CURATION
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from this page:
by Matrix
The Integrated Global Creative Economy
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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
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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)
Most of the billions of us on earth are within some 6 or fewer degrees of each other (see Wolfram below). To put the Bahians within reach of the whole world, include them in a small-world network.
Wolfram MathWorld
If God is a mathematician, the Matrix is a miracle.
There are certain countries the names of which fire the imagination. Brazil is one of them, an amalgam of primitive and sophisticated, jungle and elegance, luscious jazz harmonics and complex rhythms... The Integrated Global Creative Economy (we invented the concept) uncoils from this sprawling Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, Arabic, European, Asian cultural matrix — concatenating branches of a virtual rainforest tree rooted in Bahia, canopy spreading to embrace the entire planet...
Ex Terra Brasilis
Ground Zero for the project was the culture born in Brazil's quilombos (in Angola a kilombo is a village; in Brazil it is a village either founded by Africans or Afro-Brazilians who had escaped slavery, or — as in the case of São Francisco do Paraguaçu below — occupied by such after abandonment by the ruling class):

...theme music for a Brazilian Matrix, from an Afro-Brazilian Mass by
Milton Nascimento
Celebration of this Mass was prohibited by the Vatican and four songs on the recording were forbidden by Brazil's censors (the dictatorship was still in force).
Like a trick of the mind’s light, different places scattered across the face of the globe seem at times to almost exist in different universes, as if they were permeated throughout with something akin to 19th century luminiferous aether, unique, determined by that place's history. Standing on beach or escarpment in Salvador and looking out across the Baía de Todos os Santos to the great Recôncavo...the sertão — backlands — ranging beyond...and mindful of what happened in both, one must be led to the inevitable conclusion that one is in a place unique to history, and to the present:

The Bahian Recôncavo was final port-of-call for more enslaved human beings than any other place throughout the entirety of mankind’s existence on this planet.
Brazil absorbed over ten times the number of enslaved Africans taken to the United States of America, and is a repository of African deities (and their music) now largely forgotten in their lands of origin.
Brazil was a refuge (of sorts) for Sephardim fleeing an Inquisition which followed them across the Atlantic (that unofficial symbol of Brazil’s national music — the pandeiro — was almost certainly brought to Brazil by these people).
Across the parched savannas of the interior of Brazil’s culturally fecund nordeste/northeast (where wizard Hermeto Pascoal was born in Lagoa da Canoa — Lagoon of the Canoe — and raised in Olho d’Águia — Eye of the Eagle), much of Brazil’s aboriginal population was absorbed into a caboclo/quilombola culture punctuated by the Star of David.
Three cultures — from three continents — running for their lives, their confluence forming an unprecedented fourth. Great culture is great power. And in a small world great things are possible.
—founders
"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
"We appreciate you including Kamasi in the matrix, Sparrow."
—Banch Abegaze (LOS ANGELES): manager, Kamasi Washington
"Thanks! It looks great!....I didn't write 'Cantaloupe Island' though...Herbie Hancock did! Great Page though, well done! best, Randy"
"Very nice! Thank you for this. Warmest regards and wishing much success for the project! Matt"
—Son of Jimmy Garrison (bass for John Coltrane, Bill Evans...); plays with Herbie Hancock and other greats...
The Brazilian Matrix has been accessed from these places over the past month (a marker can represent multiple accesses):

I opened the shop in Salvador, Bahia in 2005 in order to create an outlet to the wider world for magnificent Brazilian musicians.
David Dye & Kim Junod for NPR found us (above), and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (he's a huge jazz fan), David Byrne, Oscar Castro-Neves... Spike Lee walked past the place while I was sitting on the stoop across the street drinking beer and listening to samba from the speaker in the window...
But we weren't exactly easy for the world-at-large to get to. So in order to extend the place's ethos I transformed the site associated with it into a network wherein Brazilian musicians I knew would recommend other Brazilian musicians, who would recommend others...
And as I anticipated, the chalky hand of God-as-mathematician intervened: In human society — per the small-world phenomenon — most of the billions of us on earth are within some 6 or fewer degrees of each other. Likewise, within a network of interlinked artists as I've described above, most of these artists will in the same manner be at most a handful of steps away from each other.
So then, all that's necessary to put the Brazilians within possible purview of the wide wide world is to include them among a wide wide range of artists around that world.
If, for example, Quincy Jones is inside the matrix, then anybody on his page — whether they be accessing from a campus in L.A., a pub in Dublin, a shebeen in Cape Town, a tent in Mongolia — will be close, transitable steps away from Raymundo Sodré, even if they know nothing of Brazil and are unaware that Sodré sings/dances upon this planet. Sodré, having been knocked from the perch of fame and ground into anonymity by Brazil's dictatorship, has now the alternative of access to the world-at-large via recourse to the vast potential of network theory.
...to the degree that other artists et al — writers, researchers, filmmakers, painters, choreographers...everywhere — do also. Artificial intelligence not required. Real intelligence, yes.
Years ago in NYC (I've lived here in Brazil for 32 years now) I "rescued" unpaid royalties (performance & mechanical) for artists/composers including Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Mongo Santamaria, Jim Hall, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd (for his rights in Bob Marley compositions; Clement was Bob's first producer), Led Zeppelin, Ray Barretto, Philip Glass and many others. Aretha called me out of the blue vis-à-vis money owed by Atlantic Records. Allen Klein (managed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Ray Charles) called about money due the estate of Sam Cooke. Jerry Ragovoy (Time Is On My Side, Piece of My Heart) called just to see if he had any unpaid money floating around out there (the royalty world was a shark-filled jungle, to mangle metaphors, and I doubt it's changed).
But the pertinent client (and friend) in the present context is Earl "Speedo" Carroll, of The Cadillacs. Earl went from doo-wopping on Harlem streetcorners to chart-topping success to working as a custodian at PS 87 elementary school on the west side of Manhattan. Through all of this he never lost what made him great.
Greatness and fame are too often conflated. The former should be accessible independently of the latter.
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.
Across the creative universe... For another list, reload page.
This list is random, and incomplete. Reload the page for another list.
For a complete list of everybody inside, tap TOTAL below:
TOTAL