retention, um, because you’re a political activist as well, here’s a question about Candidate for governor in the state of Florida, Andrew Gillum. What in your view is his candidacy about, um, his positions, and do you think he stands a chance to win in November?
2:33BYeah, I think he stands a good chance to win. And, um, one of the things that caught my attention, especially during the primaries, is that he won despite the fact that some, some of his opponents actually outspent him. And the reason why he won is because he was able to generate a lot of grassroots, you know, support. So what I’m seeing with him is a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of energy that somewhat reminds me of what we saw with Obama in 2008, that feeling of optimism and hope to, you know, inspiring people to want to get out and become more actively involved in the political process.
3:04AAbsolutely, absolutely. Okay, here’s a quick question about things in the Caribbean because we have so many topics to cover with you.
3:12BYes.
3:13AUm, Eddie Grant, he’s in the news as the global ambassador for Guyana Reparations Committee. Could you share with our listeners who Eddie Grant is, a little bit about reparations, and if you know anything about that committee and its objectives? Because, uh, as African descendants, we should keep up. We should know what’s going on with reparations.
3:37BYeah, well, to answer the first question about Eddie Grant, he’s a very well-known, probably the most well-known international musician that’s come out of Guyana. He’s especially known as the innovator of a genre of music that he calls ringbang. And a little bit more controversial is the fact that he claims to have invented soca. There’s a lot of people in Trinidad that disagree with that. But, so yeah, he’s part of this The Guyana Reparations Committee, and what they’ve been advocating especially is to set aside -- have it here -- 15,000 square miles of land for Afro-Guyanese as reparations for slavery. And where they’re basing this claim is because in Guyana, Amerindians have already had certain legislation passed to protect their land rights. South Africans in Ghana have decided that, you know, since their ancestors were brought to the country, forced to work on the plantations, that they need some form of reparations because their ancestors had to work all those centuries without any form of pay, any form of compensation. So the whole movement behind reparations is this idea that our ancestors worked for centuries without pay and it’s about time we get something in return for all those efforts.
4:52AAbsolutely.
4:54BIn this particular situation, they want land.
4:56AI see. So the committee has set aside some land for that purpose, or they are going to talk with the government or whoever the land --
5:04BYeah, from my understanding, they’re trying to set aside land. As I said, that’s already been done for the Amerindians in the country, you know, the native people. So there’s a precedent for that already, and that’s what they want to do as well.
5:16ADo you have any idea how much land it is?
5:20BYeah, I mentioned before, it’s 15,000 square miles. How much?
5:25A15,000 square miles. That’s good, that’s good. I think I’m gonna come to Guyana for a little reparation land there. All right, next thing, um, let’s talk a little bit about -- well, just make a comment in terms of why we should care about reparations.
5:41BWell, as I said, our ancestors worked, you know, centuries without any form of pay, any form of compensation. I think the importance of reparations is Slavery was a very traumatic, very damaging experience for African people, and we’re still in many ways recovering from that experience. I think reparations is a good way to, you know, help foster that healing process, because if I’ve inflicted a wrong on someone, it’s not enough to just apologize. I would have to do something, you know, in return. Maybe give a gift or, you know, some form of compensation, and that hasn’t been done for our people of African descent yet.
6:14AOkay, so that struggle is still going on. Now talking about Africa, um, you know, there’s a lot going on there on the continent, um, whether it’s conflict or corruption or poor governance, whatever it might be. What concerns you most about what’s going on in Africa? I mean, it’s a big, big continent.
6:33BYeah, there’s a lot.
6:34AMillions of people, but one or two things might be bubbling up.
6:38BYeah, there’s a lot of, um, a lot of issues, but I mean, the main one that I’ve been focusing on, and it’s come up on the show a couple times because we had Afarida on here as a guest, Walali on here to talk about Togo. And that’s still an issue that I’ve been writing on and speaking on because, you know, for guests who don’t remember or aren’t familiar with what’s happening in Togo, the country’s been under the rule of a dictatorship for the last 5 decades, and the people of Togo have been protesting, been struggling to create change and reform in the country to bring about democracy.
