Sankofa is an Akan word that means, "We must go back and reclaim our past so we can move forward; so we understand why and how we came to be who we are today." (from Sankofa.com)

That's a lot of meaning for one word. It's appropriate, considering that this brief conference was packed with meaning. While much of that meaning was placed within an African-American context, the wisdom presented could help shape any culture.

When I first suggested that I wanted to attend this conference, my wife gave me a strange look. She gave me an even stranger look when I asked if she would be joining me. This was understandable. After all, why would two European Americans (Italian and Irish/German no less) want to attend a conference on Black music and history? That question, and that perception (which was understandable given the apparent exclusivity of the event) were the exact reasons why I wanted to go.

Besides, looking at the roster of activities on the University web site, and considering myself a student of world music, how could I not go? Here's a summary of what was advertised for day two of the conference (we could not make it to the first day):

Dr. Patricia Reid-Merritt (keynote) - Black Music, Black Life, Black Culture: No Room for Separation. This presentation focused on the history of Black music and its inseparable relationship with Black life and culture. It examined music as one of the highest expressions of self-determination and creativity in African and African American culture.

Social Action Theatre - an improvisational theatre troupe from Philadelphia under the direction of Harold Brooks, Artistic Director. "Love, Hate, Joy, and Pain (LHJP)" utilizes audience participation to help create trust and cross-cultural understanding among participants. This helps build the capacity of audience members to address numerous themes and/or situations that exist in the lives of young people.

The Liberian Traditional Dance Troupe brings lasting joy and heartfelt memories to its audiences through professionally executed and artistically beautiful dances, songs, drama and plays. Embodying the spirit of the Liberian people, the artists convey powerful messages of life, love, peace, honor, unity, justice, hard work, equality, grief, discipline and praise.

Tsidii Le Loka - Known for her role of "Rafkiki" in the Broadway musical "The Lion King", Tsidii Le Loka is scheduled to present a workshop on artistic training and theater. In addition to being a world-recognized artist, she is also an award winning composer, having contributed to "The Lion King On Broadway" which received the Grammy Award for best cast recording.

I grew up listening to groups like Run DMC and these days appreciate artists like Al Green. Most of the white bands that I grew up listening to were inspired from the Blues (Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Black Sabbath). Despite my private study and performance of Blues, I know there is so much more to learn about Black music.

I once worked with an African American drummer, and to this day I think the communication breakdown between us was in part due to our mutual ignorance of each other's cultural reference points. I hoped this conference would provide some tools to work with if I ever found myself in that situation again.

Over the years, I've had a lot of exposure to Indian music and culture - and that's where much of my listening tends to focus these days. I knew something of the cultural makeup of Africa from a recent Cultural Anthropology class at BU, but I considered my understanding of African music to be fairly weak compared to other styles.

With some prodding, my wife agreed to go along. When we arrived, we were surprised to see sparse attendance. Other music conferences that I've attended have usually had at least 500 people. There were possibly 250 people at Sankofa, many of which appeared to be students from the Williamsport area.

The color divide was clear. I might pass for mulatto, but there's no questioning that Audra is white. There was another European American woman who appeared to be a reporter, and later in the day I saw a couple white men walking around. By the time we left the conference, we appeared to be the only two white people. As Audra observed, this was one of the first times we were the minority, and while it felt strange, we both thought it was a good thing.

Writer and educator Dr. Patricia Reid-Merritt gave a keynote address like none I had ever seen. The presentation began with some audience participation of finger snapping and hand clapping to a beat provided by the drummer. This set the stage for a discussion peppered by drumming and audio snippets.

Using a PowerPoint presentation, a tape recorder and accompanied by Mr. James Gilliam on djembe, she gave a very compressed history of Black music. She started with the polyrhythmic and participatory origins of music in Africa, and took us through Blues and the Ragtime era all the way to modern Rap.

The keynote alone would have been enough to think about for the day, as it provided a valuable framework in which one could view African American music. One of the key points in the keynote speech that would be echoed in other discussions was that Africans told stories through their music and the music was accepted as a true form of communication, not just entertainment.

