CURATION
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from this page:
by Matrix
Network Node
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Name:
Sunn m'Cheaux
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City/Place:
Cambridge, Massachusetts
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Country:
United States
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Hometown:
Charleston, South Carolina
Current News
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What's Up?
"m’Cheaux is the first and so far only instructor of Gullah at Harvard. He says he’s honored and humbled to be here, but knows he carries the responsibility of sharing the language and history of his people to a broader audience."
-The Harvard Gazette
"m’Cheaux, an artist, musician, performer, activist, and occasional rad skateboarder (check out his Instagram!), had “for years been using various platforms to teach the Gullah language and culture as a preservation effort.”
-Charleston Magazine
"Teaching Gullah at Harvard - it's an honor and a privilege because of the history that academia has had in Gullah/Geechee communities. We were not welcome in those spaces. A language that was, at one point in time, thought to be undeserving to be spoken in any classroom is being taught in the classrooms of such an esteemed institution of education."
-NPR: All Things Considered
Life & Work
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Bio:
Sunn m’Cheaux was born the middle child of a Pentecostal Holiness minister (father) and missionary (mother) in Charleston, South Carolina. A true Gullah/Geechee “binyah” (native), he was reared in rural Mt. Holly, South Carolina in a familial village established in the late 1850s. The rich Gullah language and culture he absorbed growing up on those sandy Low Country backroads is ever-present in his life as an artist, advocate, and educator.
Though an accomplished high school student, award-winning writer and champion wrestler, m’Cheaux’s passion was – and is – music, which he pursued professionally after graduation. To date, he has released five full-length studio albums, a myriad of singles and music videos, and has recorded a trove of yet to be released work. He has lived and travelled cross-country in the U.S. and ventured abroad as an independent recording artist and producer.
It was during m’Cheaux’s travels that his worldviews expanded, leading him to become more involved in public service for causes and communities for which his heightened profile as a performer granted him a platform to affect progress. His activism and advocacy have been featured on HBO Vice, BBC, CBS, and Al Jazeera Plus, to name a few. m’Cheaux considers media presence to be an integral component in his effort to draw attention to the oft-ignored social groups, particularly the Gullah/Geechee community.
m’Cheaux has cultivated a strong following online via social media with frequent viral content ranging from pop culture commentary, allegorical anecdotes, and entertainment, to serious discussions, advocacy, and philanthropy via crowdfunding. He uses this content to promote intellect, ethics, enlightenment, and education—the latter of which led him in 2017 to becoming the first and only Gullah language instructor at Harvard University. In this role, he teaches a curriculum based on extensive research and his own personal Gullah/Geechee knowledge and experience.
m’Cheaux has been fully embraced at Harvard University, having been invited to be a resident lecturer for Project Teach (Harvard’s Official College and Career Awareness Program) and to speak about his course at other universities and events nationally and in the Caribbean Islands–honored as guest lecturer at the 14th Anatol Rodgers Memorial Lecture and visiting scholar at the University of the Bahamas–and he has been featured in Harvard Crimson and Harvard Gazette.
In addition to academic endeavors, m’Cheaux has collaborated creatively in flim and television as an actor and, more recently, as a Gullah language and culture consultant. He is set to release an illustrated book of Gullah fables for kids. Moreover, m’Cheaux is completing his mixed media memoir that will incorporate his talents in storytelling, songwriting, spoken word, photography, and education.
“There’s a synchronicity between my various passions and pursuits now more than ever. To say I’ve come full-circle would be a misnomer… I’ve come to a place I’ve never been, nor expected to be, but it’s where I’m from that got me here,” he says.
Proud, yet humble about his achievements, m’Cheaux’s personal mantra in all his endeavors is “we outchea,” a celebratory Gullah/Geechee affirmation meaning “we are out here.” He attributes his personal ascension to the collective excellence of his culture and people overall. In that regard, m’Cheaux embodies “Muss tek kyeh de root fa heal de tree,” the Gullah proverb that means, “Must take care of the root to nourish the tree.”
