Black Bird Press News & Review

Muhammida El Muhajir is a marvelous melanin maven of entertainment marketing and brand communications. Her list of accomplishments includes entertainers, trendsetters and brand development from Dubai to Fifth Avenue. She has the essence of entrepreneurial innovation in her veins. A well-traveled and outspoken arbiter of Black culture, she’s not one to shy away from a challenge. But who knew the challenges awaiting when she decided to relocate to Ghana and focus on African tech startups?

EBONY: Your career has been steeped in the sports and the music industry with a tenure at Nike. Forging entertainment relationships, you’ve dabbled with film production creating music videos and your award-winning documentary, Hip-Hop The New World Order, and the founding of your publicity and marketing agency, Sun in Leo NY, where you’ve worked with Pharrell, Alicia Keys and Snoop Dogg. How did you find your way into a tech fellowship with Meltwater in Ghana?

Muhammida El Muhajir: I came to Ghana at the end of 2013 for a film screening. I really liked the vibe in Ghana and decided to look for opportunities for staying. I’ve been curious about tech and found out about the fellowship. I applied and that’s how I got involved.

EBONY: Just like that?

MEM: Well, I’ve been visiting Africa since I was young. So it wasn’t like I wasn’t familiar with the landscape. I feel like Ghana has really grown since I was last here over 10 years ago, and it was time. I was looking to live and work in Africa. I feel like now is the time. The climate at home, the race relations, it is all very tense. It’s at an all-time high. People don’t realize how that affects you.
EBONY: Was that a factor for you?

MEM: OMG are you kidding? People underestimate how that affects you psychologically or emotionally when you see those stories or it happens to you. That really has a deep effect. Imagine how much more productive we could be if we didn’t have to be marching or tweeting about Black Lives Matter, or how much brain time could be dedicated to building or growing something if we didn’t have to deal with race-related matters?
Seeing these stories, I’m like, I don’t want to go back home. I don’t want my child to have to deal with that. It’s a huge factor.

I’ve been traveling to Africa since I was 15. Coming here was not a new thing. Africa has lots of struggles. Africa has 99 problems, and guess what? Race is not one. I don’t want to deal with that right now. It’s liberating. I can walk into any upscale hotel, restaurant or shop and no one is looking at me sideways, giving me crazy treatment just because of my skin color. I like that feeling.

These are the brilliant people of Ghana. They are starting businesses. They are hiring people. It’s happening. The process is working. The businesses are working. It’s happening and having an impact.

EBONY: Can you describe the working transition from New York to Accra?

MEM: I work with a lot of young entrepreneurs, so the energy is always fast paced—though fast paced in a Ghanaian sense. They are a different breed of entrepreneurs. It is not like most places. They are more measured thinkers, more focused and safer. They like to take time and are more conservative with their decisions. I’m able to really hone my skills. Everything I’ve been doing for entertainment and brands applies here and more to tech, because I’m helping to build new companies.

EBONY: What’s the basic premise of the school?

MEM: Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology is currently a two-year program and will transition into a one-year program. The thinking is that the next Facebook or Google could come from Africa, but it needs to be nurtured and cultivated. We welcome those futurists into the school and go through a rigorous program where they learn the business side and tech side of being an entrepreneur.
There are professors for tech coding and finance. Everything you would need to learn.
At the end of the program, students form a group and pitch their ideas to Meltwater.
If Meltwater likes the idea, the company invests. The designated group then comes into the incubator and we provide business development.

EBONY: And your role in the fellowship?

MEM: I’m a fellow in the incubator. I’m their relationship manager. I help them to do everything they need to get their relationships going. This is the fourth year of the incubator. The school has been around for eight years. The different companies in the incubator are very diverse. There are eight to 10 companies in total. The ones I work with are all consumer-related companies.

EBONY: Can you describe the startups you mentor?

MEM: I work with SUBAapp.com, which is a photo-sharing app. At a party or an event, you can upload your pictures to a group album. We are connected by the event. No need for Facebook. It’s for everyone. It recently partnered with Ghanaian Celebrity Reggie Rockstone and will be soft launching soon.
LetiArts.com is an interactive video game and digital comics company. MeQasa.com is an online real estate classified. You can buy and sell real estate online. All amazing people.

EBONY: How much is tuition, and can anyone apply or only Ghanaians?

MEM: It’s a free program. Open to Ghanaians and last year Nigerians; next year there will be Kenyans.

EBONY: Why the decision to open it up to other countries?

MEM: They discovered that there is more interest in the program and Africa needs this.

