Barbadians living abroad can use this space to share experiences, search for news about what is happening on the Rock.
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2,161 responses to “Diaspora Corner”
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Tinged
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Jerry Jeff Walker a country singer died recently, he wrote the lyrics to this song but Sammy Davis Jr. owned it
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Awesome voice and great stage presence. Piece de Prophet would appreciate.
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African queen! Electrifying! Mesmerizing!
Reminds me of another South African I saw at our Jazz Festival twenty years ago. Can’t remember her name and it really annoys me.
Thanks, Hants.
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I should learn Dutch.lol
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In my lane.
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Filed under you learn something new
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It was a warm and cloudless Saturday afternoon. Officer Howard, 31 years old and on the job three years, was driving a patrol car with a rookie he’d just met that day, Officer Philip Romano. A call came over the radio: There was a disturbance at Blumstein’s department store in Harlem.They arrived to find chaos on the second floor. At its center, in a dark suit and tie and sitting still as stone in a chair, was the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., then 29. There was a letter opener jutting out of his chest. He had been signing copies of his book “Stride Toward Freedom,” about the Montgomery bus boycott, when a young woman approached and stabbed him.
An advertising executive for The Amsterdam News, a prominent Black newspaper, grabbed the woman and restrained her until a security officer took over. Stunned local leaders and politicians looked on as another woman, fearing for Dr. King’s life, reached to pull the blade out. “She was hysterical,” Officer Romano said later. The officers, knowing that the blade might have been saving Dr. King from bleeding to death, stopped her in time.Dr. King was taken to Harlem Hospital, where a team of doctors worked to pull the blade from his chest. Outside the operating room, 40 people offered to give blood. A doctor told reporters that the blade “impinged on the aorta, a blood vessel near the heart,” and that a puncture would have caused “instant death.”
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Elsewhere in the article for those unable to access it…
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Dr. King’s career and stature soared over the decade that followed that afternoon at Blumstein’s. During a speech in Memphis in 1968, he would reflect on that day.“You know, several years ago I was in New York City, autographing the first book that I had written. And while sitting there autographing books, a demented Black woman came up,” he said. “The next minute I felt something beating on my chest. Before I knew it I had been stabbed by this demented woman.”
He continued: “The X-rays revealed that the tip of the blade was on the edge of my aorta, the main artery. And once that’s punctured, you’re drowned in your own blood, that’s the end of you.“It came out in The New York Times the next morning that if I had merely sneezed, I would have died.” He repeated the phrase over and over, “If I had sneezed,” while naming the Civil Rights milestones he had accomplished since then — the lunch-counter sit-ins, the march on Selma, the “I Have a Dream” speech — and then concluded, “I’m so happy that I didn’t sneeze.”
The following day, Dr. King was shot dead
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G G continues to sing sweetly.
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Happy Independence day on de net.
https://barbadostoday.bb/2020/11/28/canada-still-marking-independence-amidst-covid-challenges/
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Watch the “we gathein” and the cynic in me was impressed despite the politicians getting their two cents in. Kudos to the organisers who put together a good show in getting Bajans from all over the world to participate and to the hosts and the entertainers including the Police Band – a very good show.
Congrats
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@Sargeant
Agree it was a good show Created a good feeling as a Bajan.
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Police Band was outstanding. First time hearing them in years.
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Hope Babados liason officers in Toronto representing.
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Russian Patriotism. There are levels to this!
Courtesy: https://t.co/YYt1HLght9 pic.twitter.com/4nuRdYJ5aE— RT (@RT_com) December 3, 2020
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Congratulations to Cultural Ambassador Dr The Most Honourable Anthony Gabby Carter and his new wife.
See front page of Barbados Today online.
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@ Weir
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Charlie Pride will be kissing a lot of Angels
RIP
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Fuh true ? Fuh real ?
Nation Update: Water Park woes at Brandon’s
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Caribbean Christmas music sweet
I ain’t nuh Christmas person. My last name Green seems appropriate because every December certain friends is call me de Grinch. I wouldn’t get into why I feel this way about Christmas because, despite how I feel, I enjoy the fact that other people get joy out it. And I tekking it easy fuh de winter solstice, so I ain’t got energy to get into the historical, economic and cultural imperialism of Christmas now.