In Dr. Reid-Merritt's description of how music changed in the 70s, she described the music of the Black community as part of a larger movement and experience. People were moving toward a more "feel good" approach. Music as meaning began to become extinct in America, and profit and "success" started to take over.

After the keynote, and just before lunch, we changed rooms. What we thought was going to be a vocal lesson or singing workshop with vocalist, actress and composer Tsiddi Le Loka actually turned out to be a discussion period instead. After the announcer touted Tsiddi's accomplishments, Tsiddi was quick to downplay them and encouraged the group to ask questions. The next half-hour was filled with meaningful insights into music, culture and social responsibility, and can best be summed up by three key ideas:

Relentlessness - artists and non-artists alike must be relentless in their determination to better themselves and speak for their people. While much of the discussion obviously centered on the Black community, I think anyone would resonate with her story of hope.

It's not about you - Each one of us represents the expectations of our families and those that came before. The perspective of tradition and ancestor worship, so distant from our minds in the modern world, was a real eye opener. How many of us have it so much better than our parents did? Our successes are their successes. We inherit what they've fought for - whether it was a better job, or a better life free from oppression.

Music is more than entertainment - While often entertaining, music can be so much more, and should be.

After Tsiddi's moving discussion, a light lunch was served in a ballroom setting. Tables were called in a particular order, with the Williamsport students first, and BU students last. This gave us an opportunity to gauge the number of people who attended from the university, and it appeared to be a small number. It is not clear if this was due to a low number of African American's attending the university, or if there were just not many students who felt they needed to attend.

Audra and I sat alone at a table for quite a while until Dr. Reid-Merritt and Mr. Gilliam sat down. During lunch, Love Hate Joy Pain (LHJP) - a four-student project from the Social Action Theatre - held a workshop that continued the discussions from the keynote and Tsiddi's talk.

According to the conference materials, Social Action Theatre's goal is "to confront controversial issues openly" and they did just that. It wasn't long before Artistic Director Harold Brooks and his four students had the audience discussing some key issues for Black music (and music in general). Mr. Brooks started with a series of questions that included "What's wrong with rap today?" to which the audience responded with a variety of answers about the way women are portrayed. Other answers included "white rappers" and, quite simply as one student put it, "nothing."

In one skit, each of the LHJP students acted out a combination of rhythm and lyric in body language. It was a perfect display of the syncopation, improvisation and polyrhythmic musical elements discussed in the keynote. The three women and one man eventually grew to a cacophony of voices that was halted when Mr. Brooks gave the signal. Other skits served as starting points for a discussion about the content of much of today's popular Black music, and how language has been used.

One actress, taking the role of a mother who listens to her daughter's music, expressed her love/hate feelings about the lyrics and content of the music, making some comparisons to older generations of music and artists who were also controversial for their time. The point of the exercise seemed to be geared toward fostering the ability to evaluate the good and bad aspects of music.

Another skit depicted two college students in the ever-present conflict of musical tastes that often occurs in dorm rooms everywhere. One student liked a song that was fast, almost incomprehensible, and degrading to women, while the other student was arguing for more sensible lyrics and a more recognizable melody. They explored many of the issues that arise when we share musical space with others.

As the discussion progressed, a generational split was very clear. The adults in the audience had a very passionate feeling about how the word "nigger" should be used. The younger generation seemed to think that Black pop culture's use of the word was OK. This led to the perennial debate over whether whites should use the word while rapping or if it was OK for them to quote other people's songs using that same language. (On this point I must make clear that there was never any doubt about the word in my mind. It is not to be used by whites - aside from academically as in this article - regardless of how popular culture adopts it.)

The LHJP presentation concluded with a witty and elegant rap by one of the female students in the troupe (unfortunately he program did not list their names, so I am unable to supply them here.)

During lunch we ran into Carrol Arnold, the outgoing director of the Multicultural Center at Bloomsburg University. She thanked us for attending, and encouraged us to stay for dinner. We were not sure if we could stay because we had obligations that evening. After considering the time, we agreed that we would at least stay for dinner, but we were going to miss the evening performance.

