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Greetings,
If you like music, and you know you do, check me out tomorrow, Saturday, August 30 from 9 AM - 11 AM est. I’ll be dj’ing on 90.3 FM, WRIU in Kingston RI, a station you can also get online. I’ll be hosting and running the music for “Voices of Women,” a share that airs weekly on Saturday mornings since everyone needs to get in touch with their feminine side.

I’ll be playing women like Aretha Franklin and Deniece Williams; Celia Cruz and Ivy Queen; Janet and Rihanna; Zap Mama and Wunmi; Santogold and MIA; Jill Scott and Corinne Bailey Rae, and much, much more. But what does WRIU sound like when Reza Rites takes over? Click on the WRIU logo below or here to download a link to hear my August 8 show.

Can you really miss this? Are you sure you don’t want to roll out of bed? Listen by tuning in to 90.3 FM, or by streaming it live online using one of the two following links: http://131.128.160.72:8000/listen.pls or http://131.128.160.72:8005/listen.pls. Or visit www.wriu.org for more info.

Sunshine and laughter,
Reza Rites

Editor’s Note: Reza Rites hosts Voices of Women again on Saturday, October 11 and Saturday, October 25.

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by Reza Corinne Clifton

(Risa Gilpin of RI Council for the Humanities, left, and Michael Van Leesten of Mount Hope Neighborhood Association and Providence Black Repertory Company, right, listen intently to performing artist, entrepreneur, and community activist Charles “Chachi” Carvalho. Photos courtesy of “Jaws,” City Beat TV, and RI Council for the Humanities. Click here to see more photos.)

PROVIDENCE, RI - If you were granted three wishes to benefit Blacks in Rhode Island what would they be? Where would you look? What issues would you focus on? This is one way of looking at the conversation recorded on the new RezaRitesRi.com podcast.

Back in the real world, there is no genie or magic bottle. But there is On the Road to Freedom, an initiative of the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities designed to celebrate and support African American heritage in RI.

On Monday August 19, with a September 1 grants deadline approaching and organizations already lining up, I asked Risa Gilpin from the Council for the Humanities to join me and several other RI community members to discuss On the Road to Freedom and to discuss Blacks in RI in general. Click here to follow and download a link to hear how that conversation sounded. Click here to access it on iTunes.

(Sound Engineer and Beatbox Studio Co-owner, “Vertygo,” stops to give recording and production assistance to the podcast participants. Click on the photo or here to listen to the conversation. Click here to access it on iTunes. )

The interview was recorded in Beat Box Studio in Pawtucket, RI and produced by me, Reza Rites, with help from Beatbox co-owner and sound engineer, Vertygo. Music on the podcast was provided by three RI-based artists: Spoken Word Poet and Hip Hop Emcee Kalyana Champlain; Spoken Word Poet Yunus Quddus; and Hip Hop Emcee Chachi Carvalho. Special thanks also to Tony Bass, “Jawz,” and City Beat TV for their work visually documenting the conversation.

Now here is a question for you - what would your three wishes be?

For more information about RI Council for the Humanities, visit www.rihumanities.org. Visit www.myspace.com/beatboxstudio for more information about Beatbox Studio. For music samples by or more information about Kalyana Champlain, Yunus Quddus, or Chachi Carvalho, visit www.myspace.com/kalyanachamplain, www.myspace.com/spittinimages or www.myspace.com/bigchach.

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Hey All!

This is Kalyana Champlain (feel free to call me Kal;) ) and I am the newest edition to RezaRitesRi.com. Needless to say I am very excited to be included on Reza’s website. Not only is she one of my closest and dearest friends, but also one of the most badass sistas I know when it comes to making moves and looking out for the community. When she first approached me she explained that her vision was to could add that “spiritual” piece (NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH RELIGION) to her site; something similar to what you used to get from Susan Taylor in Essence.

Therefore, in my pieces you will be likely to find a lot about the lessons of my own personal journeys with the intent to provide insight into the self. I try and keep them candid and welcoming to the reader, inspiring self reflection and development. Along with these you will also be dropped the occasional cultural critique, of which Ms. Rites and I are both a fan of. I hope that you enjoy my segments and that they help you on whatever journey you may be on. Power to the People- that real INTERNAL type, ya feel me!

Hope and Triumph,
Kal

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Editor’s note: See Kaly’s writing skills below in the piece called “I Am Not My Hair.” Hear her literary performance skills as one of the featured artists on the newest RezaRitesRi podcast: Freedom, Community, and Reparations in RI.