7:08BAnd something that I wrote about recently, it happened this week, The government of Saint Kitts and Nevis actually formed a deal with Togo to try to create diplomatic relationships. My issue with that is, as I said, Togo is a dictatorship, has been a dictatorship for the last 5 decades. So I think it’s very important as people of African descent in the diaspora, as we try to connect with the African continent, it’s also important to speak up against those injustices. So to me, I would have liked to see the government of Saint Kitts and Nevis actually speak out against, you know, the brutalities that’s being inflicted against the Togolese people rather than just enter into this diplomatic relationship with a government that’s been abusing human rights, the human rights of its citizens for the last 5 decades.
7:51AVery true, very true. Well, we have a lot of work to do, and by bringing these issues and these topics to the awareness of our listeners, um, I think we’re going to get more involved. We’re going to continue to get involved. Um, African retentions, let’s get to that. All right, we know there are African retentions in music and food and art and every walk of life when you think about it. But, um, what do you know about African retentions in the Caribbean?
8:22BUh, we have -- I mean, it’s interesting because growing up I was, um, you always hear our Creole language is being referred to as broken English. So in my mind I was thinking it’s just, you know, it’s not proper English, it’s poor grammar. And that’s how I looked at it and then I got into college and I started realizing what a Creole language essentially is, it’s a blend of different languages and I started to realize that the languages we speak really aren’t broken, it’s just because our ancestors were forced to have their languages taken from them and they were forced to speak English or French, whatever the language may be, but they, they still tried to hold on to the original language as much as they could. And that’s why we have, you know, creole languages and patois. Even here in the United States, we have Ebonics, Gullah. So we still see a lot of those influences in our languages.
9:09AWell, we’re going to get into a little more detail after this break, so stay tuned. You’re listening to the Steel Pan Vibes. It’s more than music radio show on 1510 AM 94.7, 99.9, 100.7 FM in Brevard County. Online at facebook.com/steelpanvibes and 1510wwbc.com. The Steel Pan Vibes radio show is brought to you by -- Asa, tell us who’s bringing the Steel Pan Vibes radio show.
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10:29ASecurity and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA and SIPC. Okay folks, we’re in the Steel Pan Vibes Spotlight with Dwayne Akio Wong Omowale. He is a Pan-Africanist, a political activist, and a law student. Uh, he’s one of our young leaders coming up, really committed to enlightening our community about the history, because, you know, history has value, and we’re going to talk about that. Uh, Dwayne, a professor, um, from University of the West Indies, Professor Emerita Maureen Warner-Lewis, she’s written extensively about Yoruba language retentions in Trinidad and the Caribbean. Um, she has several books on language retention, African language retention. And it’s, to me, it’s really interesting because you don’t hear about these things.
11:41AI had the opportunity to meet her in Jamaica many, many years ago, and, um, very quiet lady, born in Trinidad. Um, she’s taught at University of the West Indies in, um, Mona, and I believe in Nigeria she’s lived there. She speaks some of those African languages as well. But like I say, you don’t really hear about them. We don’t engage in, in, in that kind of conversation about what we speak in. We speak in the words because I’ve learned lots and lots of African words. But you don’t even know it’s African words. You popo, jigger. I mean, you’re saying these things and you don’t really know what, what do you know?
12:22AWhat, what, what do we need to know? Give us some of the examples because you’ve written about language as well in one of your books.
12:29BYeah, a little bit. I would like to find the time to write an entire book about that topic actually, but I’ve written about it a little bit and I actually brought some examples of words I’ve come across in, you know, my own research of looking at African words, not only in the Caribbean Creole languages, but I mentioned Gullah before. Gullah also has a lot of African influence and that’s a language that’s spoken here in the United States. So, um, You know, one of these words is kankasa, which, you know, the word refers to deceitful gossip.
12:57AKankasa?
12:58BKankasa, yes.
12:59AAlright, that’s Gullah?
13:01BWell, it’s, um, I don’t know if the word is in Gullah, but definitely we use it in the Caribbean. That’s an Akan word that means, as I said, deceitful gossip. Another Akan word is anansi. Anansi stories are very popular. And for those who don’t know, Anansi is a trickster spider who’s always getting himself in trouble because of his deceitful or tricky nature. In some parts of the Caribbean, he’s known as Brer Anansi. In the United States, he’s known as Aunt Nancy. Another word, rara. Rara is a Yoruba word that means noisy or loud. In Trinidad, rara refers to an instrument that makes a rattling noise. That’s why it’s called a rara. And in Haiti, Haiti, um, there’s a very popular carnival music that’s known as rara.