EBONY: Kenya is widely known as the Silicon Safari and South Africa has a great deal of techies. Nigeria is notoriously tech savvy. Why did Meltwater choose Ghana to launch this program? Is the founder Ghanaian?

MEM: Jorn [Lyseggen] is Korean, but he grew up in Norway. He already had business in Africa and wanted to give back, but not a charity. Why not train the future leaders of a country? You know how it is with the brain drain. Most smart Africans go abroad. This program gives them an opportunity to stay at home. His team did the research and decided to start here, in Ghana.

And it is working. If they didn’t come here, the talent in this program would go abroad. These are the brilliant people of Ghana. They are starting businesses. They are hiring people. It’s happening. The process is working. The businesses are working. It’s happening and having an impact.

EBONY: But this isn’t just an altruistic endeavor. This is business, right?

MEM: Meltwater gets a small percentage if the program participants start a company.
If they come to the incubator and get investment, then Meltwater becomes a shareholder of their company.

EBONY: What are your four tips to give someone embarking on a startup in Africa?

MEM: One, as a business owner, there are things I would say to anyone anywhere. Have a clear vision of where the ultimate goal is for your company. Is it short-term success or long-term success? Once you have that, your business is in a better position. This is something I lacked myself initially. I didn’t know my long and short-term goals.

Two: really understand your target consumer. For example, when creating the website, are the elements you’re adding to the website benefitting the consumer? Is it something the consumer wants? It’s important to get in the mind of your target customer.

Three: build your brand. You don’t need a lot of money to do it. What is your brand about and how do you relay that message to your customers. Really building a strong brand. When they see your logo, it should trigger something in their mind about your product.

Four: Your team is so important. Who is on your squad? Why are you choosing them? Should they be on your team? What value are they building? Are there others who are better suited? What is their value to the team, and are they upholding their positions?

I work with many teams. Each company in the program is composed of a team. I see it all the time, that one person who isn’t doing what they need to do to contribute. I’ve been here for a year. There are some teams where I still don’t know what that one person does. That should not be.

Building a strong business team is like building a strong sports team. You need a strong goalie or a strong forward. They are on your team, not because they are a friend or a relative, but because they serve a purpose. But these tips apply to business across the board, especially if you are a small company, and even more so in Africa.

EBONY: What’s the situation for women in the African Tech Space?

MEM: Women are definitely a minority in the tech industry wherever you go. There’s a definite push here to get more women in voted. There were years where there was only one woman here. This past session there were 10 out of the 50. There was a crazy number like 2% women in Silicon Valley, and it is probably the same in Africa. I feel it’s happening, it’s growing. I work with at least three women who have started their own tech company. The change is real.

According to Islamic literary scholar, Dr. Mohja Kahf, Fly to Allah is the seminal work in Muslim American literature. "Marvin X's Fly to Allah (1969) is possibly the first book of poems published in English by a Muslim American author."

"Fly to Allah not only exhibited Marvin X's complete dedication to the ideas and beliefs of the Black Muslim movement, it also made obvious (even to those who possessed neither interest in nor knowledge of Islam) that a poet so adept with his words could not be ignored...."--Lorenzo Thomas, University of Houston, Texas

"Marvin X is a deep sea diver who rarely comes up for air. And when he comes up it is only for a moment."--Aishah Kokomon, Oakand, Calif.

"You must read him as though you are at a buffet, just a little at a time, don't pile the plate because you will be overwhelmed and suffer indigestion."--Elliot Bey, Philadelphia

He is a man without boundaries except the razor's edge, upon which he walks like a tightrope dancer, for if he makes the wrong move the chasm awaits him. Nefertiti asked her dad, "How are you still alive?" Because of his beliefs the Vietnam War was wrong, he endured exile in Toronto, Canada and later Mexico City and Belize, from which he was deported back to the US and thrown into Federal Prison, Terminal Island, San Pedro, California. But whether in exile or the dungeon, he did the same things: studied, wrote and taught. Whether he was underground in Chicago and Harlem, his work was the same, culture teacher the brothers in Jamaica called him. They begged him to stay in Jamaica. That's what got him into trouble in Belize: the people asked him to teach them and he complied until the drunk man came by his shack on Gales Point singing, "They comin' ta git ya in da mornin boy, been down here teachin dat black power, dey comin ta git ya in da mornin." And sure enough, when he boarded the boat for the five hour ride through the jungle (see the movie Mosquito Coast) he was under arrest but didn't know it, although he did see a man with a rifle who turned out to be an undercover police.

