NEWS

Prominent black writer, performer to give workshop, perform at UNC

By KATIE BLIXT
UNC News Services

CHAPEL HILL -- Kalamu ya Salaam, a New Orleans poet, deejay, music producer and performer, will present a creative writing workshop and perform with his poetry and music ensemble Friday and Saturday (Nov. 1 and 2) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Both events, sponsored by the Sonja Haynes Stone Black Cultural Center at UNC, will be free and open to the public in the Frank Porter Graham Student Union off South Road.

The workshop, at 2 p.m. Friday in Room 211, will cover how to write using text, sound and lighting. Advance registration is required; contact Jocelyn Womack at 962-9001 or jocelyn_womack@unc.edu.

The performance, at 8 p.m. Saturday in Room 1505 (in the union expansion) will feature Salaam's ensemble WordBand, also from New Orleans, with two poets, a vocalist and a guitarist. The poets quote verse to music from a wide variety of styles created by Africans and African-Americans. With no set program, the performers improvise the entire show, segueing to poems or musical styles that seem to be suggested by what has gone before.

"Neo-Griot," the title of the workshop, comes from a West African word, griot, for a storyteller/historian/musician. In various types of traditional societies, the griot's status ranged from an honored member of the king's court to a marginalized commentator on the society.

The neo-griot concept deals with writers who are well-versed in the histories and current conditions of their own communities, and therefore well equipped to offer related commentary. A neo-griot also uses new forms of information technology in his or her work.

Salaam, whose name translates from Swahili as "pen of peace," produces and writes "Crescent City Sounds," a nationally syndicated, weekly radio program of New Orleans regional music carried by more than 70 radio stations. He also is a radio producer and deejay for WWOZ in New Orleans and a record producer with AFO Records, a New Orleans independent record label.

He founded NOMMO Literary Society, a New Orleans-based black writers’ workshop, and Runagate Multimedia Inc., which focuses on New Orleans and African-heritage cultures worldwide. He also moderates eDrum, an informational listserv for black writers and diverse supporters of literature worldwide.

In November 1989, Salaam produced "A Nation of Poets" for the National Black Arts Festival in Atlanta. The concert reading of poetry was recorded under Salaam’s direction and videotaped for broadcast on the Atlanta PBS affiliate. Other musical production accomplishments include a three volume record series, "The New New Orleans Music," and "Piano in E -- Solo" by Ellis Marsalis, both on the Rounder Records label.

Salaam wrote "What is Life? -- The Reclamation of the Black Blues Self" (1994, Third World Press) and edited "Word Up -- Black Poetry of the '80s from the Deep South (1990, Red Beans and Brown Rice Press), an anthology of 40 writers. He wrote seven poetry books including "The Blues Merchant" (1969), "Hofu Ni Kwenu/My Fear is For You" (1973) and "A Nation of Poets" (1989).

Salaam received a 1999 Senior Literature Fellowship from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Mass., and a 1998 Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Award. He was the 1995 Louisiana Literature Fellow.

For more information, contact Womack at jocelyn_womack@unc.edu or 962-9001.

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(Blixt is a junior journalism and mass communication major from Bermuda Run)

Contact: Jocelyn Womack, 919-962-9001, jocelyn_womack@unc.edu