Wanda's Picks

Guests this morning are: San Francisco native, Damani Baker, Director/Producer/Cinematographer of the award winning film, "Still Bill" (2009). Still Bill has its theatrical debut at Sundance Kabuki, 1881 Post @Fillmore, in San Francisco, Nov. 11, 7 PM. A ticket to the movie gets one into a free afterparty at the Boom Boom Room, 9 PM to 1 AM. Visit www.stillbillthemovie.com Next on the show is Jackie Wright, founder and president of Wright Enterprises, a full service public relations film serving the corporate, non-profit and government sectors. Wright has 20 years of media and public relations. She is a graduate of the University of Georgia's Henry W. Grady School of Journalism, home of the Peabody Awards. We close with a conversation with L. Peter Callender, new Artistic Director of the African American Shakespeare Company. Visit http://www.african-americanshakes.org/

Cindy Blackman is in town Wednesday, October 28, 2009 for an SFJAZZ Tribute to Tony Williams, great drummer and composer (Dec. 12, 1945-Feb. 23, 1997). Blackman speaks about her friendship with the great musician, how he influenced her musical style and that of others to date, musicians who are not even aware of how much of his legacy lives on. The show is at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, 8 PM. Visit http://www.myspace.com/cindyblackmanmusic and www.sfjazz.org

We open with an interview with Kay Ellison-James, director/co-founder KayRod Productions for the Arts, Inc., and cast members of "A Dream Interrupted, A Life Reborn": Nzingha Dugas as “Marlene,” Achebe Hoskins (fiancé) as Isaiah and Aishya Earls as “Dr. Marshall,” on stage, Saturday, Oct. 24, 8 PM and Sunday, Oct. 25, 3 PM at the Malonga Theatre, 1428 Alice Street in Oakland. For information:(510)758-7884. Fly Away Productions honors 10 Women this weekend, Oct. 24, and we are pleased to have four on the show this morning: Susan Greene PhD, Break the Silence Mural Project, Karen Heisler, Co-owner, Mission Pie and Co-founder, Pie Ranch, Audrey Hudson, Pile Driver Journeyman, Pile Drivers Local #34, Mable Yee, Founder and CEO, EngageHer.org. The awards event is at ODC Commons, Studio B (351 Shotwell Street @ 17th Street, San Francisco), 6:30 PM cocktail reception and 8 PM ceremony. Call (415) 863-9834 or visit flyawayproductions.com Bay Area playwright, Imani Harrington, is back with a new work, "Bitter Fruit,

Kembrew McLeod & Benjamin Franzen, directors of "Copyright Criminals," screening tonight, Oct.21, 6 PM at Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 2nd floor, 388 Ninth Street, Ste. 290, (between Franklin & Webster). It will be screened on ITVS in January 2010. Next week there is another community screening in San Francisco at the Main Library on Larkin Street. Next we have Mulamba is an independent artist and scientist based in the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. He is joined by Rehema Bah. We close with an interview with Pedro Rosales and Gazania McCoy.

Today we will feature King Sunny Adé, musical ambassador who is known for a musical style he made popular, "JuJu." Born into a Nigerian royal family, the artist/entrepreneur told me about how he began his musical career, why he took the name, "Sunny" and the work he has done as a member of the cultural arts ministry in Nigeria. He was on a tour with his latest album, "Seven Degrees North," when I decided to celebrate my birthday at his concert. It was also a day of freedom and jubilation--Juneteenth, a day that honors the Emancipation of black people in America. Adé’s father was a church organist, while his mother was a trader. Adé left grammar school in Ondo under the pretense of going to the University of Lagos. There in Lagos his mercurial musical career started (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Sunny_Ad%C3%A9). As he spoke to me via phone in a conversation which was in two parts, as we got disconnected, I asked him about the legacy of slavery and how his family addressed the issue, how the Nigerian gov

Hamdiya Cooks, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children/All of Us or None Project Organizer, has over 25 years of experience working on issues facing women in prison. She is a former prisoner, having served 20 years in the federal prison system. Dorsey E. Nunn, Program Director for Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, He is the co-founder of All of Us or None, a civil and human rights organization comprised of formerly incarcerated people, prisoners and their allies. He is also a formerly-incarcerated person. They will speak about the Town Hall, Oct. 17, 2009, 10 AM-1 PM, at Metwest High School, 314 E-10th Street, Oakland, (510) 444-0484, (415) 255-7036 x308. Other guests include director, Uscla Johnny Desarmes, who will speak about his latest project, "Life Outside the Pearl;" he will be joined by Louis and Camille who will speak about Bellot Idovia Foundation and the fundraiser Monday, October 19, 2009, 6-9 PM at 2919-9 St. @Ashby Ave., Community Room, Berkeley. Call (510) 677-7886. The money raise