When he went to the his contact's house, Evan X. Hyde and Ishmael Shabazz, no one was home so he chilled for a moment until he heard someone calling his name, come out Mr. Jackmon, the voice said. He grabbed the rifle but decided not to have a Black Panther style shoot out with the police. He was taken to the Ministry of Home Affairs. The Minister read his deportation order that stated his presence was not beneficial to the welfare of the British Colony of Honduras. He was taken to the police station and placed under arrest until the plane departed for Miami at 4pm. He was not placed in a cell but told to take a seat in the lobby. Before he knew it, he was surrounded by African policemen and when the circle was complete, they asked him, "Brother, teach us about Black Power! We don't know why they are kicking you out. White hippies come down here all the time smoking dope but they don't mess with them. You come to teach us and they deport you. Ain't right, ain't right, they black mon wit white heart, black mon wit white heart." When other African policemen came into the station but did not join the circle, they called them black mon wit white hearts. Marvin told them, "Marcus Garvey came here in 1923 and told you to get the white woman off your walls. It's 1970 and you still got that Queen of England white bitch on your walls. Get that bitch off yo walls!" The police cracked up, they said, "You all ite, broder mon, you all ite!"

The same little mulatto motherfucker who'd arrested me at the Amandala House came to take me to the airport. I resisted when they wouldn't let me contact my wife who was back on Gales Point, a five hour ride through the jungle, pregnant with our daughter we would name Nefertiti. Nefertiti recently realized she was conceived while her parents were in flight from American imperialism. She is a conscious woman who recently demanded her father pass the baton to her generation. "We're qualified and ready, so pass the baton, Dad!"

So where is Mr. No Boundaries? Some Muslims do not consider him a Muslim, since he rejects sectarianism, although his natural unorthodoxy places him in the Nation of Islam and Shia theology.

Some Islamic literary scholars such as Dr. Mohja Kahf consider him the father of Muslim American literature. Bob Holman and Lorenzo Thomas place him squarely in the Islamic literary tradition. Holman says he is the USA's Rumi, the wisdom of Saadi, the ecstasy of Hafiz.

According to Lorenzo Thomas, "...the writings gleam with brilliant imagery and a stunning grasp of both Afro-American vernacular and classical techniques of Islamic poetics. The title poem, 'Fly to Allah,' begins with hagiographic praises of Elijah Muhammad and contains English adaptations of Arabic poetic forms such as tadmin (interpolated quotations of Quranic suras or verses) and mula'ama (the balanced repetition or parallel phrasing used in the verses of the Bible and Quran).
At the same time, the poem encompasses the diction of folk proverbs and common sense, ending with precise pseudo-Haiku emblems of the Nation of Islam's tenets of Freedom, Justice and Equality; it is also written in concentrated verses reminiscent of the projective verse style of the 1950s developed by Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Amiri Baraka and others in their study of the prosody of William Carlos Williams. Fly to Allah not only exhibited Marvin X's complete dedication to the ideas and beliefs of the Black Muslim movement, it also made obvious (even to those who possessed neither interest in nor knowledge of Islam) that a poet so adept with his words could not be ignored...."

ishmael reed photo kathy sloane low res

Ishmael Reed, author of the Complete Muhammad Ali

Ishmael Reed and critic James Spady place him in the Yoruba tradition. Ishmael Reed says, "...If I had to pin down the influences upon Marvin X's The Wisdom of Plato Negro, parables/fables, I would cite the style of Yoruba texts--texts in the Yoruba language reveal that didacticism is a key component of the Yoruba story telling style. Marvin imparts wisdom by employing cautionary tales and uses his own life and mistakes to consul the young to avoid mistakes."

But in Reed's The Complete Muhammad Ali, Marvin X claims his Islamic literary roots, though he does not discuss Muslim's in the Americas before Columbus or before the American slave system:
“I would like to delineate my lineage. As a spiritual descendant of West African Muslims, I begin my literary biography in the Mali Empire, among those scholar/poet/social activists of Timbuktu: Ahmed Baba, Muhammad El-Mrili, Ahmed Ibn Said, Muhammad Al Wangari, and the later Sufi poet/warriors of Senegal and Hausal and, Ahmedu Bamba and Uthman dan Fodio. “In America, this literary tradition continued under the wretched conditions of slavery with the English/Arabic narratives of Ayub Suleimon Diallo, Ibrahima Abdulrahman Jallo, Bilali Mohammad, Salih Bilali, Umar Ibn Said. (Note:There is some suggestion that David Walker, Frederick Douglas, Booker T. Washington and Benjamin Banneker may have been descendants of Muslims.) In 1913,Noble Drew Ali,established his Moorish Science Temple in Newark, New Jersey, later Chicago, and created his Seven Circle Koran, a synthesis of Qur’anic, Masonic, mystical and esoteric writings...."