Just before lunch ended, a vocal quartet comprised of BU students entertained with several Doo-wop numbers, including a hilarious advertising slogan for McDonalds called "I'm Hungry". If the response from the audience is any indication, you'll be hearing their song real soon.

After lunch, Audra and I had to decide which of several simultaneous workshops we were going to attend. Though the drumming presentation by Liberian Cultural Dance Troupe (LCDT) looked interesting, and Dr. Reid-Merritt's workshop looked good, we decided on the storytelling presentation that was also being held by LCDT.

Two gentlemen, one of whom was Mr. Gbahtuo Combaye (the program didn't give the other man's name) gave a storytelling workshop that included call and response songs and a djembe. The first story was about Spider, a greedy character meant to represent man's greediness. The story tells how Spider, invited to attend two annual feasts, tried to attend both. The second story was about one brother's clever plan to outwit some dancing demons that captured his twin brother.

The audience participation and the richness of the West African rhythms and languages was enjoyable. The drums from Kormassa Bobo's workshop in the Multicultural Center (just down the hall from the storytelling) gave a larger tribal background to the stories, as if we were in a Liberian community.

After the storytelling we caught the end of a Dr. Reid-Merritt's workshop which featured hand clapping. Dinner was served around 6:00 and featured catfish, chicken, cornbread, collard greens, macaroni & cheese and various cakes. We were happy that we could stay for dinner, but unfortunately had to miss the final performance held by members of all the participating organizations.

Summary
There were several levels to this experience. I've been to many music conferences, but this was the first one that focused on culture. The intercultural experience of this conference was more important to me than the musical focus, and it was relieving to leave behind the networking and business approach that often clouds your mind at such events. Sankofa was also an exploration of my own attitudes and questions about the place of music as product or an instrument of social change and an expression of the enjoyment of life.

Listening to the speakers and attendees voice their opinions on Black music made me feel good about the fact that people were addressing the issues.
There is awareness, at least in the Black community, that all is not well with the entertainment industry. My only criticism of these talks is that the notion of responsibility - of listeners and music buyers - was not fully explored. During the keynote and the question and answer of the "Love Hate Joy Pain" presentation, we talked about artist exploitation past and present. Perhaps there was not enough time to explore corporate greed and consumerism - perhaps those topics were purposely left for another forum.

In Dr. Reid-Merritt's keynote she described the place that musicians held in African culture and described it as one of reverence and respect. As an artist myself, I was comforted by the fact that people were discussing these issues and that, through Black culture, the music industry might turn out to be better off for everyone. What surprised me most was that the community at this conference was very self critical of their own music, particularly rap.

I've often struggled with questions about art vs. product. This conference solidified my commitment to not let product get in the way of art, and to not let the artistic life get the best of a focused and purposeful approach to music.

Like most conferences, we were asked to complete a workshop and conference evaluation form. My main criticisms were the low attendance and the apparent exclusivity of the event. What little press I saw beforehand appeared to indicate the event was only for African Americans. Those who took less time to investigate the conference missed out on a great experience.

From what I can gather from the Internet, Sankofa conferences in the past did not have music as the main focus. Last year I had a scheduling conflict, but honestly, I don't know if I would have attended without the musical element. Perhaps we really didn't belong there. We certainly hope there wasn't a perception that we were "crashing the party".

At first Audra was unsure about attending, but afterward she thanked me for encouraging her to attend. Being a teacher, and having taught in Harrisburg where there was a larger percentage of African American students, Audra said that this conference was a positive experience that she could use to better understand her role as a teacher of all children.

Readers will notice that this article is devoid of any pictures. I had my camera, but I didn't take any pictures because I was trying to observe the event as much as possible "in the moment." I also couldn't find any graphic links on the web after the conference, similar to the experience of trying to find information before the conference. While the Sankofa conference web page on BU's site was informative, it was hard to locate and near impossible to find after the event. Better visibility may help future versions of this conference.

Dr. Patricia Reid-Merritt

http://www.afroone.org/

Social Action Theatre

Sankofa: Sankofa.com

Bloomsburg University Office of Multicultural Affairs

Storytelling:
http://www.prairienet.org/custorytellingguild/stgresources.html

http://www.liberian-connection.com/parable.html