Please welcome Joel Griffith, who’s working with our US Community Partnerships team this summer. Joel—a graduate student at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, California—will be contributing to the ONE blog on occasion. Welcome, Joel!
Great music, great coffee…for a great purpose. Last Thursday night, ONE hosted award winning American singer-songwriter Anna Gilbert for a concert at Ebenezers Coffeehouse in downtown Washington, DC. Anna—a long-time ONE friend and supporter—and her talented band (including her husband Koa) entertained the crowd with some beautiful songs and inspiring words, encouraging everyone to use their voice to speak out against global poverty.
While in town, Anna and her husband also met with their congressmen from Oregon (where she was born and raised) and Senator Inouye from Hawaii (where he husband is from) to thank them for their work and to encourage their continued support on critical issues of extreme poverty and disease. Before heading back to the West Coast, Anna Gilbert made a special message about her trip exclusivley for ONE members, so make sure to check it out below.
To hear more of Anna’s music and to see where she’ll be playing next (including Hawaii on July 31 and August 1, visit http://www.myspace.com/annagilbert.
Today ONE’s President and CEO David Lane is featured on The Daily Beast’s “Buzz Board”– a feature in which they solicit recommendations in music, movies, and the arts. For David’s piece, he chose to write about Freshlyground:
Formed in 2002 in South Africa, Freshlyground is made up of seven diverse musicians from South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, fronted by the diminutive yet dynamic Zolani Mahola. Beyond reaching superstardom across Africa, Freshlyground has sold out several tours in Europe and last year toured North America for the first time, making the band one of a handful of South African acts to have a successful career both internationally and at home. Their success is largely due to their widely-appealing, easy-to-like sound: a feel-good fusion of rock, jazz and Afro-pop.
If you’re anywhere near Sun City, South Africa this Saturday, I hope you can join me for the Motherland Tour, an amazing concert featuring Yvonne Chaka Chaka, Lira and Sipho “Hotstix” Mabuze.
Yvonne, who serves as a global ambassador for Roll Back Malaria, 46664, and UNICEF, travelled last month to Ghana and Sierra Leone with a group of American women to gain a deeper understanding of the development challenges facing sub-Saharan Africa. Yvonne will be using the Motherland Tour to highlight her work fighting HIV/AIDS, malaria, and child mortality. The concert kicks off a summit in Sun City of African first ladies, health ministers, and other key players in the improvement of child and maternal health on the continent.
I’ll post further updates from the concert and the conference, but in the meantime if you are interested in the concert you can buy tickets here. Let me know in the comments if you’ll be there!
ONE is turning to its community of artists, friends, members and staff for their top picks on creative works that have enhanced their knowledge and understanding of the richness of African culture and arts. Today we have a recommendation from Vusi Mahlasela:
I recently found myself jamming in a cozy living room in North London with the amazing and pioneering Vieux Farka Toure, son of the late legendary Malian guitarist Ali Farka Toure. Although many of you have probably heard the famed record that Ali made with Ry Cooder, Talking Timbuktu, I hadn’t heard that beautiful recording til that night. After a big meal together with some new friends who Vieux kindly introduced me to, we sat around their living room and popped on the Talking Timbuktu album and passed the guitar around with the CD spinning in the background as our guide and our soundtrack.
Vieux showed me some techniques he had learned from his father and we ended up jamming for several hours. Vieux speaks French and my French is very limited (to about three words). That night, however, we were able to communicate through music. Thanks to Ali Farka Toure for creating such a unique sound; thanks to Mali for producing such amazing musicians; and thanks to Vieux for passing along the tradition, making his own inspired new sound, and for teaching me to talk the blues.
Singer/song writer extraordinaire Sara Groves released the second video for her new disc “Fireflies and Songs.” In the video for the song “Twice as Good” Troy Groves appears throughout wearing his ONE Edun shirt.
Sara has long had a heart for Africa, traveling to Rwanda in 2005 and 2009. She sponsored a child from Gisanga, Rwanda through Food for the Hungry. She actively supports the human rights agency International Justice Mission. Both Food for the Hungry and IJM are ONE Partners.
The video for “Twice as Good” comes out of her time in Rwanda as well. Sara relates about the song:
In Rwanda they say, “You better have four good friends,” because the ambulance in Rwanda is a cot carried by four men. So if you get hurt, you better have four friends that are willing to forego a day’s wages and usually help pitch in on your medical costs. I brought back statuettes, which represent that from Rwanda for each of my ‘go-to’ girlfriends. We each have one in our home. Often, one of us will say, “It’s my turn in the cot.” Christa Wells, an amazing singer/songwriter from NC, came up with the line ‘half as hard and twice as good’ and I kind of built the song around that.
Check out the video:
Many thanks to Sara, Troy and the entire band!
P.S. If you want to see and hear more, check out this video for the Sara’s song “I Saw What I Saw” inspired by her time in Rwanda.
On Thursday evening ONE volunteers Brian Thomas and Sarah Wonders had the opportunity to get involved with the 3 Rivers Film Festival in Pittsburgh at the premier of Youssou N’dour: I Bring What I Love. This music documentary, directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, opens with Senegalese activist and musician Youssou N’dour singing his anthem to Africa, Wake Up, in which he calls on the continent to unify itself. We follow him on tour at home and abroad, witnessing the power and charisma behind the music – with highlights by N’Dour, Peter Gabriel, Bono, Moustapha Mbaye, Kabou Guèye and Fathi Salama.
At the height of his career, N’dour composed Egypt, a deeply spiritual album dedicated to a more tolerant view of his Islam faith. It was embraced by Western audiences (and won a Grammy) but ignited serious religious controversy in his homeland. This inspiring film continues the call for tolerance.
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