"unshakeable faith in the oneness of the human family, despite 500 years of slavery, rejection, and discrimination"

On Baha'i Thought and Black America Phillipe Copeland urges us to celebrate January 1st 2008 as "the 200th anniversary of the prohibition of importing enslaved Africans into the United States."

Phillipe says...

"At the very least I encourage everyone to tell everyone about this anniversary so it does not pass unnoticed. You might even include in your New Years resolutions a resolve to redouble your efforts until racial unity and justice prevail in America."

I am endeavoring to take him up on his challenge by at least posting about it here. In keeping with my recent posting theme I even have some MORE music by Baha'i Artists to suggest in your celebrations of this event! --the music of the Columbian Baha'i artists Leonor Dely & Millero Congo. Again fabulous, so fabulous is this music. Such a high quality production. The hand of JB Eckl at work once again I discover!

And why do I link this CD to a celebration of the prohibition of the slave trade??


Here are the liner notes for the CD...
"Millero Congo wants to express our deepest thanks to our friends in the villages of Northern Colombia, Cuba, Haiti, Honduras, Guadelope, Suriname, Venezuela and Brazil for having preserved and shared with us their African sacred drumming traditions, their dignity, loving hearts, easy smiles and unshakeable faith in the oneness of the human family, despite 500 years of slavery, rejection and discrimination."

Millero Congo also strives to acheive an integration of musical genres--it seems that this is a common goal among contemporary Baha'i musicians--achieving unity in diversity through music!! In Millero Congo's words:

"We want to take Bahá’u’lláh’s Words and Spirit to everybody, through a new music style that we coined “tribalglobal”, which powerfully welds together North and South, Black and White, and, we hope, will “set the hearts of the listeners ablaze and cause their bodies to soar”."

Tribalglobal!! HOW COOL IS THAT!? I find myself quite prone to excitement these days. I do hope you will pardon me. Okay...now how is this for TRIBALGLOBAL. In searching for anything Millero Congo on YouTube I found a video someone made of the Baha'i Lotus Temple in New Delhi, India and they chose Oye Oye by Leonor Dely & Millero Congo as their sound track. Even for me, as a self-proclaimed world citizen, this juxtaposition of the tribal and the global is quite mind blowing. Check it out and fall in LOVE with the powerful sounds of African sacred drumming accompanying the sacred words of the Spirit of the Age. The translation of the Spanish is as follows:

"Magnify My cause that I may reveal unto thee the mysteries of My greatness and shine upon thee with the light of eternity. Rejoice in the gladness of thine heart, that thou mayest be worthy to meet Me and to mirror forth My beauty."