Home [Away From] Home

Home [Away From] Home
An Ethiopian and Eritrean Arts Festival in Oakland, CA

So excited to be a part of this brilliance brought together by Meklit Hadero, Sephora Woldu & Ellias Fullmore (in partnership with YBCA) next week in The Bay Area! Learn more about the project here, and don’t miss this absolutely free all-ages festival on Sunday, September 14th featuring musical performances by Gabriel Teodros, CopperWire, Melted States, Zena Konjo and more. There will also be a Braiding as Sculpture competition, Umbrella Painting, a Family Portrait Salon, traditional coffee served all day, food vendors and a children’s play area.

This is all taking place on Lake Merritt, next to the Gojo/Adgo we are building, which is housing events and new artwork created by the likes of Natasha Shompol, Zena Carlota Pearl Alen, Sedey Gebreyes, Esther & Noah Kibreab, Selam Bekele, Andre Jones, Joseph Gebre, Nesima Aberra and Mahader Tesfai for the entire week leading up to the festival!

I also wanted to point ya’ll to some cool interviews I did that went up over the last few months. The first one is in the July issue of Re-Volt Magazine where I talked to Big Hass in Saudi Arabia about style, influences and Hip Hop today. Before that I got to talk to Veronica Bayetti Flores at Feministing.com about redefining concepts of masculinity and home, and I also got a cool feature in the current issue of Seattle Magazine as one of "The 50 Bands Rocking Seattle Music Right Now". Much love to everyone supporting the new album! If you haven’t gotten Children Of The Dragon in your life yet, what are you waiting for? Bandcamp. iTunes.

There will be a lot more news about an even newer album with SoulChef on production very soon…

In the meantime check this out: Ferguson - Seattle Solidarity Cypher featuring EarDr.Umz the MetroGnome on production and raps from Gabriel Teodros, JDFlow, Spekulation, Zar, Ant, Orbitron, Yze & King Khazm.

See ya’ll in a minute,
- gt

"Hidmo Means Home" :: Documentary Online Now!!!

Hidmo Means Home is online now! A 15-minute documentary by Jill Irene Freidberg about our home on 20th & Jackson. This is how we do in the 206. Check it out!

http://www.seattlechannel.org/videos/video.asp?ID=3170904

Abesha.com

have you seen Abesha.com lately? it's off ze hook!

and not just cause Hendeke reviewed my album, but that's dope too. they re-vamped the whole website. and are updating it all the time. look. here's an excerpt from the 'About' page if your not already knowing. it's crazy but i met some of the dopest people in my life because of this website.

Abesha.com is an online magazine that celebrates the creative works of Eritreans and Ethiopians all over the world. Whether in our respective countries, or abroad in the Diaspora, our goal is to help the salient (and perhaps quirky) elements of our diverse cultures find a comfortable home on the web. Abesha.com publishes a colorful array of interviews, reviews, feature articles and essays to highlight the rainbow of contemporary contributions to music, film, theatre, art, dance and literature. Through this, we hope our readers experience Abesha.com as a platform to explore the differences and commonalities between the two countries, while simultaneously bridging the gap that exists between 2nd generation Diaspora, adoptees and their parents, and others.

Our world is teeming with the brilliant works of artists from a wide range of backgrounds. This diversity reflects the varied paths people from our region have taken, coupled with humanity’s need to express our thoughts, dreams and passions. Gathering and recording these works of art, through personal submissions or solicitations, creates a conduit that passes critical information from one generation to the next. Abesha.com believes this information sharing is a powerful tool that empowers youth and exposes them to exciting leaders, artists, and thinkers, while also inspiring a generation of writers to catalogue and analyze the world. It also creates a unique opportunity for Eritreans and Ethiopians, as well as other members of the Horn, to have a rounder, fuller perspective of each other, helping heal some of the wounds that have contributed to our forgetting the humanity of our closest neighbours.

gyeah!