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FOR THE LADIES (AND THE GENTS WHO MAY RELATE)…. I AM NOT MY HAIR (OR MAN, OR GUCCI BAG, OR ASS, OR ANYTHING ELSE FOR THAT MATTER!)

by Kalyana Champlain

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It is the age-old game of “Good Hair Bad Hair”- and my family played it with the best of them. By 10 years old I was crying because I could not get a brush through my “naps,” and couldn’t figure out why “God” had punished me. Not only did I not have blue eyes- but I also had NIGGER HAIR. Pitiful.

Does this sound familiar? Even if you aren’t a sista who has cried these particular blues of hair, I know that there are my Caucasian girlfriends out there that can relate- because it doesn’t just have to do with hair. That one inadequacy is representative of the many we hold which, like cancer, spreads to the lips and nose and breasts and ass. Eating away at you until eventually you need a good-looking man, car, gucci bag (lower case intentional), or bottle to make you feel validated (Remember those breast enhancing pills you almost ordered out of the back of your trashy magazine?).

When I first met my friend Ray it was in my latest phase of hair acceptance: my semi natural one, if you will (Still with a little “Just for Me” but keeping my tight curls, and past the weave that had almost become a permanent attachment after 2 years of no one seeing MY stuff). I remember he served me my Dragon Pearl Lotus tea and it was on one of those days when my insecurities were BLAZIN’! So you know I was grateful when before I left he said, “I love your hair. Those wild curls you got goin’ are fabulous.” Well don’t you know this opened up the floodgates, as I confessed that I used to be ashamed of this fabulous hair. It was then that Ray, all Puerto- Italian of him, talked to me about his family’s “good hair-bad hair” game.

While he spoke he let me run my fingers through his thick locks, and it was while placing his cap back on that he said the most profound thing ever: “Girl- I am convinced that this whole hair thing is a SOUL SICKNESS.”

Abso-f*ckin’-lutely.

We are given images day in and day out that make us believe that we need implants, weave, anorexia, a man, a bottle, and material things to BE SOMEBODY- and that’s bullshit. Because you still wake up, even after all that stuff, and feel like somebody threw up on your soul- and they did.

The industry convinced you that you weren’t good enough- and it wasn’t hard- because chances are, for some, that someone in your youth had already started the dialogue that we ourselves then perpetuated like a tradition. So frankly, it proved to be one bank account booster to continue it-even if it put your spirit into debt. Nothing like capitalizing off of low self esteem-huh?

My own cancer spread to liquor and drugs and men. And let’s just say I have since been doing some serious chemotherapy on that bitch. That chemo takes place every time I decide that I am OK. Every time that I decide that what the media portrays as beautiful is not true beauty, and that what the slave masters told my long lineage of ancestors was also NOT TRUE. The chemo took place when I stopped the quick high and casual sex, and began leaving my “Self” lipstick kisses on the bathroom mirror. In fact, it began when I commenced to stop allowing the world to define and validate me.

Now I am not saying that it ain’t hard. Please. Anything new is met with a resistance as fierce as when a “colored family” attempts to move into white surbubia- but after you initiate it the battle becomes well worth it, and the temptation to revert back to those old “traditions” diminishes as you develop the new.

A common false belief of adult Children of alcoholics (ACOA) is “Looking good is everything,” but I feel this is not just limited to them. I mean, isn’t that what we were/are taught? The lesson comes constantly from some of our families, our peers, and definitely by society. Substance is mocked by imposter bags, gear, “bling”, and a whole lotta empty rhetoric that gets us hootin’ and hollerin’ every time-only to see nothing done. Ultimately we are left with sore throats, empty bank accounts and bankrupt identities. We reward the fake, punish the real, and sabotage the “Self”. When is enough, enough?

I remember the first signs of my awakening. It happened the day I walked in my house and started gyrating my hips to some funk on the radio that said the status quo was out the do’. Because ladies (and gents who may relate) - I was startin’ to see that I am one badass Brick house no matter how I wear my hair-ya heard!

So, tomorrow morning-when you wake up with those crusty eyes, kickin’ breath, and fired up hair- I want you to take some time to look in that mirror and say with conviction: “Lady (or gent) You are fabulous RIGHT NOW- Just as you are!” Because, remember, once the chemo is initiated…the cancer can stop spreading.

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