Telling our stories: how the African griot tradition continues through modern art and media

By Aria Brent, AFRO Employees Author, abrent@afro.com

Black historical past is greater than oppression and struggling. 

All through Black historical past we now have seen moments of pleasure, liberation and innovation. Although conventional, White media might not have precisely recorded Black historical past, griots have been defending and telling the tales of African individuals and their descendants— lengthy earlier than 1619. Preserving Black tales alive has been important to the event and perseverance of the African American individuals.

Traditionally often called poets, musicians and storytellers, griots have upheld the custom of oral historical past whereas additionally serving to it evolve. 

“My fundamental medium to inform my story is writing and music.To inform my story as an African American from the south, I choose  speaking and speaking amongst individuals who have related tales to me in addition to individuals who couldn’t even think about my story,” acknowledged Charity Hicks, a modern-day griot. 

Hicks is a author and musical artist and is usually impressed by her previous and current experiences as a Black southerner. She is a local of Mississippi. With the magnolia state’s deep historical past of racism, she values her work in literature and makes use of it as a solution to evangelize the Black expertise.

“We didn’t all the time have it,” stated Hicks, talking on literature and time intervals in American historical past the place it was unlawful and presumably lethal for a Black individuals to be caught studying and writing. “We’ve taken benefit of it and used it to doc our historical past. Moreover, the language we’ve been taught isn’t ours— so we’ve taken the language we had been taught  and made it our personal through AAVE (African American Vernacular English).” 

Hicks famous that it’s completely vital for Black tales to be instructed by Black individuals. It was this angle that led to her participation within the Hulu sequence, “The 1619 Mission,” a mini-documentary that delves deep into the Black story— a subject a lot deeper than simply slavery. 

“We’re in a really valuable time in life the place individuals are keen to listen to tales from bizarre individuals. I’m saying bizarre as in you don’t must be checked out as distinctive from a societal standpoint to be heard now,” stated Hicks. “Everybody has an opportunity to inform their tales and I feel that’s essential.”  

To some the dialogue of race relations, slavery and the civil rights motion appear to be turning into taboo topics that aren’t classroom acceptable. 

“We reside in a day and age the place they’re always making an attempt to maneuver our historical past to the facet— they’re eradicating it from training— which is impolite and incorrect. Historical past appears to be changing into or made to really feel much less essential,” stated Ryan Garry, a multidisciplinary artist from Ridgeland, Miss.

Garry and Hicks are associates and fashionable artists within the Jackson, Miss. arts scene. Garry co-owns “Vibe Studio,” which was used as a set throughout the filming of “The 1619 Mission.”

Whereas attending Jackson State College each Garry and Hicks had been part of a efficiency primarily based arts collective centered on carrying on the traditions of West African griots. By music, spoken phrase and visible artwork,Outspoken Arts Collective is sustaining Black historical past, all of the whereas changing into part of it.

Utilizing revolutionary know-how, blended with traditions of previous, new methods to protect and seize historical past have appeared. Whether or not it’s a nonetheless picture or a video, the visible capturing of Black tales and Black individuals has allowed us to recollect simply how far eliminated some occasions aren’t.

At this time’s modern-day griots are on social media. Within the age of the Metaverse, tales that had been as soon as thought-about boring have grow to be newsworthy as soon as once more as algorithms permit info to succeed in a audience. Along with this, social media has allowed for occasions to be captured and shared  in actual time through livestreams. This has let the Black neighborhood doc our successes and even share tragedies as they occur. It’s helped us inform our fact.

Hicks stated “sankofa” is vital to her work as a griot. 

Sankofa is a Ghanaian image that represents the assumption that “it isn’t taboo to fetch what’s liable to being left behind, ” in keeping with the Carter G.Woodson Heart for Interracial Training at Berea School in Berea, Ky. By nature, the work of the griot is intertwined with the thought of sankofa and returning to your roots. 

“​​It’s important that we inform the narratives,” stated Hicks. “If we don’t inform it, it will get watered down, twisted and instructed in a model that’s not factual or worse— they don’t get instructed in any respect.”