Episode 36 - Mankwe Ndosi
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Mankwe says her people are “fierce makers, re-workers, healers and those the push themselves to make in the uncomfortable places/and populate the uneasy textures and terrains…(they are) connectors who are willing to be compassionately uncomfortable...” She speaks of being from mountain farmers and medicine women in Tanzania, and U.S. based African-American preachers, doctors, teachers and organizers. Influenced by nature, the earth, Spirit and early experiences with Douglas R. Ewart and Laurie Carlos, Mankwe says she found herself in Fred Anderson’s Velvet Lounge (in Chicago), which was filled with Black folk from all over the world. There she grew herself as a creative musician and composer - working to hear an expanded audio palette of color/opening to what freedom means sonically on stage. Mankwe encourages us to look at and be curious about nature, and the power and intelligence of those we come from. She says look carefully at what industrialized countries labels as less than, “because whatever people say is less than, they getting ready to steal.”
VIEW a short clip from our conversation HERE.
Mankwe Ndosi is a Culture Worker, Musician, Composer, and member of the AACM. She uses creative practice to nurture and re-examine social patterns and relationships with her community, ancestral legacies, and the earth. She’s worked with luminaries like Laurie Smith Carlos, Nicole Mitchell, Tomeka Reid, Transatlantic Amazon Gods, Douglas R. Ewart, Ananya Dance Theater, Atmosphere, Duriel Harris, and Sharon Bridgforth among many, many others. Mankwe is focused on forgotten and marginalized plants, people, and ways of knowing. Her work is aimed at creativity and healing through the interconnection and liberation of our personal, social, and terrastral structures, practices, and mythologies.