Clips (more may be added)
The Integrated Global Creative Economy, uncoiling from this sprawling Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, Arabic, European, Asian cultural matrix.
The mathematics of the small world phenomenon transforming the creative universe into a creative village wherein all are connected by short pathways to all.
Tap the crosses on somebody's Matrix Page to recommend that person for that category.
(Crosses visible when you are logged in)
The crosses will turn green.
That person/category will appear in your My Curation & Recommendations.
You will appear in that person's Incoming Curation and Recommendations.
You and the person you are recommending will be pulled by mathematical gravity to within DISCOVERABLE distance of EVERYBODY ELSE INSIDE the Matrix.
In a small world great things are possible.
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals (NEW YORK CITY): Apotheosis of klezmer violinists
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers (BOSTON): Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory ... Former personal recording engineer for Prince; "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"
"Dear Sparrow, Many thanks for this – I am touched!"
—Julian Lloyd Webber (LONDON): Premier cellist in UK; brother of Andrew (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Phantom of the Opera...)
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))"
—Clarice Assad (RIO DE JANEIRO/CHICAGO): Pianist and composer with works performed by Yo Yo Ma and orchestras around the world
Salvador is our base. If you plan to visit Bahia, there are some things you should probably know and you should first visit:
www.salvadorbahiabrazil.com
Conceived under a Spiritus Mundi ranging from the quilombos and senzalas of Cachoeira and Santo Amaro to Havana and the provinces of Cuba to the wards of New Orleans to the South Side of Chicago to the sidewalks of Harlem to the townships of South Africa to the villages of Ireland to the Roma camps of France and Belgium to the Vienna of Beethoven to the shtetls of Eastern Europe...*
Sodré
*...in conversation with Raymundo Sodré, who summed up the irony in this sequence by opining for the ages: "Where there's misery, there's music!" Hence A Massa, anthem for the trod-upon folk of Brazil, which blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south until Sodré was silenced, threatened with death and forced into exile...
And hence a platform whereupon all creators tend to accessible proximity to all other creators, irrespective of degree of fame, location, or the censor.
Matrix Ground Zero is the Recôncavo, bewitching and bewitched, contouring the resplendent Bay of All Saints (end of clip below, before credits), absolute center of terrestrial gravity for the disembarkation of enslaved human beings (and for the sublimity these people created), the bay presided over by Brazil's ineffable Black Rome (seat of the Integrated Global Creative Economy* and where Bule Bule is seated below, around the corner from where we built this matrix as an extension of our record shop).
Assis Valente's (of Santo Amaro, Bahia) "Brasil Pandeiro" filmed by Betão Aguiar
Betão Aguiar
("Black Rome" is an appellation per Caetano, via Mãe Aninha of Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá.)
*Darius Mans holds a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT, and lives between Washington D.C. and Salvador da Bahia.
Between 2000 and 2004 he served as the World Bank’s Country Director for Mozambique and Angola. In that capacity, Darius led a team which generated $150 million in annual lending to Mozambique, including support for public private partnerships in infrastructure which catalyzed over $1 billion in private investment.
Darius was an economist with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, where he worked closely with the U.S. Treasury and the IMF to establish a framework to avoid debt repudiation and to restructure private commercial debt in Brazil and Chile.
He taught Economics at the University of Maryland and was a consultant to KPMG on infrastructure projects in Latin America.
Replete with Brazilian greatness, but we listened to Miles Davis and Jimmy Cliff in there too; visitors are David Dye & Kim Junod for NPR/WXPN
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay (they paid).
Matrix founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
This list is random, and incomplete. Reload the page for another list.
Ex Terra Brasilis
Wolfram MathWorld
UNIVERSAL
Alicia Svigals
Susan Rogers
Julian Lloyd Webber
Clarice Assad
Luciano Calazans
Kamasi Washington
Randy Brecker
Gustavo Caribé
J Velloso
Lázaro Ramos
Fernando Guerreiro
Maria Marighella
Russell Okung
Bule Bule
Caetano Veloso
Sparrow/Pardal Roberts
RÁDIO MATRIX