NGOMA

 


POEM IN RESPONSE TO THE QUESTION, WHAT KIND OF MUSIC DO YOU PLAY?



Swallow sweet sound like quinine
dog face blues
music junkies acquired taste
for flatted fifths
reggae skankin'
bubblin' bass, funk in in yo face
ghost of hendrix defiant strings
ragamuffin style
heart beat nyabinghi drum
diaspora sound for the melanin enhanced
junge dance on concrete
unboxable - improvisational
free style buck wild

rhythmically challenged culture bandits
can't steal this
music notation can't chart this
un notated sounds between the keys
it's too real for memorex
we string scientist
do voo doo mathematics
on your ear hole
funk so deep
grammy's can't judge stolen blues
from Mali to Memphis
cipher spinning on and on
bebop to hip hop
eternity's too short for this rhyme
in future time
only the righteous
can sing this song
 
 



Ngoma is a performance poet, multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter and paradigm shifter, who for over 30 years has used culture as a tool to raise sociopolitical and spiritual consciousness through work that encourages critical thought.  A former member of the SPIRIT HOUSE MOVERS AND PLAYERS with Amiri Baraka and the Contemporary Freedom Song Duo, SERIOUS BIZNESS,  Ngoma weaves poetry and song that raises contradictions and searches for a solution for a just and peaceful world. 

 

Ngoma was the Prop Slam winner of the 1997 National Poetry Slam Competition in Middletown, CT and was  published in AFRICAN VOICES MAGAZINE, LONG SHOT ANTHOLOGY, THE UNDERWOOD REVIEW, SIGNIFYIN' HARLEM REVIEW and 'BUM RUSH THE PAGE/DEF POETRY JAM ANTHOLOGY& POEMS ON THE ROAD TO PEACE (Volumes 1,2&3)-Yale Press.

 

He was featured in the PBS Spoken Word Documentary, "The Apro-Poets" with Allen Ginsberg. 
Ngoma has hosted the slam at the Dr. Martin Luther King Festival of Social and Environmental Justice Festival  (Yale University-New Haven, CT) for the past 10 years.  His newest CD release, "Ngoma's Take Out (Smokin' Spoken Word Cuisine w/Jazz-Funk-Fusion)" and his CD Movie Documentary "Ngoma: Alive and In Your Face from NYC", takes Jazz/Funk/Fusion and the Spoken Word to the next level.  His  CDs "Didgitation: Solo Didgeridoo Musik for Meditation" and "Ancient Future Meditational Musik" are must haves for those interested in altered states of consciousness.  For more info visit his website www.Ngomazworld.com

 

 

 

Copyright © 2006 by Ngoma.

Material may not be reprinted without prior written permission.

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