Echoes that orient us
from Groovin' Griot Hosted by OreOluwa Badaki and Azsaneé Truss
Africa in Stereo: Modernism, Music, and Pan-African Solidarity is a book that's been really influential for how we think about Diaspora on this podcast. Among other important contributions, the book uses the metaphor of echolocation (the process of orienting oneself by emitting sounds and listening to the echoes that come back) to describe diasporic experiences. On this episode, we get to talk with the book's author, Professor Tsitsi Ella Jaji, and hear the behind the scenes scoop on the music and movement experiences that led her to this work, as well as on the multimodal projects she has been pursing since the book's publication. We reflect on our time with Professor Jaji while perusing Hakim's Bookstore; credited as the first Black-owned bookstore in Philadelphia and on the East Coast. A special thanks to owner of Hakim's, Ms. Yvonne Blake, for showing us around. For our movement break, we take you to a rehearsal session for a piece OreOluwa is part of called "Echoes of the Diaspora." The piece traces rhythms from the African diaspora and will be performed by a dynamic ensemble brought together by Baba Kala Jojo. Don't forget to clap, sing, or dance along if you feel so moved! Find more episode resources here Find episode transcript here Produced & edited by OreOluwa Badaki and Azsaneé Truss with support from the Digital Futures Institute (DFI) at Teachers College, Columbia University. Check out more DFI podcasts here. Don't miss the upcoming launch of the Black and Asian Solidarity Collective's podcast with co-hosts Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz and Dr. Judy Yu! Theme music: Unrest by ELPHNT on Directory.Audio Licensed under a creative commons attribution 3.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Follow us on Instagram @groovingriot
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- 0:00 V2 GG Episode 12_Tsitsi Jaji_2.10.26
- 1:18 Introduction from the inside
- 2:47 Introduction--connecting dance, music, and poetry
- 4:53 Music as interpretive tool for poetry
- 5:53 Creativity and Discipline, Discipline of creativity
- 7:26 Multimodality of writing-- Dance poems and relation to academic work
- 9:37 OreOluwa
- 10:13 Music as entry point to Stereomodernism/first book--diversity of blackness and diversity of modalities
- 13:50 Following the music--behind the scenes of Africa in stereo
- 17:11 Movement Break
- 20:37 Echolocation --how you get to see relation is thorugh gaps and difference. and seeing connection through gaps/difference/limits
- 24:51 What are you groovin to
- 25:55 Griots informing your work
- 29:03 Blooper
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