SOUNDTRACK: ELISAPIE-GlobalFEST Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #136/156 (January 14, 2021).
GlobalFEST is an annual event, held in New York City, in which bands from all over the world have an opportunity to showcase their music to an American audience. I’ve never been, and it sounds a little exhausting, but it also sounds really fun.
The Tiny Desk is teaming up with globalFEST this year for a thrilling virtual music festival: Tiny Desk Meets globalFEST. The online fest includes four nights of concerts featuring 16 bands from all over the world.
Given the pandemic’s challenges and the hardening of international borders, NPR Music and globalFEST is moving from the nightclub to your screen of choice and sharing this festival with the world. Each night, we’ll present four artists in intimate settings (often behind desks donning globes), and it’s all hosted by African superstar Angélique Kidjo, who performed at the inaugural edition of globalFEST in 2004.
The second artist of the fourth and final night is First Nations singer Elisapie.
Elisapie returns to Tiny Desk for a show-stopping performance from Montreal, with the disco globe of our dreams helping to light her set. Elisapie, in both her songs and work, is a resounding advocate of First Nations culture in Canada. In her set, she harnesses an incredible energy with electrifying, emotive vocals.
I had really enjoyed Elisapie’s previous Tiny desk. I found her to be a less extreme, but no less dramatic performer than Tanya Tagaq. Her band is outstanding creating all kinds of textures to surround her voice.
The first song is “Qanniuguma.” It starts quietly with a single ringing guitar note from Jean-Sébastien Williams and little taps of percussion from Robbie Kuster. Joshua Toal adds some quiet bass as the guitar plays some higher notes. After a minute Elisapie starts singing. Another 30 seconds later the drums get louder and Jason Sharp start sprinkling in some raw bass saxophone. As the song grows more intense, Elisapie adds some breathing and chanting–throat singing. Things quiet down and then build again with the sax and the guitar soloing as the drums and bass keep things steady
Behind her you can see Mont Royal, which has a lot of history.
The second song “Wolves Don’t Live by the Rules” is “a small song” but very meaningful. It starts in a similar way with ringing notes an thumping drums. She sings this one in English and it feels like a much more conventional sounding song. It’s pretty quiet but the instrumental breaks adds huge guitar chords and the end is really loud.
Introducing the final song, “Arnaq” (which means Woman) she says women tend to forget that we have a lot of strength and we should celebrate it loud and clear. This one opens with a loud raw sliding guitar like an early PJ Harvey song. The song’s chorus builds with an “ah ya ya ya” as the instruments add chunky noises–scratches from the guitar and skronks from the sax and all kinds of precious. It’s a cool noise fest, although the guitar could be a smidge louder.
I’d really like to see her live.
[READ: February 25, 2021] March Book 2
Book Two picks up John Lewis’ life.
Like the first, it starts with Lewis’ preparations for the inauguration of Barack Obama.
Then it flashes back. Lewis was in college and had moved to Nashville where the growing student movement was gaining strength.
The visuals are even more striking in this book. The panels of the white woman pouring water and then soap (or flour) on the quietly sitting Black diners and then hosing them down is really arresting. As is the sequence (which is almost entirely black) of a room full of peaceful protestors being locked in a room when the fumigator was set off.
I couldn’t believe that a man couldn’t really left us there to die. Were we not human to him?
Then next round of protesta was at the segregated movie theaters. I love that they chose the Ten Commandments to protest (the irony was lost on the whites in Alabama). The Black protesters would line up and would be refused seating. Hundreds of people who would then get back on line and be refused seating again. Whites would throw things at them and hurl abuse at them.
Then, as happens more than once in this book, and obviously still happens now, a policeman struck the first blow.
When they showed up the next day the police were there to arrest twenty six protesters. Lewis was in jail on his 21st birthday.
In 1960 the Supreme Court outlawed segregation on buses and in terminals. Some members of the newly formed Core Congress of Racial Equality set out on the Freedom Ride in 1961. The men and women (Black and white) would be known as Freedom Riders.
Their policy was simple.
If there is an arrest we will accept that arrest; if there is violence we will accept that violence without responding in kind. We will not pay fines because we feel that by paying money to a segregated state we would help to perpetuate segregation.
The ride was fine until they got to the bus station. Then there was violence. Even the white men and women who stood up for the Black men and women were beaten. While the cops sat by and watched. One of the busses was even firebombed.
The second bus made it to Birmingham, Alabama where the chief of police Eugene Bull Connor promised the Ku Klux Klan fifteen minutes with the bus before he’d make any arrest.
But that did not stop the movement. Despite the obvious dangers they continued their protests.
When the bus finally ended its route in Montgomery, Alabama, a mob was waiting in ambush. There was astonishing violence–as much that a graphic novel of this nature can show. It wasn’t until Alabama’s public safety director came in and told them no one would be killed there that the carnage ended. The final scene shows bodies littering the road.
There were more and more arrests, with the victims doing their best to stay positive and non violent. They sang all the time in prison to annoy the guards. The guards took everything from them, even their mattresses. Finally they were sent to the Mississippi state penitentiary–21,000 acres of bullwhip-wielding guards and human bondage. There were no reporters so almost anything was okay.
Despite the constant setbacks, the movement was getting bigger and stronger. While John was in jail, new blood had come into the SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee). People who was not opposed to violence. The old guard tried to weed them out, but it was not easy.
There quotes from all kinds of whtesuepremassitc in power Governor Ross Barrett who said “god was the original segregationist since he put the negro in africa.” January 14, 1963 at the Alabama state capital George Wallace said “segregation today segregation tomorrow segregation forever.”
Young Black children wanted to get involved and so the marched with the adults. At one of the marches nearly 1,000 of Birmingham’s Black children were arrested. It was an embarrassment for the city. But Connor did not like to be embarrassed so instead of arrests he set up the infamous scene of men women and children being attacked by hoses and dogs.
It looked like footage from a war.
As part of the SNCC, John Lewis met with President John Kennedy. He had had some dealings with Robert Kennedy who was not antagonistic to them but was not willing to do much to help them either. But maybe having the President’s ear would make a difference. One of the nicer moments comes when Robert Kennedy apologizes to him for not taking the threats seriously enough. He says that Lewis was right all along. When does a politician ever apologize?
Then on July 2, 1963. Lewis and the rest of the Big Six met. They were: A. Philip Randolph, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Ray Wilkins (of the NAACP) Jim Farmer (of CORE), and Whitney (Young of the Urban League). There was also Bayard Rustin who was well regarded. But he was gay and they didn’t want that to be used against them as well.
Malcolm X makes a cameo He was quoted as saying “Whatever Black folks do … I’m going to be there cause that’s where I belong.”
August 28, 1963, The day that Martin Luther King Jr spoke on the Washington Mall, John Lewis also spoke and his entire speech is on display in the book. The march on Washington was a huge moment Mahalia Jackson, Odetta, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and Peter Paul & Mary were all there.
The way his speech is illustrated is wonderful (Powell’s art is amazing). The intensity as the speech builds up is conveyed perfectly.
Wake up America! Wake up!
Things are moving in the right direction. Until a Baptist Church is blown up in Birmingham.
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