13:49AReally?
13:50BYeah.
13:50AI remember growing up, a rara was a little steel thing that you spun around on a stick that made that noise.
13:58BYeah, the rattling noise. That’s why it’s called the rara.
14:00AWhoa, so that is from where?
14:02BThat’s a Yoruba word.
14:04AOh wow, meaning noisy?
14:05BYeah, noisy.
14:06AOh my goodness. Go ahead, give us some more.
14:09BAnother one is kaiso. That’s actually an African term that means to go on or continue. So when you’re in the kaiso tent and they’re singing, that’s why the audience would shout kaiso, kaiso. That means go on, continue. Unna, that’s an Igbo word that means you. That word, I know it’s used in Gullah and it’s also used in Jamaican Patois as well. As I said, it means you or you all. This one is a phrase, actually a very popular phrase in the Caribbean, walk good. Meaning goodbye or farewell. And in some of the French-speaking islands like St. Lucia, they say mâché bien, which means the same thing.
14:47BAnd in West African and Central African languages, that’s actually a very popular phrase to bid someone farewell. For example, in Lingala, which is the African language that I’m most familiar with, you’d say kende or kendeke malamu, which means go good as a literal translation. Another phrase, mi wan. Instead of saying myself or me alone in Caribbean, we say mi wan. And again, this is a phrase that exists in the Lingala language. The phrase is engai moko, which means -- it literally means mi wan, but the translation into English would be myself. So for example, if I were to say tika engai moko, that would translate to leave me alone or leave me wan.
15:31BAnd the other example I wanted to mention here is not necessarily a word because African retentions, we see African retentions in terms of African, individual African words that we use, but also in grammatical structures. And you don’t see this as much, it’s there but you don’t see it as much in the English Creole languages, but it’s definitely there when you go to Haiti or St. Lucia or even Trinidad has a French Patois, you see the structure there. And one example that I brought is the phrase my brother. In French, it would be mon frère, which literally translates as my brother, but in French Creole, you say foué mwen, which would literally translate into brother my, because in the French Creole languages, you always put the possessive noun after the object, and that’s a very common trait in West African and Central African languages.
16:21BAnd to use another Lingala example. In Lingala, you say endeke na engaye, which would literally translate into brother my. So as I said, you don’t only see the African retentions in terms of individual words, but you also see it in, you know, certain grammatical structures that we use as well.
16:40AWell, you know, um, I was doing a little research myself, and, um, what we -- what I found out, because there’s a lot of African retention in Trinidad And, um, in, in, you know, just doing nothing too heavy, nothing too deep, I realized that there were many -- according to Dr. Maureen Warner Lewis in her book Trinidad Yoruba: From Mother Tongue to Memory, she asserts that many of the Africans who landed in Trinidad between 1840 and 1867 came listen to this, not as slaves but as immigrant indentured laborers, a fact supported by oral as well as documentary evidence. In a sense, they represented an exiled community, nothing like immigrants, capable of retaining aspects of their culture and their language. And you know, as you know, that, that isn’t promoted. You don’t really learn about or know about these Africans who came there, at least unless you get Maureen’s books, um, to, to fill those gaps.
17:50BYes, because, um, when we, when we speak about indentured labor, especially in the Caribbean, we tend to think of the Chinese and Indians and those groups that were brought. But, you know, many of us don’t realize that even after slavery ended, Africans are still coming to the Caribbean as indentured laborers. I know in, um, Guyana, we had a lot of those people come from countries such as Sierra Leone and Congo.
18:09AWell, it’s good that you keep us abreast of our history and the culture. Um, I just want to talk about some other words in Trinidad which our listeners might know about. They’ve come from all different languages -- Twi, Kikongo, um, Mande. Um, you know, it’s a lot of languages there, and we take a little bit of everything. For example, boo-boo. In Twi means fool or foolish, and we say don’t be a boo-boo, meaning don’t be a fool. Obia, which we think is an English word usually, um, O-B-I-Y-A, obia, just as it’s spelled, means witchcraft. Uh, Kikongo, the word kambuli, kambuli, we associate with French. But the root is really Kikombe language, meaning procession, carnivalesque parade, African.
