POETRIVISION: 'AUTOCHTHONOUS' -Visual Poetry by ike chime

The earliest autochthons of the earth lived in Africa and it was from there humans dispersed to other parts of the world. In this visual poem, Ike Chime tries to pip into the mind of the descendants of these forebearers, the way they would react to the present world we occupy today, the way they would assert their autochthonousness being direct descendants of the earliest inhabitants of our world.
"I am the son of the earth, I sprouted from the belly of the earth, I am autochthonous....."

Flavour, iconic Nigerian entertainer coming to Finland for the first time

The iconic Nigerian entertainer, singer, songwriter, and multi/instrumentalist FLAVOUR, who is also the current undisputable 'King of Highlife' will set his foot for the first time in Helsinki Finland.

The date is 15th June 2018. The venue, Teatteri Forum.

The artiste in brief
Real name, Chinedu Izuchukwu Okoli, otherwise known as FLAVOUR N'ABANIA, or simply FAVOUR.
He was born in Enugu on November 23, 1983, and it was in the same city he started his early romance with music at his local church as a drummer. Through the help of his local pastor after noticing his talent, he was sent to study music at a new institute established by a renowned musician and educator, Chris Ordor. It was at this institute, the Sound City Communications that Flavour learned to play other instruments, including the keyboard.
After the training, Flavour had exposures playing local gigs with some bands and also doing solo acts at outdoor Bar/Restaurants in Enugu and the positive reactions from the crowd at these venues encouraged him to push on.
In 2005 he released his first Album, N'abania which became a huge success. This was followed by Uplifted, and much more. From this point, Flavour became unstoppable as he went on to establish himself as a major superstar in Nigeria, and Africa in general.

Discography

Baby Na Yoka

Ijele - The Traveler · 2017

Most High

Ijele - The Traveler · 2017

Ada Ada

Blessed · 2012

View 25+ more

Massive Protest Against Racism in Finland

The event was opened with a sing song and speech by the Chairman of 'Sports fo All' Finland, Ike Chime

The 28th of July will remain a date that will be always remembered in the annals of protest movement, especially against racism in Finland.
It is not an easy achievement to gather up to 20,000 people in one place just within two days of planning.

The whole drama was sparked by a Facebook statement by a member of parliament of the extreme right party 'The Finns' party know for its strong stand against migration in Finland. In his statement, this parliamentarian.  Olli Immonen wrote,
"I am dreaming of a stron brave nation that will defeat this nightmare called multiculturalism. This ugly bubble that our enemies live in, will soon enough burst into a million little pieces" he wrote last Saturday.

"I have strong believe in my fellow fighter, (he continued) We will fight until the end for our homeland and one true Finnish nation. The victory will be ours."

Many Finns, including former president, Tarja Ahonen, and Prime Minister Juha Sipiala of the Central Party condemned Immonen's statement as unacceptable.

The protest rally featured many prominent speakers, and there were music performances by prominent artistes.

Many organizations and individuals were responsible for making the protest possible, and there were also other protests on the same theme taking place simultaneously in other big cities of Finland like Tampere, and Turku.
The protest was covered live by both Radio Helsinki, and the national television.

A cross section of the 20000 strong crowd at the event

A Date with Nigerian-American Iconic Photographer, Chi Modu in Kallio Helsinki

Chi Modu with Ike Chime

I got a text message from my good friend Matti Hiikari a.k.a. 
Paleface, renowned Finnish rapper cum activist and it read 
“Ike I got a friend visiting from New York, he is a photographer, Ibo born in Nigeria during the Biafran war. I want to introduce you two.”

I noticed there was no name on it, just a photographer.

Knowing Paleface for who he is, both as an individual, and as an artist/activist, I was convinced that there was more to this than just an invitation to meet an Igbo-Nigerian brother photographer from NYC.

I wrote back telling him it will be a great idea, and that he should just let me know when and where.

A few day later I got another text from him which went like “When are you available today? Chi Modu will hold a little event in Kallio at Rupla at 7pm. Can you make it?”

Chi Modu in a reflective mood

Typical Paleface, a man of the moment.