We will speak to women of the Black Panther Party: Sheba Makeda Haven and Majeedah Rahman. Visit www.itsabouttimebpp.com. Halima Yates, director of the film, "Saints Rising," recently screened at the Oakland International Film Festival, which closes today: http://www.anonamissproductions.com/index.html We close with a conversation with Brother Omowale, Houston Black United Front, regarding its annual "Caravan to the Ancestors" this weekend, Saturday, October 17. Visit http://www.sankofacaravan.com/

Maafa 2009: Today we speak to Minister Mxolisi T. Sowell(aka Minister Mxolisi Ozo-Sowande)who is the Community Relations Chairman of the Amelia County Branch of the N.A.A.C.P. He is a 1975 graduate of California State University of the East Bay (formerly California State College, Hayward.), with a B.A. degree in Social Science, with a Journalism concentration. He is a graduate of Merritt Community College of Oakland, California, with an A.A. Degree in African American Studies. Bro. Mxolisi is Senior Minister, Emeritus, of the Wo’se Community of the Sacred African Way of Oakland and Sacramento, California. We will also be speaking to Alan Laird, M.Div., also at GTU Berkeley, CA. He is an artist and activist born in Oakland, CA. He was he said, a part ofthe "1960's Black enfranchisement movement and was blessed to serve the community as a member of BPP and was a friend to murdered Comrade Little Bobby Hutton. He is a Viet Nam disabled veteran, an ordained minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He

Bud E Luv salutes Sammy Davis Jr. at The Rrazz Room, Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF, Sunday, October 11 at 7 PM. Tickets are $30 and can be purchased at www.therrazzroom.com or directly through www.ticketweb.com or (866) 468-3399. Bud E. Luv is lounge singer and parodist and is the creation of Robert Vickers. He turns any room where he performs into a Las Vegas showroom while singing tributes to many of today’s popular singers, and rocks the house with his hysterical versions of everyone from The Spice Girls to Sinatra and Tom Jones. We will air a prerecorded interview with interview with drummer Lenny White who is in town with Stanley Clark and Hiromi this weekend at Yoshi's. Visit www.yoshis.com We close the morning with David Roach, artistic director for the Oakland International Film Festival opening Thursday, October 8, 2009 at the Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland. Visit www.oiff.org The festival runs through October 14 at various venues throughout Oakland, with Family Days planned, along with workshops. The OI

Maafa Awareness Month begins! Featuring Ise Lyfe, poet, teacher, businessman who is opening for Gil Scott Heron at the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco, CA. Doors open at 8 PM. We feature the music of Gil Scott Heron from his "Spirits" album. We also play Thaddeus Edward's Peace not War. We close with a prerecorded interview with Helmer Pablo Trapero, director of Lion's Den (2009), the story of mothers incarcerated in Argentina.

Rie Shontel, playwright, actress, brings her one-woman show "Mama Juggs" back to the San Francisco Bay Area for a one night run at The Marsh Theatre, 1062 Valencia Street (near 22nd street in the Mission). The show is at 7:30 PM. In this one-woman show, three women face late puberty, breast-feeding, old age - and breast cancer - in their Oakland Housing Project living room. Rie Shontel delivers an intimate view of these women through song and laughter. Visit http://www.themarsh.org/ HuNia Bradley is "Mama" in "Mama at Twilight: Death by Love" written and directed by Ayodele Nzinga, currently on stage at the Thea Bowman Theatre, 920 Peralta Street, in Oakland. It's the Lower Bottom Playaz doing theatre in the yard at the Prescott Joseph Center, Fridays & Saturday, 8 PM, Sundays, 2PM, through Oct. 11. The play is a beautiful and complex view of a family. The play touches on universal issues of love, family and gendered roles. It also looks specifically at the challenges of a black family facing the tragedy

Today I will host two renown DJs: Jeremiah Kpoh& the Afrobeat Nation from Monrovia, and DJ Said Adelekan, (Fatsouls Records), from Lagos to talk about Africa Rising shows: one on Friday, October 2, 9 PM, at BAOBAB VILLAGE (FORMERLY BOLLYHOOD), 3372 19th St., San Francisco, CA 94110,(415) 970-0362, Tickets $10 in advance, and the second show, "Fela Kuti Birthday Bash," on Saturday, October 10, 9 PM at Cafe Du Nord, 2174 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94114-1319,(415) 861-5016. Tickets $12 in advance. Another two shows have been added for October 31, at both venues: the DJs will be at Baobab Village holding it down, while Sila and the AfroFunk Experience will be at Cafe Du Nord. Visit http://maishaproductions.com/calendar.html and www.fatsoulsrecords.com, www.myspace.com/djsaidfatsouls, www.myspace.com/fatsouls

Halifu Osumare, Ph.D., Fullbright Scholar, Associate Professor, African American & African Studies at UC Davis; Traci Bartlow, dancer, choreographer, host of the Oakland Hip Hop Dance Institute No. 1, at East Side Arts Alliance at 2277 International Blvd., Oakland, 94607, $10 youth/$25 adults, (510) 533-6629; Kathleen Ann Thompson's "See Me! Hear Me!" is Sept. 25, 7:30 p.m., Sept. 27, 8 p.m. Tickets are $10.00 general admission. Call (510) 568-3314. Sins Invalid with Leroy Franklin Moore Jr., co-founder and community relations director. Leroy was also a poet, journalist, community activist,feminist and consultant on race and the last 13 years. Patty Berne, co-founder and director of Sins Invalid. Her background includes advocacy for immigrants who seek asylum due to war and torture, and within the Haitian Diaspora.

