The Myth of the (Black) West: Jonathan Demme & I screening/discussing “Run Of The Arrow” & its director Samuel Fuller, the African & Native presence in the genre of westerns, the Civil War, the New South, Going Native, the legacies of frontier fakery extended to current “Mountain Men” type “reality” television & western individuals like Rachel Dolezal (who most forget forged a “Little Tipi-on-the-Prairie” narrative prior to deciding to become a black woman) + more last weekend in Pleasantville, NY @ the Jacob Burns Film Center. I was honored to partake in the first post-screening program & hope to perhaps return to delve into acid westerns before the end of the series.
(photos courtesy of Jacob Burns Film Center)



#SaddleUpSaturdays #HarlemOnThePrairie #FlashbackFriday
Reflecting on the West & complex visions of America at this inauguration time, while a coalition of black & indigenous activists are massing elsewhere in my Uptown NYC area @ the Harriet Tubman monument. Perhaps fittingly, I am featured today on Swirl Nation, a blog focused on multiracial & multiethnic lives in this land: Kandia Crazy Horse on SwirlNation
With what’s goin’ down on the social & political scenes, I also reflect on my past as a professional journalist & mourn the New Year loss of two of my former colleagues @ NYC’s once-bohemian, alternative newsweekly The Village Voice. I just learned of reporter Wayne Barrett’s (a notable Donald Trump chronicler) passing this afternoon & have still been trying to reckon with the legacy of Nat Hentoff as a famed jazz critic who partly inspired my joining the field of rock criticism. We shall be missing such voices in the media even more during the new presidency in America. May Nat & Wayne rest in peace. – A’ho*
Jazz Critic / my former Village Voice colleague Nat Hentoff
NYT on my former Village Voice newsroom colleague Wayne Barrett
January 20, 2017 | Categories: Interviews, Live, Showout, Tourlife | Tags: acidwesterns, Activism, Activist, alternativenewsweeklies, CountryandWestern, DonaldTrump, Film, GreenwichVillage, Inaugural, IndependentArtists, IndependentJournalism, IndianCountry, Indigenous, InMemoriam, JacobBurnsFilmCenter, Jazz, JonathanDemme, Kandia Crazy Horse, Mixed, MixedChicks, Music, NatHentoff, News, NewWeirdWest, PleasantvilleNY, Race, radicals, rock, rockcriticism, rockcritics, RunOfTheArrow, SaddleUpSaturdays, SamuelFuller, swirl, SwirlNation, TheMythOfTheWest, VillageVoice, WayneBarrett, westerns | Leave a comment
Hope yer gettin’ over The Hump well this week, Sisters & Brothers! For those that don’t know: November is #NativeAmericanHeritageMonth
Here in New York City, I will be doing lots of actions & activities to honor that. Among them, I am doing a prayerful march through the entirety of Manhattan Island this Saturday with my friends of the Eagle & Condor Community Center (in Queens), from the National Museum of the American Indian @ Bowling Green (the southernmost tip of Manhattan) all the way to Shorakapok (the Indian Caves @ Inwood Hill on the Spuyten Duyvil). The march goes from 10 am until 6pm. I will also be rolling through the Black Farmers Conference in Harlem this weekend.
This month, I will be performing at another benefit for Standing Rock, on November 25 @ 9pm, this time at the City’s premiere venue for hillbilly/old-timey/bluegrass/roots music — the Jalopy Theater in Brooklyn. I have been trying to work it out to play at Jalopy for a long time, so happy to finally do so for a great, beautiful cause so near and dear to my Native heart. This will also be the proper debut of my new Native Americana / twang band Cactus Rose. More details TBA!
(Kandia Crazy Horse @ Electric Lady Studios in vintage fringed buckskin jacket, Greenwich Village NYC, by Camara Dia Holloway)
Made my #NativeAmericanHeritageMonth pilgrimage to #ElectricLadyStudios in the Village, honoring #JimiHendrix’ Native #Tsalagi roots. Received some purple & feathered energy from Jimi that I will be unleashing when I perform @ the Standing Rock benefit @ Jalopy – A’ho*
#Jimi Hendrix #AniYunwiya #KandiaCrazyHorse x #CactusRose #Pamunkey #Afrohippies #CherokeeMist #TaharqaAleem #Ibeji #TheAleems #TwinsSevenSeven #NativeAmericana #ICanHearAtlantisFullOfCheer #MniWiconi #ElectricLadies #CosmicAmericanMusic
November 2, 2016 | Categories: Live, Red Road, Showout, Uncategorized | Tags: Activism, Activist, Affrilachia, Affrilachian, Africans, AfroChesapeake, Afrohippies, Algonquin, Americana, Ancestors, AniYunwiya, Appalachia, artist, Artists, banjo, Benefit, Black, BlackFarmersConference, BlackHillbilly, BlackHistory, bluegrass, BoldAsLove, Brooklyn, BrooklynCountry, CactusRose, Cherokee, ClassicRock, Country Music, EagleandCondor, EagleAndCondorCommunityCenter, EasternWoodlands, ElectricLadies, ElectricLadyStudios, GreenwichVillage, Harlem, Hillbilly, Honor The Treaties, IhanktowanWinterCamp, IndependentArtists, Indigenous, Inwood, JalopyTheater, JimiHendrix, Kandia Crazy Horse, Lakota, Legends, March, MissouriRiver, Muses, Music, NationalMuseumOfTheAmericanIndian, NativeAmerican, NativeAmericanHeritageMonth, News, NYC, OcetiSakowin, OldTimey, Pamunkey, ProtectTheSacred, RedWarriorCamp, RezpectOurWater, rock, rockandroll, rockhistory, SacredStoneCamp, Shorakapok, singersongwriter, squaredancing, Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, StandingInSolidarityWithStandingRock, StandingRockSiouxTribe, StandingWithStandingRock, supportlivemusic, Tsalagi, Virginia, Water Is Life, WaterNotOil | Leave a comment