Chi Modu? That must be the photographer’s name I thought, and as much as I tried, the name did not connect so I dived into the cyber world and lo, so much information jumped upon my face that made me wow!

Arriving at the Rupla at about 2 mins after 7pm, the house was almost full and by the nature of activities going on around the place, it was clear to me that the event was just at the nick of taking off. I found a space on the second row in the front and sat down. In a couple of minutes a side door opened and I saw my Paleface step out, followed by a black guy with dreadlocks dressed in working mans khaki outfit, pants and tops, the same face I saw online. With a big smile, Paleface greeted me and quickly turned to Chi and introduced me, we shook hands briefly and he said to me that Paleface told him a lot about me.

We smiled at each other as there was no time for pleasantries, the show must start, and I couldn’t wait to hear this brother tell hi/story verbally, and photographically.

When Chi Modu started addressing the audience after a very wonderful introduction by Paleface, he held everyone in a spell right from his first word and through the almost two hours session, or more as I lost sense of time sitting there. I immediately saw the Igbo/Nigerian in him. In the Nigerian lingo, there is what we call ‘Jisting’ and a good ‘Jistter’ will simply take you by hand and lead you through his story every inch at a time. Chi got that Jistter instinct in him.

It was like a roller coaster ride back in time. The late 1980s through the 1990s were rolled out on our faces as he crisscrossed the states, New York City, LA, NJ, indeed all the key states and cities connected to the activities of the early hip hop, rap music era. With his camera crew he flew across states doing what he knew best, making photo documentaries.

Chi was born in Nigeria, and around the time the defunct nation of Biafra tried to secede from Nigeria in the 60s, leading to a civil war, the Biafra war. At this time, his father was a mathematics doctorate student in the US. He somehow managed to facilitate airlifting his family to safety in the United States. This was how three years old Chi Modu found himself in America.

Chi book signing at the Helsinki event

Born in Nigeria, raised in the USA, New Jersey to be precise, Chi’s parents returned back to Nigeria but he chose as a youngster to stay back, enrolled into a boarding school, the Lawrenceville boarding school, a prestigious boarding school attended by the likes of Michael Eisner, and Malcolm Forbes.

Being alone in the US helped him to develop a strong independent streak which later will manifest itself in his work.

For his university education, Chi attended Rutgers University, and that was where he picked up a camera for the first time. 

He was later to improve his skills at the International Centre of Photography, and after which he landed a job with ‘The Source’ which was to become the definitive magazine of hip hop culture. It was during his days with The Source that he developed a relationship with the artists who were later to become the biggest icons of the hip hop movement.

Now back to the event at the Rupla. I must confess that my knowledge of the Hip Hop world is borderline. I have an idea of some of the big names but have not followed the developmental history of the genre. During my broadcasting years with the legendary Radio City Helsinki in the 90s, when hip hop was surging, I was more immersed in the world music genre as my mission was to give more exposure to life outside Finland, especially life in Africa through music to my Finnish audience. In so doing, I did not focus much on Hip-Hop during its early years. Listening to a person that lived through it in the person of Chi Modu kind of gave me an in-depth knowledge of the formative years of the early big names of the genre. Amazingly it took just some hours of narration by Chi to achieve this, well, in the words of George Kannan, “History is not what happened; History is what it felt like to be there when it happened”

Paleface with Chi during the event

Chi Modu told us about his personal encounter with some youths who were to later rule the world through Hip-Hop music. The long list included Tupac Shakur, Notorious B.I.G., Snoop, Easy E, Method Man, Ghetto Boys, Q-Tip, Dr Dre, Ice Cube Mary B Blige, and L-L Cool J.

