The Kuumba fest celebrates culture, body and soul
by Tamar Wilner
For the last 13 years, the Kuumba Festival has pioneered the mission of raising Knoxville's awareness of African-American arts and culture. As the importance of that mission slowly dawns on its backers, Kuumba has expanded. After nine years of relying primarily on local and regional talent, the festival began hosting international cultural dancers. National musical acts followed soon after. This year, visitors will be treated to such big name acts as rapper Slick Rick, soul/funkster Cee-Lo Green, R&B/funk group Zapp, reggae act Ever-G & Biggs and blues legend Little Milton.
According to administrative director Nkechi Ajanaku, the national artists are attracted to East Tennessee's reputation for "Southern comfort."
"We treat our artists well," she says, noting that hospitality is a welcome change for those working in the cold-hearted music biz. "[Treating artists well] you get back, because they do great shows for us."
The festival has attracted as many as 15,000 people in the past, making it the largest African-American arts celebration in East Tennessee. Johnson City holds its own African-American festival, but that doesn't even come close.
"We're kind of the only thing going in East Tennessee, for sure," Ajanaku says.
And while bigger cities like Nashville and Atlanta offer their own Kuumba counterparts, those cities still send visitors to Knoxville's festival in busloads. Atlanta and Knoxville share their cultural wealth in a few other ways: the Africa Sogaye dancers, originally of Guinea, now come to us from Atlanta. They spend three weeks before the Knoxville festival training the local Kuumba Watoto troup of 5- to 18-year-olds. Kuumba Watoto will perform July 26 and 27 at the National Black Arts Festival in Atlanta before returning to perform at Kuumba.
While African-American culture is diverse, and it may be difficult to summarize what that culture is, Ajanaku hopes visitors will leave with an understanding of what the culture is not. "It's not savagery, it's not blacks doing what blacks do... It's not rap music, it's not music from the ghetto," says Ajanaku, and her message is substantiated by most of Kuumba's offerings, from the drum and dance groups to gospel music, from spoken word to the statues, paintings, clothes and ceramics of the African Marketplace.
Overall, Kuumba seems to be as much about cultural similarities as it is about cultural differences.
"It's just really trying to set up a [forum] so we start coming together and looking at those commonalities, to reach another place in our evolution as humans," Ajanaku says.
Schedule of Events
(partial listing)
Thursday, June 27
Taste of Africa at KMA. $10
 Throughout—Art exhibit featuring local artist Talib Ennaemba
5 p.m. Taste of African Buffet featuring Yawah's Catering. Try yassa, a Senegalese dish with chicken, lemon and curry.
5 p.m. Rocky Wynder performs jazz in the courtyard.
6 p.m. Kuumba Watoto Drum and Dance Company
6:30 p.m. Kuumba Awards for support of the creative community (Recipients: Mayor Ashe, Cornerstone Foundation president Laurens Tullock, school board member Sam Anderson, KACP president Tom Ingram and marketing vice-president Carol Evans, First Tennessee's Mitch Adams and Tennessee Arts Commission's Lisa Hester)
7:30 p.m. Guest artist Mystic Meditations provides an eclectic musical mix.
Friday, June 28
9 a.m.-3 p.m. Youth Theatre Festival at Knoxville College's Colston Center. For more information call Zakiyya Modeste, 524-6628.
6 p.m. Junkanu Traditional West African parade, plus some cars. Starts at the corner of Willow and Central, ends at the Platinum club.
8 p.m. Doors open at the Platinum. D.J. Jazzy and fish fry in the parking lot.
9 p.m. Temple Yard plays reggae at the Platinum. $5. 21+
Saturday, June 29
Chilhowee Park (Beamon St. Entrance & Prosser Rd./Zoo Side). $5. Children 6 and under free
All day: World Children's Village featuring the PowerWheels Kidz Obstacle Course; African/Edenic Heritage Museum
11:30 Opening Ceremonies with the African All-Star Drum Corps at Main Stage
12:30-9:30 African Market Place
3 p.m. Spoken Word & Hip-Hop Fest MC'd by Zakiyya Modeste
6 p.m. Kuumba Watoto and Africa Sogaye
7 p.m. Ever-G & Biggs with Nattie Lovejoys. Reggae.
Born in Jamaica, Ever-G has spent the last two decades playing in such reggae groups as Unconquered People, Positive Vibration and D-KGB. He performs with Biggs, a self-taught musician from Washington, D.C. The two played together in The Bottom Lion and Sonz of the Most High, and recorded an album, "World Peace."
7 p.m. Slick Rick & Cee-Lo Green (Knoxville's Fluid Engineerz opens.)
Sporting a gold chain and eye patch, Slick Rick helped define hip-hop with his platinum album The Great Adventures of Slick Rick, which produced the singles "Teenage Love," "Mona Lisa" and "Children's Story."
Cee-Lo Green, a member of the defunct Atlanta rap group Goodie Mob, leans more toward soul and funk on his debut album Cee-Lo Green and His Perfect Imperfections.
10 p.m. at Fairbanks Roasting Room: Kuumba Festival After-Party with Slick Rick and Cee-Lo. $7 before 11 p.m. $10 thereafter. Dress code. Call 633-8515 for more info.
Sunday, June 30
Chilhowee Park. $5. Children 12 and under free
All day events same as June 29
12:30-8:30 p.m. African Market Place
3 p.m. Gospel in the Park—Hosted by Commissioner Diane Jordan
3 p.m. D.J. Night Train memorializes Larry "Sweetback" Styles and Jimmy Who a.k.a. Clark J.
6:30 p.m. Cheryl Renee Blues Band: Memorial to Sarah Jordan
7:30 p.m. Little Milton
This soul-inflected bluesman has earned his place in the Blues Hall of Fame through skill as a singer, songwriter, guitarist and band leader. Mississippi Delta-born and Greenville-bred, Milton achieved chart success with songs like "We're Gonna Make It," "Grits Ain't Groceries," "Who's Cheating Who?" and "The Blues is Alright."
7:30 p.m. Zapp
R&B/funk group promises "More Bounce to the Ounce" when you hit the "Dance Floor." It bears noting that in 1999 percussionist Larry Troutman killed his brother, frontman Roger Troutman, before turning the gun on himself. So expect some, er, substitutions.
For more information, call 525-0961 or see www.korrnet.org/aaaa.
June 27, 2002 * Vol. 12, No. 26
© 2002 Metro Pulse
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