One bright spark for me during this time though, is always Bajan and Caribbean Christmas music. I am not dreaming of a white Christmas, I doan care if grandma got run over by a
reindeer, and I am no longer moved by
Christmas shoes.
I do, however, want to ask Santa Claus if he ever comes to the ghetto and am thankful I don’t have anyone confusing me ’bout wuh I gotta gih dem fuh Christmas. If you don’t recognise the Jacob Miller and Sach Moore references you ain’t nuh real Caribbean Christmas person.
Or maybe you are a Caribbean
Christmas music newcomer. This is quite possible. The new all-Bajan radio station is introducing a new generation of Barbadians to the great music Barbados has produced, of all genres.
If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? Another way of asking the same question used to be: “If you produce a non-soca song in Barbados, did you really make a sound?”
Increasingly the any is, “Yes!”
It feels like there is a little bit of a Bajan artistic renaissance going on.
Not only in music, but in the visual arts as well. Thanks to the Internet with websites like Gineon.com, and a new tide of national consciousness, we have access to many formerly hidden gems of Barbadian creativity.
When I echo Bumba and ask, “Why can’t this Christmas feeling go on?”, I am not talking about that feeling of peace and goodwill to all, though that is good too. I am talking about the feeling of pride and energy that I feel when I hear the vibe of Christmas Caribbeanised and expressed as in Tony “ Rebel” Bailey’s “ Show Love”
or his “ My Sweet Lord.” Talk ’bout sweet! Even a Christmas dissenter like me is start to feel a sorta way.
Christmas has always felt fake, artificial and out of place to me.
Kinda like the impostor Santa that RPB caught Maizie kissing. The Christmas music from Barbados and the region brings an indigenous authenticity to the season that was missing in the days of pelting marl round the house to simulate snow. If I ever get a Christmas tree it will be a real, authentic Caribbean one, maybe a piece of stick tied up with breadfruit leaves as Madd suggested.
Nobody is ever going to mistake me for Santa Clause, the way they do Eric Lewis. Especially not the people who read Richard Hoad’s column.
He has a habit of misunderstanding or misrepresenting what I write and taking it totally out of context. But I don’t fret about it because I trust that the readers will come over to this column to read and think for themselves. And I also appreciate the right of comedians to free speech. If you like Hoad’s comedy articles, Gibzy Dan’s “ Christmas Scam” will really milk your goat. Brilliant comedic writing and social commentary right there.
But Christmas in 2020 is no joke for many people. And it is not because they’ve been naughty like Pong that they “ Ain’t Getting Naffin.”
They are not like the people in De Devil’s new song, “ Hiding from Santa Clause.” A globalised virus, an inequitable global economic system and decades of short sighted local politics have combined to lick nuff people fuh six this Christmas.
This Christmans, there is a beautiful new version of Bumba’s Christmas classic, produced by Nicholas Brancker and featuring new singers. Likewise and more than ever this Christmas feeling must also be new and renewed. It cannot be a fleeting, flighty, overly commercialised, superficial feeling any more. The Christmas feeling in this region has to be a deep, lasting and transformational feeling. A feeling of the birth of a new spirit and era as it was meant to be.
Adrian Green is a communications specialist. Email: Adriangreen14 @gmail.comSource: Nation
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Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to David and family and to all BU bloggers.
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Thanks Hants and for keeping this space active.
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Merry Christmas to all.
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Merry Christmas 🎄☃️ to all. For those who partake, the LCBO has a limited supply of Bajan rum from Foursquare.
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Merry Xmas to all, enjoy some peace and tranquility with family.
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awesome drummer lady.
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Still my favourite singer. Sweet like lugduname.
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Preparing for my Old year’s night fete with me myself and I. Entertainment by G G
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@Hants
Many house parties planned in Barbados now that covid has flared. The blogmaster will be attending one of them. Enjoy your old yearâs night and wishing you et all the best for 2021.
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Finding great music played by Bajan musicians is worth the effort.
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Happy New Year to you and yours David.
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Home alone and loving it.
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Sister and brother. Good performance
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Chuck Berry
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Ontario will be placed under a stay-at-home order, which will require everyone to remain at home with exceptions for essential purposes, like going to the grocery store or pharmacy, accessing health-care services, for exercise or for essential work.
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My daily distraction.
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