What is Kwanzaa?

Kwanzaa begins December 26th, the day after Christmas. The name Kwanzaa derives from the phrase “matunda ya kwanza” which means “first fruits." This refers to the tradition of African harvest celebrations, in which the first fruits of the harvest were brought and celebrated. Biblically giving of first fruits, means to bring forth your absolute best! Kwanza is a weeklong celebration from Dec. 26^th to January 1st that was started by Dr. Maulana Karenga in 1966 in response to the violent riots in which black people were fighting for equality. Kwanzaa combines various aspects of harvest celebrations from tribes such as the Ashanti and the Zulu. It is a celebration honoring African culture within the African-American community. Blacks within the U.S., The African Diaspora and Canada celebrate this holiday

Kwanzaa has seven participles, which are the following. Each night a candle is lit on the kinara to celebrate a principle:

Unity: Umoja (oo–MO–jah)To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.

Self-determination: Kujichagulia (koo–gee–cha–goo–LEE–yah)To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.

Collective Work and Responsibility: Ujima (oo–GEE–mah)To build and maintain our community together and make our brother's and sister's problems our problems and to solve them together.

Cooperative Economics: Ujamaa (oo–JAH–mah)To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.

Purpose: Nia (nee–YAH)To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.

Creativity: Kuumba (koo–OOM–bah)To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.

Faith: Imani (ee–MAH–nee)
To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

On Dec 31st a big feast is held, called a karamu.

Beyonce's New Album, Just Ratchet

Hey yall, ok I know, I know the Bey fans will most likely not see eye to eye with me on this one, but that's ok. I'm entitled to my opinion. After watching the 30 second previews of Beyonce's newly released videos I am disappointed by the level of ratchetness she is presenting! And the titles of her songs...Pretty Hurts, Blow, Jealous, and Drunk in Love....where Jay Z raps "Eat the cake Ana Mae, Eat the cake Ana Mae." Ummm yeah....that is a reference to domestic violence, not cute, even if it was supposed to be a metaphor. In Pretty Hurts Bey sings and demonstrates that it's tough to maintain a certain body image and outward image that everyone expects to see and Jealous relates to folks being jealous, ex-boyfriends, etc. One of her songs called "Flawless" insinuates that she put no work into looked so beautiful and simply "woke up like this." Her videos and music overall is becoming even more sexual, more grim, more wanna be hood..but my question is WHY? She even has a song called Haunted. And people love it....they are eating it up without any question. Today's what so many call "musical geniuses" and what I'd rather call musical "puppets" are sending a message and I challenge people to think beyond "Oh it's just mastermind creativity." Even creativity strives to portray a message, but I'm not getting any positive messages from this music or the visuals that go along with it.

Beyonce fans love her as she is, I don't think she needs to compete and/or combine elements of all pop stars like Rihanna (who has been portraying that creepy sexuality and insanity for some years now. The most recent example being her What Now video), Madonna, and Miley Cyrus' short boy, blond haircut and twerking. Music celebrities now seem to be focused on producing "whatever keeps the people talking," which was exactly Miley Cyrus' explanation in her interview with Alan Carr Chatty Man. And correction Miley...no everyone who write publishes their thoughts on the computer is doing it anonymously honey. You can Google Me baby, lol. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x14qcad_miley-cyrus-on-alan-carr-chatty-man-13th-september_music

Just like celebrities make the argument that "it takes courage: to do what I do, I argue that it also takes courage to stand up and speak and and say no...what you are doing on national tv and showing my kids is not right!

Beats speakers in all the Music Videos

Hey guys,

For those of you who watch music videos...have you noticed lately that in all of the big celebrity's music videos the Beats speakers appear? Fro example you can see them in two of Miley Cyrus' vids, Brittany Spears, Beyonce, Nicki Minaj, and Brit Smith's videos just to name a very few. Very excellent advertising I must say. The Beats speakers and headphones are produced by Dr. Dre, so no wonder everyone in the music industry is helping to sell them. I'm going to do more research about them and see what else I can dig up.