iLL-Literacy is the s**t!

Dahlak Braithwaite, Ruby Verdiano-Ching, Adriel Luis & Nico Cary are the makeup of iLL-Literacy, a collective of emcees spoken word artists and poets.










Hopefully Me and my friend Mina will see them in SF!

Daoud Hari

I had an Amazing day so far.
I went to work around 10am in the Merrill College Office and did my work just as I should. The Provost Lourdes walks in with this tall skinny man who looked very much like my father. Lourdes introduces this mystery man to every one in the office and on the wall I see an event flyer for Daoud Hari who is speaking later on tonight to talk about the issues going on in Darfur and to discuss his book, The Translator: A tribesman's memoir of Darfur. Just before I could blink and think, Lourdes turns to me and introduces us. I said Hello and he said Hello and then she took him into the back to discuss business matters. Me, being the sly person that I am, tries to sneak my way to the back of the office, pretending that I am making copies just so that I could get one more glimpse of him. After about 30 minutes they come back to the front and Lourdes tells my Boss that she is welcome to go eat lunch with the rest of them ( including Daoud Hari) but my Boss Declines. Oh how i wish so much that they would have asked me. I then saw a white kid dressed in traditional African clothing looking all kinds of silly come in to talk with Hari. Apparently the kid won an opportunity to have lunch with him as well.

And for those of you who did not know:

Daoud Hari is a Sudanese tribesman from the Darfur region of Sudan. He has worked as a language interpreter and guide for NGO's and the press on fact-finding trips into the war-torn and dangerous Darfur area. Hari was captured and detained by the government of Sudan as a spy in August 2006 along with Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Paul Salopek and their Chadian driver Abdulraham Anu (aka "Ali"). During their months-long ordeal all three men were severely beaten and deprived. Upon their successful release - after an international outcry from US diplomats, the US military, Bono and even the Pope - Hari moved to the US where be began work on his memoirs to help bring further world attention to the plight of his people and country. In 2008 he published his memoirs under the title The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur.

Daoud Hari is also known as Suleiman Abakar Moussa. As he explains in his memoir, this is a false identity he created to appear as a citizen of Chad in order that he might work in the Sudanese refugee camps in Chad as an interpreter (by Chad law, only Chadian citizens are allowed to work).

He will be speaking tonight at 6:30 in Classroom Unit 2 which is around the same time as Open Mic, I guess we all have to make some choices but I have a feeling this one wont be too hard to make. I strongly encourage everyone to go.

Hip Hop Honors...It was all A Dream!

Was Nice....
Cypress Hill, Too Short, Naughty By Nature, Slick Rick, and De La Soul were among the 2008 Honorees.







I was excited to see all of them honestly, I wish Slick Rick would have done one more song but Ghostface Killed and Biz Markie Killed it with their rendition of Lodi Dodi. De La Soul was cool, I really liked them. I never really noticed how bad Hip Hop could sound live. Cypress Hill gave me timeless memories about my hometown of Los Angeles and how they get down. It is still hard for me to believe that Too Shorts parents were both accountants, just listening to his songs you would think that they were just a bunch of pimps and hoes or something. In some performances I could see that The Roots may have been the house band. Morgan was hella funny and the tribute to Issac Hayes was extremely heartwarming. I love the rendition of Mary J Blige's song that Estelle covered for the Isaac Hayes performance as well, and Cee-Lo is always my man. Dj Prince Paul and Q-tip had my eye the whole night. Me and My Housemate could not help but to bust out in laughter every time the camera captured the audience singing to the songs in such an intense in serious manner, as if they had written the song. Also they repeatedly kept showing these black dudes with these ugly jacked up flat tops which could have been mistaken for that Slim Jim guy in the Beef jerky commercials.But all good things come to an end, right after the show ended I had to step back into my world that I live in and get back to the never ending, thick readers that is my homework. It was nice while it lasted.

Here I Go Again!

It's been a while since I spoke some truth on this blog. School has started and I am feeling completely overwhelmed. Due to my laziness to go Downtown and buy my books for class I am already behind. Being a Junior is nothing like I thought it would be, of course I knew I would have more responsibilities but I dont need the bull that goes a long with it. As for friends, I would say they are non-existent. There are some people that I am really close to here but It seems like High school all over again. Don't get me wrong there are so many good people here and many of them I would like to keep in contact with after college but it seems like most people here are living for the now instead of keeping in mind their four-year plans ( if you know what I mean).

On another note...
My housemates are tight and we get a long great sometimes
Looking up internships for the summer already, I learned my lesson!
In every one of my classes I have a 10 page paper due.Nice!!!
Pictures should be up later!