 Holy moly. I don't know man. We're constantly changing things around here We planned a whole different series of events for Casita Maria and Doris Duke and we're gonna be playing in barbershops and Boxing rings and laundromats and something amazing and wonderful happened of Revolution and the pandemic and all of a sudden we found ourselves Reinventing who we were and all of us have had to become different things and all of us I've had to grow we've had to learn to march to speak to Livestream to engineer to perform to take on new and different ways of looking at life And I think that's what this That's what this moment is about the reinvention of the way we do music the way we interact with one another and the way that we grow as a Society as a global society because the other way wasn't working And so we put together a bunch of people from all over the world different backgrounds All brought again of the magic and the style and the imagination of the Bronx Which is powerful and moves all of us and so we're celebrating the Bronx today With all these wonderful guests who you get to meet in a minute, but before we do that just want to say This is reinventing. This is recreating. This has become And becoming this better than just being Unknown gods we drove away We invoke you You who are not named but are not nameless Harden our arrogance return to us Birch trees red black Yellow and white the colors of the rainbow and the colors of the people In these times of Kobe and of taking the knee We renew our strength From community see Henry Hudson ship called the great floating bird by the Algonquin tribes Let us remember the native tribes who lived here in the Bronx and beyond for thousands of years before Henry Hudson ship in this scene You will see Henry Hudson the peaceful brother giving gifts and Robert Jewett the greedy brother Taking everything he can lay his hands on and here you see the crew of Henry Hudson ship The half moon They just killed a man array a fish sacred to Algonquin tribes a Magnificent creature a mysterious fish a god of the oceans that was never to be seen again in the waters Let the myriad altars we destroyed merge up again Oceans of gods and lay the world and wash the world with generous prayer Restore we beseech you your manifold. You will see the Dutchman Jonas And his wife and we had a slag Who bought the Bronx in 1639 for two answers to kettles to guns to copes and some Four years later. He died and four point five years later. She married Algonquin tribes had no word for buying or selling land the land belongs to everyone over time Algonquin tribes Agreed The Bronx is burning. It's hard to breathe The Bronx is burning what we need the Bronx is burning a seed That seed was planted in the imaginations of young people an ancestral seed Carried from West Africa across the tragedy of oceans carried across time on freedom roads underground railroads Survived Jim Crow in the fight for civil rights Landed in the minds and hearts of young men and women in the borough of the Bronx where records birthed a new culture DJs the storytellers they summon dancers to the floor to sweat out the stink of survival Lindy hop tap step kung fu salsa indigenous steps a recipe of movement that becomes the b-boys and girls that Rose spun flipped and flew like a phoenix Hip hop a rising spirit out of fire out of the fire of arson Gunshots the spark of spliffs and the fires and barrels under a bridge on a dark night The sacred act of turning burning into learning your craft to put in the time to soar There was once a DJ or wizard grand wizard Theodore whose magic was to transform Elements to take a turntable invented to play music and to let hands and hearts Imagine it as an instrument like a percussionist hands ablaze on the conga skin to skin become skin divinal A young man born in Harlem raised in the boogie down Blood boom cops corrupt your where's the broom dirty secrets pay off lay off stay strong Can't stay soft burn out buildings catch those feelings public school Numbers for Columbus and George Washington instead of Marcus Garfield Harry It's up and single Karen and many homes kids often all alone Community at a block party hanging that can see two Maria's basements and speakers flashed is on the wheels Me Jean he's on the scene be a dog play a big palm painting and singing songs Rockham soccer robots away past those roadblocks now mama don't take no less music relieves all that stress So train on a Saturday out green don't have a way of building a feeling of feeling that ceiling Each floor a musical tour salsa and your rock and roll jazz And that's so James Brown makes a dance rock ran with another scratch in the needle drop Mama's opening doors and kitchens the Bronx a coach and a coach Came a burrow of New York City People the colors of the rainbow red white yellow brown black Came with their families from many countries all over the world to live together in the South Bronx They built a community and when the South Bronx was threatened they organized Rock-n-egg Way to slump clearance You can put this in your pipe and smoke it. He must cope with whatever we coffee Buttered sandwiches under can't hide Cream puffs You must do Nobody can tear down I It's time to balance Your heart and your mind the time of conquest is over. It's over. It's done You see Disparities we see the inequalities we see the hatred we see the oneness that is happening all over the world and in our society We're calling up all of the energies from all of the peoples around the world To say no and stand in their truth. The world is for the people It's not for the handful of corporations who are stripping down Every resource in every country We have to come out of this better rights for the people health care for the people Money for the people homes for the people Shelter for the people And his inflated vision of himself He thinks the Sun and Moon Revolves around him as Robert Moses as he conquers City Hall and Here is the Algonquin Moonsie Delaware word for being driven insane by selfish greed and lust for power Something we see a lot of today and Now we'll continue our chapter on Robert Moses and the cross Bronx Expressway He's determined to build the cross Bronx Expressway and the neighborhood people organized to stop They write petitions they attend meetings they lobby They publicize in the press and they gain a lot of sympathy But nothing Nothing stops this man. He controls the powers that be and the machine That reduces their beloved homes to rubble and shards of glass And the animals who are always on the right side of history Rise up and they raise their voices and you know what they say to Robert Moses This is all wrong How dare you all you talk about is money to pop DJ Grand Wizard Theodore who invented techniques of scratching and needle drops He says I was raised in the Bronx the neighborhood. I grew up in had a lot of abandoned buildings During the late 60s the landlords couldn't get anyone to move into their buildings So they started burning their own buildings to collect insurance money. That's why people said the Bronx is burning In this world, there's so much pain and so much drama so right now I want to dance with my mama dance with my mama Let's dance with your