ink me

I like ink. I even like scarring. I consider them art. But preferably more than just art; identity, (heritage and culture) too.

It's funny to think of how they progressed from something more true to something more commercial, mass market and cheap.

I don't have a tattoo myself but if I did, everything about it, would say; me.

Dying Language

...as much as they analyse how vowels are spoken and sentences are put together, they are also looking for stories, dances, songs, a culture of a people, which will disappear when the language does. A language is more than vocabulary and grammar, it is a way of thinking about the world that ties people together. It is a currency they can exchange, an identity, a community and roots...

Crossroads on RFI today aired a story on the dying language of Kim and Bom in Sierra Leone. Tucker Childs, a field linguist attempts to preserve language by first documenting it and then turning it into material of interest and therefore of use.

But Childs, almost Don Quixote style, works to save a language its speakers aren't interested in saving.

Kim and Bom die as they become socio-economically irrelevant, stigmatised and to the children, what they like to call "the monkey language."

War and peace threaten the continuance of language and traditions, they say. War destroys and isolates communities and peace prioritises one language over another in the effort to unify people with a common tongue.

But we can only hope and carry on like Childs does to save that piece of history that will help us to understand (if later on) ourselves that little bit more. Even if it takes recording the last 20 speakers where the last of a language and culture live only in anecdotes or socialising.

don't cha...

sounds, not scents, take me back - to moments in time - when either their lyrics or their beats identified with me. so when they play again, they play pregnant with memories.

and when another song is created and when we identify again, i think on how much has changed between songs; the lovers, the places, our belongings and lives...

and i miss them. not so much the items themselves (because there is always a reason for change), but the feelings, the freedoms, the innocence.

"I Apologise" by Oscar Brown Jnr.

I apologize for being black
All I am plus all I lack
Please sir, please m’am
Give me some slack
‘Cause I apologize

I apologize for being poor
For being sick and tired and sore
Since I ain’t slick
Don’t know the score
I do apologize

I apologize because I bear
Resemblance most black people share
Thick lips, flat nose, and nappy hair
Yes I apologize

I apologize for how I look
For all of the lows and blows I took
On those Lord knows I’d close the book
As I apologize

I apologize for all I gave
For letting you make me yo’ slave
And going to my early grave
Yes I apologize

I apologize for being caught
For being sold, for being bought
For being told I count for naught
Yeah I apologize

I apologize for all I’ve done
For all my toil out in the sun
Don’t want to spoil your righteous fun
So I apologize

I apologize and curse my kind
For being fooled, for being blind
For being ruled, and in your bind
Yes I apologize

I apologize and curse my feet
For being slow, for being late
Because I know it’s me you hate
Why not apologize

I apologize and tip my hat
‘Cause you so rich and free and fat
Son of a bitch, that’s where it’s at
And I apologize

Def Poetry, Season 2, Episode 4 (S02 E04) Original Air Date: 12 July 2002
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