Spoken Word
The Spoken Word is generative:
LET THERE BE LIGHT.
Abracadia Voices:
Word Sound and Power Signify the Hour
Mission of the spoken word
All creatures have their voice, their song, in the harmony of creation, but only humans speak words.
The spoken word is how we are formed and transformed as social agents. Language and story are how we engage with our world and how we transform it.
Spoken word is used by Abracadia to dispel the paralysing hypnosis of dystopia by announcing actual grounds for real utopian hope.
It was Paulo Freire who taught that utopian hope does not mean unrealistic or unworkable, it means saying what you will and will not stand for. Doing that seizes the initiative from those who can only speak for the status quo, robbing them of the ball.
Denouncing dystopian despair and announcing utopian hope changes us from passive receivers to active agents. When we act out or live what we announce our transformation and our learning are actualised.
A Bit Of Soul:
The Abracadia Podcast
Abracadia’s spoken word offering starts with David and the Bit of Soul Podcast. This is where we set the tone and reach out to interact with the Abracadia community through:
Real time commentaries on world events
David’s reflections on cultures and values
Behind the scenes on the production of Abracadia music, writing, spoken word and performance art
Guest speakers and interviews with people active in the global struggle for Ubuntu
Abracadia’s Bit Of Soul podcast is your entry to a community of discourse that is definitively changing our world, inverting the slavers’ triangle to become a trap for them, and heralding a new era of post-colonial integrity and prosperity in Africa that is set to transform the human experience on our planet, and that can free us all.
Your contribution to discussions helps build the future of our world. Together, our dialogues help to define what it means to be human in this time of tumultuous change.
Words of the oppressed, our jamming conversations are the raggle-taggle second-liners’ wail and roll, the Mardi Gras Indians running with soul, Nyabinghi heartbeat stroking a drum, revellers revealers jammin with the Klezmer spielers. THAT is the origin and power-source of Jazz, Hip-Hop, Reggae and the rest. And THAT is the vibe of the Bit Of Soul Podcast.
Songs of Judah will remind us, our ideals can make a life sublime; so come along and leave behind us footprints in the sands of time with David and A Bit Of Soul Podcast. (Respect to Dillinger ‘Kick Like Lightening’.)
Tune in to help advance Ubuntu consciousness right where you are sitting now. The old world order is all played out, come and help build the new with A Bit Of Soul.
The Songtree: The Audiobook
Many people like to relax with an audiobook, and ‘The Songtree’ lends itself especially well to such a medium as it is written to be read and told in a storytelling flow.
Usually the preserve of heavily funded corporate backed projects, an audiobook is rare to find in an independent project.
Reciting, recording, editing and engineering; months of work. Appreciation to Max Ayinde of Loa Frequency Sounds for making it possible.
In the audiobook of ‘The Songtree’ narrative, location and music are enhanced through sound environments and sound technology, providing a truly immersive experience of ‘The Songtree’ for the listener.
Musical Narrations
Musical narrations are used in ‘The Songtree’ novel to introduce the chapters or solos.
Scanning the QR code printed at the top of each chapter in the book reveals the brief musical narration introducing that chapter.
Uniquely, the novel's 8 chapters are matched with 8 tunes on 'TreeSongs: The Album', which in turn form the backing tracks for the 8 brief narrations at the top of the book chapters.
The first solo is introduced by a stirring drum piece, evoking the still source of the heart-strong pulse of the hills of Mother Africa, calling the people to assemble for an important message.
Then it’s off on a merry go whirl with ‘Blue Maroon’, as our story begins, deep in the bush of rural Jamaica and deep in criminal urban million dollar squalor.
This is the first novel ever to include a musical audio element in this way. We couldn’t help it. It had to be done. We hope you enjoy it.
Abracadia Voices: The people’s platform
As the old Blues goes: You better come on into my kitchen, because it is going to be raining outdooors.
Abracadia opens the door and offers the floor to other spoken word artists whose work combines literary and musical elements too and who are looking to break through with something more urgent than average.
Be you rapper, storyteller, comic, raconteur, commentator, teacher, people’s preacher, lecturer or poet; if you speak it with passion and music and style, and you’re pushing for positive peaceable social justice, Abracadia invites you to collaborate in greening this whole yard.
If you prefer Abracadia’s kitchen climate to the rain outdoors and you feel you too have some sunshine to spread, Abracadia reaches out a kindred hand to say let’s cook. All kindred voices are a welcome part of Abracadia’s symbiotic cultural eco-system.
Like alchemy, we turn voice into a way of real life. That is Jazz. It’s an active agent of historical change in the world, not a background wash of colour.
Just knock.