mama. So if you got your mama with you Whatever she is dance with your mama. Come on. Ready to dance mama. Here we go. It's my mom Regional members living theater She's 85 and alive. That's right. Washington told him that right Here we go, let's dance mama Here we go pianist composer music teacher When I was a little child, I got very sick When I got better. I lost my eyesight as a little girl. I didn't get that upset I had a fantastic education, but some things weren't brought to me at all We didn't talk about African American contributions to the United States I never heard of an African American composer in any of my music classes I never heard anything about sojourner truth I didn't learn anything about her until I was grown It was then I decided to write a piece called sojourner and it was very well received Sojourner truth said that the world is upside down And today with colon and the upheavals across the globe We can again say but this is the moment And we're going to Yeah Whiteness fight this construct considered Outspoken and broken hoping his joking provoking the choking of a man Time to take a stand taking need justice ain't free Protests so stressed black man white man new plan, no clan. Hey, you're black woman, white woman gender politics black Feminism happiness, white silence is violence, but I'm also learning how to step back Listen, deep-sittin' in the fire, cuz talk is cheap Born a soldierin' for the truth Build a foundation, hey yo, erase the root As a man, I need to humble and crumble the ego Call out the space, hey yo, find the grace to meet the pace Defeat the white supremacist who lives inside me Defeat the misogynist monotonist who'll find me In the difficult ritual of facing my own trauma Yo, I'm carein' for my own mama But I can't heal if we don't all heal That's the real deal, reveal our original sins Our country is soaked in the blood of the indigenous It's insidious, the rager is part of the plan There can never be justice on solid land Our nation's the original rulers Now seekers of confused but humans, hard-body and soul Domination and control from the plantation to the police state I do really hate Jim Crow to curfew These cops will hurt you, I see black women on the front Light it up so she can make it back to her son The turning point, we're turning the world And now we are dancing our way into the future With the wonderful music traditions of the South Bronx Mountains to the cities, we humans are curious creatures We dance and sing and sweat and work and love Like our lives depend on it We plan to play huddle close like the animals of the forest We also rule with the viciousness beyond the teeth Of the most feared predator We humans, we live in cities and villages and towns And suburbs and deserts and seasides Farms and forests and jungles Who is the king of our jungle? Who is the great tiger on a throne held up by madness? This tweeting tiger king is a virus of behemoth blowhard Who is our rabbit, our uncle rabbit? Let us summon the magic, mind of the poor and righteous The candlelight of common sense With mystic mischievousness that is needed When greed rears its ugly head Like a fearsome face full of teeth Let us be quick like the rabbit And strap our guitars to our backs To sing the songs that have been passed on The sacred music of the rabbit Who dances across the keys of the piano The rabbit reminds us that we cannot resist with piety alone But with music and its mystic tricks This is of the burning Bronx The young people invented hip hop Music honoring the struggles that people were going through Musical influence from Africa The Caribbean From all over the world And making their own sound Music Music In divinity, without you, we cannot be human Let the myriad altars we destroyed surge again Oceans of God's lave the world Wash the world with generous prayer Restore, we beseech you Your manifold blessings Return to us, oh God This one is for the musicians The cats who carry upright bases on the sixth train From the Bronx to the Blue Note This is for the $50 hit With three sets and a drink ticket This is for those in Europe who play festival stages And when they back in Brooklyn, the L Train platform This is for Bertha This is for the unexpected moment A soundtrack of opera, bebop The all important sacred act of collecting records This is for the church bands The rhythm of devotion In the face of the fires of injustice Which were burning then and are burning now Summon the spirituals, the sounds of a piano A catalyst of keys, sister duets A father wet, Nat King coal round Bertha and a Bud Powell record explodes Bebop and blues Bebop to cross the country Underage nightclub gigs Stranded in Florida to rooms in the Bronx Dense and vertical Black Caribbean streets and stoops Ups and downs Telephone company gigs Crocheting the Bronx boutique Nick Koofies This is for musicians who work every gig And still summon the energy To play their own motherhood Kickin' the kick, head start Call to the music, a composer Beautiful phrasing, a total human being Being human, Bertha Big beautiful phrasing, total human being Being human, totals being Being human, total being Being human, music sound All around us, surrounds us When we feel like we're gonna drown And trust prizes, falls and capsizes And we see it in the iris The musical for pirates Write the notes, compose the flows Rhythm and watch as it grows Artistic director of the Bronx Music Heritage Center I'm happy to be here shedding more light On women in jazz Because it's still an issue I was told by Bertha Hope Who had an all-women jazz band Jazzberry Jam When she sends information to promoters She never sends a picture Because if they see four older ladies They won't hire them When it's an elder jazz great He is great And his picture gets postured All over Everywhere has a tradition of honoring men Today, all of us here Are trying hard to rectify that situation I'm Bertha Hope There was that time when I gave away my piano But I got it back I got it back I missed the music and the idea Of creating music together with other people And being part of a group That felt the same way I did about the music I thought I had a little more to say And the piano is my instrument to say it Because Leo has showed us such a valuable lesson Just now There's been rough times This may look like a really rough time to some people And we have heroes With people who have plowed through no matter what And some of my heroes are Annette Aguilar Kayla Fachilongo, Leonor Falcom Clark Gayden, Baba Israel, Juan Carlos Polo, Leo Traversa, Juan Matrujillo Also our great dear friend Gail Heidel And the Casita Maria staff And the people who are so lovingly guiding us Through this process at Culture Hub And so I leave you with something That I raised my kids They're still working this out in therapy Because periodically while they were growing up I'd yell out something to them I'd yell at them and say What's more important than the groove? And they would look at me with a nervous smile And go Nothing And so we band together against the evil Against the oppressive police brutality Against the fascist regime And we stand up as artists And as human beings who are deserving Of equal dignity all of us Stop. We can't breathe