19:08AKalinda means stick fight, is a male-generated thing. You know, we know that in Trinidad. Lota, when I growing up, you have spots on your body, on your face, it means liver spots. And there’s a place in Trinidad called Choo Choo Macaque. Now, the word macaque means monkey, so maybe that place in Trinidad has a lot of monkeys. I don’t know exactly where it is. If any of our listeners know where Choo Choo Macaque is, come on, let us know so we could share it. All right, Dwayne, tell me something. Why is, uh, what we talking about -- African languages, retention, music, island culture -- why is it useful?
19:51AWhy is it important?
19:52BI would say the main reason why it’s important is because as African people, we’ve been conditioned to believe that we don’t have a history, that we didn’t come from any place that had a culture of significance. And as I was saying earlier, in the Caribbean, we’re taught that these words that we’re using is not proper English, it’s broken English. So we’re constantly being made to feel ashamed of ourselves in a sense. I think it’s important to understand who we are and where we come from so we could take pride in these things. And a point that I make often that we don’t think about is, as I said, our Creole languages are always referred to as being broken English, broken French, but you never hear people refer to English or French as being broken Latin because, you know, those languages come from the influence of Latin and English speakers, French speakers, they understand the roots of where their languages come from and they take pride in that, but for whatever reason, as African people, we’re always made to feel feel ashamed of our languages rather than understanding that they come from the roots of where we come from, Africa.
20:50AVery true, very true. Now, um, you know, we’re on a pan show and we, we know the African roots of pan and so on. How do you think the steel pan could be used to inspire people, especially those of African descent around the world, and bring them up to their full potential? Well, um, Or can it do that?
21:12BI think it can do that because last week I was talking to someone about, just generally speaking about African history and some of the accomplishments that we’ve made as a people, and he wasn’t familiar with the history and it really inspired him to think that his ancestors were capable of achieving some of these things. And that conversation had me thinking about the steel pan and how that instrument came about and just the creativity and the brilliance it would require to take, you know, what Africans in Trinidad did, take kettles and paint cans and oil drums and make an instrument out of it. It takes a lot of creativity to look at an oil drum and say, hey, I’m going to turn this into an instrument that could play many different notes and all kinds of tunes and all of that. So I think as African people, we should look at these inventions and realize we’re people that have a lot of creativity and a lot of ingenuity. This is how we were able to create an instrument such as the steel pan.
22:04AExcellent, excellent. You know, we’re almost at the end of the interview, so, um, your book on Lingala. Yes, yes. You want to tell our listeners about it?
22:15BYes, it’s, um, the title is Yekola Lingala, which means Learn Lingala. And so it’s available on Amazon. And for anyone who’s interested in reading the book, it’s, um, the title is spelled Y-E-K-O-L-A. Lingala is L-I-N-G-A-L-A. Yekola Lingala.
22:38AAll right, folks, so, you know, we gotta support the young man. He’s in law school, he’s writing, he’s lecturing, he’s keeping our, our history and our culture in the forefront of all that he does. And on that note, I want to find out, why are you so dedicated to restoring the minds of African descendants?
23:00BBecause I think that’s the most important thing that we have to do before we can, you know, liberate ourselves and to improve the conditions that we’re in, is to restore our minds and to, as I said, look at ourselves differently from how we’re, you know, taught to typically view ourselves and to feel pride in knowing there are people that come from very rich history and a very rich culture and to never feel ashamed of that. And as I said, in knowing our history and knowing our cultures, it inspires us to reach our full potential because we realize that if our ancestors had the creativity and the brilliance to take an oil drum and make that into a steel pan, that we don’t have any limitations. You know, we could do just as well as they did and even better.
23:42AAbsolutely. And on that high note, thank you so much for coming to Spotlight. We look to bring you back again next month when you could bring us up to date. We really enjoy having you.
23:52BThank you.
23:53AOkay, well folks, that was Dwayne Akio Wong Omowale, and we’re almost out of time. But before we go, let’s get the last word. My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together. That’s Desmond Tutu. SO Trinidad Steel Band takes us home. with a 1971 release of a reggae classic, On Steel, If I Had Wings. Until next time, let your brilliance shine. Stay strong, stay focused, be encouraged. Have a safe, enjoyable weekend. May God bless you all.
24:31BThank you.
24:49AIf I had the wings like a dove, if I had the wings like a dove, I would fly, fly away, fly away and be at rest.
25:12BIf I had the wings like a dove, if I had the wings like a dove,