One thing that was significant in those early days according to Chi was that these youths involved in hip hop were also involved in gangster activities, and this made it a tough job for someone like him who did not grow up in the hood to mingle and do business with them. Hear him ---

“I will be frank with you all, I didn’t grow up in the hood, I grew up fairly comfortable, you know, but the beauty of how I grew up is that it taught me how to stay involved without upsetting people so I was comfortable moving around in the hood because the rules ain’t that different if you respect people, they will respect you back" 

Chi Modu at a point in his career as the photo editor of The Source had to also operate in the West Coast at a time when there were a lot of guns, a lot of tension, a lot of aggression building between New York and the West coast, he explained how it felt thus -

“Well, the way I explain it to people is that, not unlike rock n roll, right, like where drugs were taking these guys out at a very young stage of their lives, alright, but with rappers, it was a bit of violence but it was really reckless living that consumes the youth, and once you move out of those years, you start becoming a little more careful, you know , you wanna live, so when you see the chaos in teenagers, it is always teenagers of twenty-something years old, you hardly see chaos in thirty-something or forty something-year-old's, so what you hope for is for the person to grow up to cherish his life and the life of others”.

There is this shot where Snoop was pointing a gun at Chi which he took in 1993 long before, Chi ended up shooting the cover picture for Snoop’s first album Doggy Style.

How did Chi react to that?

“If there is a gun on my set, I make sure to take it, clean it myself, and pluck the trigger and hand it over to them, and a lot of times doing that, I did it to make sure there were no accidents. You cannot tell him not to have the guns because in the streets of LA he’ll need it. I know it is a wired thing for people to understand but, the streets were really very dangerous....I was pretty fortunate that in chaos I can be really calm...”

In addition to his impressive collection of hip hop photos, Chi traveled far and wide shooting images of the lifestyle of people of various cultures be it kids is a church in Nigeria, fishermen in Morocco, market women in Myanmar, or swimmers in Lombok, Indonesia. Apart from this event in Helsinki, there has been an exhibition of Chim Modu’s work in 2014 at the Pori Arts Museum.

Some of Chi Modu's exhibited at the Pori Museum of Arts under the title 'UNCATEGORIZED'

Tupac Shakur - Atlanta GA 1994

Notorious B.I.G. - New York City 1996

Snoop Doggy Dog - Los Angeles, CA 1993

School Kids - Arondizuogu Nigeria 1994

Young Buddhist Monks - Yangon, Myanmar 2013

Mother and Daughter- Sanaa, Yamen 2008

Mother and child sleeping on the ferry - Yangon Myanmar 2013

All pictures courtesy of Chi Modu

For more information about the artist, check the following links

http://uncategorized.com/

https://instagram.com/chimodu/?hl=en

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Chimodu

http://www.hs.fi/kulttuuri/a1437534891466

http://www.boweryboogie.com/2013/08/photographer-chi-modu-brings-life-size-images-to-street-with-uncategorized/

Nigeria's Pioneer Afrobeat/Soul/Funk/ Hilife exponent, Orlando Julius Debuts at the Helsinki World Village Festival

Orlando Julius Ekemode (from back cover of the festival's magazine)

Finland's apex annual multicultural event 'The World Village Festival' for this 2015 will be kicking off next weekend 23.-24.5. The focus for this year is Africa and the Middle East.

AfrobeatFinland will be bringing you coverages from the event, we will bring you interviews like one with one the pioneers of Afrobeat and a standing guru of Afro-pop, Orlando Julius Ekemode, yes you heard right, Orlando Julius is one of the major features of this year's festival.

Other African acts expected are the Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars, Aziza Brahaim of Western Sahara, Guinea's Ba Cissoko, and many others.

So you be on the watch out!

Orlando Julius Ekemode

The biography of Orlando Julius reads like a kaleidoscope of who is who in the mainstream Nigerian and international music scene. 

He is one man who met and collaborated with an enviable list of top notch artists from around the globe, some include:

• Ademola hasstrup
• Eddie Okonta
• IK Dairo
• Fela Kuti
• Hugh Masekela
• Ray Charles
• BB King
• Temptations
• Smokey Robinson
• Ohio Players Sun Ra
• Miles Davis etc, etc.

follow this link to find out more........ 

Orlando Julius contributed in penning the making of the 1970s international disco hit 'Going Back to My Roots'  one of the biggest disco hits of all time with Lamont Dozier, but unfortunately, they failed to give him his rightful credit for his contribution. Hear him...