Today is the birthday of John Coltrane. Born John William "Trane" Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. We'll be featuring music composed and performed by Coltrane, his late wife Alice Coltrane and son, Ravi Coltrane from Alice Coltrane's "Translinear Light" and John Coltrane's "Ballads" with the JC Quartet and perhaps a selection from his last live recording at the Olatunji Cultural Center April 1967. Also today we look at the life of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, whose birthday, Monday, Sept. 21, would have been his 100th. He was the first president of a free African nation, who dedicated his life to his people--a Pan African nation. That his noble life was concluded in exile, reminds me of that of the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey and for that matter Richard Wright. His was a vision of a United States of Africa. We'll play excerpts of his speech to the UN Sept. 23, 1960 and I'll share an introduction to the UN address, written by his good friend, W.E.B. Dubois w

Stanley Bennett Clay’s Armstrong's Kid, Raymond Leigh Clark, Oakland Dinner Club, Tory Scroggins, actor, Roosevelt Mosley-Executive Director, SMACC (Sexual Minority Alliance of Alameda County), Jesse Brooks, journalist, filmmaker, activist. “Armstrong’ Kid” starring Clay and Tory Scroggins… will play September 18 at 7:30 p.m., 19th and 20th at 2:00 p.m. at SMAAC Youth Center, 1608 Webster St., Oakland California. “Armstrong’s Kid” is about a school teacher falsely accused of child molestation by his best friend’s 14 year old son. The night of the 18th proceeds will be given to SMACC, a youth organization created to give a safe environment to gay youth in Oakland http://www.myspace.com/smaacyouthcenter. Gary Graves, playwright, director, Machiavelli’s The Prince, Sept. 18-19, 8 p.m. and Sept. 19, 2 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., Berkeley, CA, (510) 848-7800, $14-$25, www.centralworks.org. Suga-T, artist, business woman, http://www.suga-t.net/, performs at A Safe Place's Walk-a-thon, www

Dr. Lance Webb, "Qi Gong for Success," prescriptions for health, wealth and happiness; Karen (Muki) , "Take a Chance: Sit for Change," Sat., Sept. 19, 2009, 10 AM to 4 PM, at Martin Luther King Civic Park in Berkeley, and Una Aya Osato (writer/performer), "Recess," in SF Fringe Festival and at East Side Cultural Center, Friday, Sept. 18, 2009.

Mali’s bluesman Ali Farka Touré has passed the torch onto his son Vieux Farka Touré, whose self-titled first album on World Village Music (www.worldvillagemusic.com, US release: February 13; Canada, February 6, 2007) features the final studio recordings of the older Touré before his death in March 2006. The album, which also features kora-player Toumani Diabaté, draws heavily on the same blues-inflected North African desert traditions that Ali Farka Touré made famous on such albums as the Grammy-winning Ry Cooder collaboration Talking Timbuktu (World Circuit). Vieux’s debut pays musical homage to his father’s roots with familiar trancey guitar-work while incorporating new musical influences from reggae to rock. He will be singing many of these songs on his debut North American tour in July and August. “Here in Africa, he who teaches you in life, you will follow his path,” explains Vieux in his austere yet grounded way. “Our lives here in Mali are like that. Much of what I sing on the album was his wisdom, te

8:00 AM Professor Manu Ampim on Ivan Van Sertima Tribue Sept. 12 8:30 AM Sin By Silence, Director, Olivia Klaus Sin By Silence, Subject, Brenda Clubine 9:00 AM Molly Snyder-Fink and Kiran Goldman, co-directors of "Fast As She Can” 9:30 AM: Missing child, 5 year old Hasanni Jamil Campbell 9:55-10:30 AM: Tanya Windham, Director, On Both Sides of the Wall: The Two Way Struggle”

Today we feature the music of Carmen Lundy from her latest: "Solamente." We open with "Going to the Ritual" by the late drummer/composer, Rashied Ali. Our guest this morning is Israeli-French filmmaker Simone Bitton, director of "Rachel," a new investigative film about the events surrounding the killing of peace activist Rachel Corrie.

Rebroadcast of the show: Maafa 2009: Hurricane Katrina, 4-Years Later.