Nevertheless, critic James Spady places him in the tradition of ancestor worship. ."..The poetry of Marvin X is deeply rooted in the cosmological convictions of his ancestors and his community. His individual identity is inextricably linked to his communal identity. That is why it functions as a source of power and inspiration. Because he is open to the magico-realist perception or reality and has the authentic experiences of the streets, Marvin's works strike a chord. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in a recent collection, Love and War, 1995.
Love and War: Poems

Islamic scholar Dr. Mohja Kahf comments on Marvin X and Muslim American literature:

"With respect to Marvin X, declaring Muslim American literature as a field of study is valuable because recontextualizing it will add another layer of attention to his incredibly rich body of work. He deserves to be WAY better known than he is among Muslim Americans and generally, in the world of writing and the world at large. By we who are younger Muslim American poets, in particular, Marvin should be honored as our elder, one who is still kickin, still true to the word!

READ MARVIN X for RAMADAN!...."

Titles by Marvin X currently available from Black Bird Press

$19.95

I welcome reading the work of a "grassroots guerilla publicist" who is concerned with the psychological/intellectual freedom of his people. I think of Dr. Walter Rodney as the "guerilla intellectual" who was organically connected to the grassroots. Key book here would be The Groundings With My Brothers (and sisters). Or Steve Biko's I Write What I Like. I think though that Dr. M is closely affiliated with Frances Cress Welsing's Isis Papers: Keys to the Colors (along with Bobby Wright's thesis...). Of course we need to also consult Dr. Nathan Hare's The Black Anglo-Saxons and Frazier's Black Bourgeoisie. What I am most impressed with is Dr. M's Pan Africanist perspective.

--Dr. Mark Christian, PhD., Professor of Sociology and Black World Studies, University of Miami

(Ohio)

$19.95
If you want to learn about motivation and inspiration, don't spend all that money going to workshops and seminars, just go stand at 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland, and watch Marvin X at work. He's Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland. --Ishmael Reed, author, The Complete Muhammad Ali

This 18 page pamphlet is Marvin's most controversial piece of writing, yet probably the most healing for young and old. He cares nothing about political correctness but when one gets beyond the cover, we see a liberator of men and women from patriarchal mythology and other forms of white supremacy domination in male/female relations and all gender relations. $5.00

A DVD version is that is a rough cut of a dramatic reading filmed at Academy of da Corner, 14th and Broadway, during Occupy Oakland is now available. $15.00

Unfortunately, his memoir of Eldridge Cleaver, My Friend the Devil, is out of print. FYI, Marvin X introduced Eldridge Cleaver to Black Panther Party co-founders Bobby Seale and Huey Newton. Introduction by Amiri Baraka.

CD of Marvin X reading in Chicago, May 23, 2015

$15.00

CD of Marvin X reading in Chicago while in town to participate in the Sun Ra Conference at the University of Chicago. He was invited to record at a studio on South Shore: left to right Marvin X, Eliel Sherman Storey, alto sax (producer and owner of studio), David Boykin, alto sax; Tony Carpenter, percussion, Lasana Kazembe, poet.

To pay by credit/debit card, call 510-200-4164.

Other writings and thoughts of Marvin X appear in the following books

Review: Stand Our Ground: Poems for Trayvon Martin & Marissa Alexander

Black California - A Literary Anthology (Paperback): Aparajita Nanda

http://library.tulane.edu/exhibits/files/original/75d6972bd0d7dc640a534382b7422bca.jpg

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The works of Marvin X

now available from Black Bird Press

Brazil's Lula raps 'white' crisis

Ghana Launches Tech Start-Up School

'Oldest' Koran fragments found in Birmingham University

Oldest texts

First-hand witness

'Precious survivor'

PARABLE OF THE GANGSTA BY MARVIN X

Oakland literary icon Ishmael Reed still fighting the good fight

Marvin X comments on Ishmael Reed

Always multi-cultural, after all, his very life is multi-cultural, yet Reed understands the necessity of Black Nationalism. After all, what can Black people bring to the multi-cultural table except their Blackness?

--Marvin X, aka "Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland!"(Ishmael Reed)

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