           Orlando Julius & the Heliocentrics doing his1960s hit single 'Jagua Nana' at Banlieues Blues Fest Paris in April 2013

See ya at the festival

“The Dream of Championship” photography exhibition on soccer – Sophia Ehrnrooth

A game of 21 people running after a rounded object made of leather and kicking it around may ordinarily sound and look stupid, but not at all.

Call it football or soccer, it has become the most popular game world over.

At every single moment, there are millions of people doing something around the game of football. If they are not talking or arguing about it as the case may be, they will be either playing, watching or reading about it, real time live, on television, from newspaper and magazines, or virtually through computer games.

Football is so powerful that it can be used to bring peace and harmony among people, or create havoc, as in the form of hooliganism and promotion of negative ideologies like Nazism.

These are made possible because people follow the game with so much passion and emotion, and are ready to do anything for the sake of it.

A good example of how football was used to change the lives of people positively was well portrayed in the film, Football Rebels, a five part documentary movie about five legendary footballers who used their influence and fame based to their social conscience to challenge dictatorial regimes, join opposition movements and lead the fight for human rights and democracy.   

The movie was presented and narrated by former Manchester United star, Eric Cantona.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=19&v=JM_DIO1695A

“The Dream of Championship” a combination of Photographic arts and Football struck me as another project comparable to the movie 'Football Rebels' as both are using the art of fooball to tell real stories that affects the lives of real people.

Sophia Ehrnrooth a Finnish photographic artist and a mother is not a football type, as a matter of fact according to her, she is not a sports person at all, but her young son, like most kids his age got possessed by the spirit of football which he followed with great passion and in that way her poor mother had no other alternative than to be reluctantly dragged into it due to mother/son unconditional love, and that was where it all started.

Finland has quite a short summer, for that reason most games and practices are done in the indoor football domes found around the country during the long winter season. Sophia found herself boringly standing on the sideline with other parents as they watch the kids play matches, but it did not take long for Sophia's artistic instinct to take over. She saw beyond the games as colours splashed from the lighted domes reflecting the green turf, the design of the dome's walls and the emotion of players, all these prompted her going to the games armed with her camera, providing for her an added reason to be at the games. One day while driving home with her son from their regular football practice, her son said to her "mother I am going to say as many world renowned football players I know and I want you to count them" He started reeling out strange sounding name according to Sophia, exotic names from around the world and over a hundred of them. 

That was at the moment Sophia's idea of having this exhibition was born.

The “Dream of Champions” exhibition is the result of several photographic shots and video she took between 2014-2015.

           

Sophia Ehrnrooth spoke with Grass-Root media correspondent Ike Chime about it all in this video interview .

The Helsinki African Poetry Jam

Cross section of the poetry crowd at the Helsinki African Poetry Jam, Cafe Mascot

Thursday the 16th of April was a special day for the celebration of Africa in Helsinki through the literal works of poetry.
The event was initiated by the Finnish poet, writer, broadcaster, hip hop artiste, Karri 'Paleface' Mietinen via  Helsinki Poetry Connection, an organization that promotes poetry and poems in and around Helsinki.

The event which took place at the cafe Mascot attracted a full house of poetry enthusiasts and featured renowned  African poets resident in Helsinki, they were, Doudou Touray from Gambia, Ike Ude-Chime from Nigeria, and Izai-zai Ernest Yikona from Zambia.

Top left: Izai-Zai Yikona, Top right: Ike Ude-Chime
Bottom left: Karri 'Paleface' Mietinen, Bottom right: Doudou Touray

Another highlight of the event was the performance of the young Moroccan rap artiste, , El Haqued who has been over the years tormented by the Moroccan authorities due to his rap lyrics which they find uncomfortable.
El Haqued has been in and out of jail because he challenged the powers that be. He was recently aided by some Finnish NGO to relocate to Finland.

Moroccan Rap Artiste, El Haqued doing his stuff

Doudou Touray in action

Ike Ude-Chime in action

Izai-Zai 'Papa Zai' Yikona in action

  

Paleface rocking the crowd

Very positive feed back was received from the large crowd that turned out for the event. Many wished that there will be more of such events in the future.

Etelä Suomen Media interviews Ike Chime