The Urban Shamans of Germantown.
On Maplewood Mall, the historic strip in Germantown, Philadelphia, a member of the Urban Shamans stands outside the Gria Cafe and explains what the place is and what the band has been doing since 2004.
The cafe first. “This place right here, which is the Gria Cafe, was home to many small businesses. This was a wellness facility.” Inside there are products for aroma health, hygiene, appetite, and herbs anybody can use; the kind of small Black-owned space that holds a neighbourhood up.
Then the band, which came out of community work rather than a rehearsal room. “It was an idea that we came up with during community work. We were working in a community in various capacities, developing programs for youth, community development,” and the question was what else could carry the message to people. He had just started drumming; his brother Levi was further along. They took the name because it fit the life they were living: “we were brothers who were in tune to our spiritual wellness.”
The method has not changed. “we took the message to the street we use the music as a tool to activate people to bring people together all people from all walks of lives.” Two minutes, filmed by Maceo in Germantown.