Los Angeles Greater Tomorrow Drummers

Siblings brought by their mother display their developing talents beating drum at the Drum Church Circle LPV Art Walk on Sunday, May 27, 2012 after procession through the village. Fela Kuti's protege and founder of the Drum Church Circle Najite Agindotan commences drumming by splashing water on the circles as parts of rituals and callings of Olokun Prophesy. Distinguishing surrounding features: World Stage Performing Arts Gallery, Eso-Won Book Store, Buckingham University administrative offices, KAOS Networks, The Vision Theater, Adassa Jamaican Restaurant, African Treasures Gallery, Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center, Zambezi African Antiques, Lucy Florence Institute, and much more; and an exhibition on the last Sunday of every month by local artists, whose work are found in every spot. Ehirim Files Images.

Los Angeles Greater Tomorrow Drummers

Siblings brought by their mother display their developing talents beating drum at the Drum Church Circle Leimert Park Village Art Walk in Los Angeles on Sunday, May 27, 2012 after procession through the village. Fela Kuti's boy and founder of the Drum Church Circle Najite Agindotan commences drumming by splashing water on the circles as parts of rituals and callings of Olokun Prophesy. Distinguishing surrounding features: World Stage Performing Arts Gallery, Eso-Won Book Store, Buckingham University administrative offices, KAOS Networks, The Vision Theater, Adassa Jamaican Restaurant, African Treasures Gallery, Barbara Morrison Performing Arts, Zambezi African Antiques and much more; and an exhibition on the last Sunday of every month by local artists, whose work are found in every spot. Ehirim Files Images.

Labor Day Fela Kuti Tribute

4th Annual Leimert Park Village Book Fair Kids Corner

Recently, the 4th Annual Leimert Park Village Book Fair was held in Leimert Park Village, Los Angeles, with an amazing crowd. Kudos to Nina Womack, one of the event's organizers, who supervised and conducted the children's aisle. It was all fun and games featuring fiction, non-fiction, poetry and children's literature by over a hundred and fifty African American writers. Also included were live perormances by various artists. Among them: A Jimi Hendrix Tribute Band led by Anthony Aquarius Mystery, Wadada and Kelly Love Jones.

Summer Jam Afternoon Jump In 'Black Township'

Michael Sessions and trombonist Carl do their thing on the playgrounds as visitors and tourists watch.


Ray Straughter of Cosmic View rehearses at the World Stage Performance Art Gallery for the upcoming opening for the Michael McDonal's Hollywood Bowl Concert.


Folks in the village playing chess and the knockout game.


Dancing to the Najite Agindotan led Drum Church Circle beat, like in a spiritual revival.


The Learning Academy...Kids learn the art trade as part of 'incubating' the village.


Multi-instrumentalist, Wadada sets up his promotional CD and rehearses for the Labor Day Weekend jam.


The game begins -- the Drum Church Circle beats -- and Najite leads.



Tourist possessed by the powerful spirits of the Drum Church Circle beats.

Najite Agindotan, King of the African Drums

He was the Chief Priest, Fela Anikulapo Kuti's boy, back in the day, when Afro Beat, coined by Kuti, was the bomb at Baba's African Shrine where all kinds of rituals took place to reinvent a culture that was disappearing within its landscape. He speaks well of Baba who inspired him in what he now does very well, playing the adudu, African drums and percussions.

But Najite, as he is called by his admirers all around Greater Los Angeles, did take his hand-drumming craft to another level; initiating the Drum Church Circle to the City of Angels, inspiring others to follow, and the rest is now history.

On a normal Sunday afternoon, Najite pops up and walks around the village to survey which way the familiar rumble of his drum circle should spill in the park with a cast of vendors and tourists who'd shown up to make brisk business and stomp to the vibes as his entourage strikes rhythms together. Dressed in all white African outfits, his beads jingling around his neck and wrist band well-fit for the occasion, Najite peppers the Leimert Park Drum Church Circle beats with songs and yelps, echoeing as in African masquerade dance.

Master of his art, Najite, in 2000, was awarded the Congressional Award for Excellence by Representative Diane Watson. He has also received grants from the California Arts Council, the National Endownment for the Arts, and in filmmaker Ben Caldwell's own words, promoting and "incubating" the cultural arts in a multicultural Greater Los Angeles.

Also, Najite has been recognized by the University of California; Los Angeles, San Diego, Irvine, and Riverside campuses for his thoroughness and persistence in the arts.

Now that Leimert Park Art Walk is born, expect more with the best yet to come!

Images of the 7th Annual June'Teenth Heritage Festival: Celebrating Black Freedom

June'Teenth is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. On June 19, 1865, two months more than President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, General Granger of the Union Army landed in Galveston, Texas, and issued Order No.3: All Slaves Are Free!


Ndugu, Wadada and Kelly Love Jones performs at the back lot of The Vision Theater in Leimert Park Village.


Anthony Aquarius Mystery and the Jimi Hendrix Tribute Band performs live on stage as part of festivities celebrating the 7th Annual June'Teenth Heritage Festival.


The groove and the jam sessions.


The twist dance at the exclusive Barbara Morrison's Show.


Anthony Aquarius Mystery of A Jimi Hendrix Tribute Band and Cynthia Exum, the executive producer of the Leimert Park Village Book Fair share a moment...


The audience watches A Jimi Hendrix Tribute Band perform live on stage.


Vendors make brisk business hawking Los Angeles Dynasty t shirts.


Leon Mobley and Wadada entertains at the back lot of The Vision Theater.


Oran Z, founder of The Oran Z Pan African Black Facts and Wax Museum, which presents wax figures of African American personalities chats with a guest at his museum booth during the festival.


Afro Cuban Jazz Ensemble entertaning at the jam-packed Leimert Park.

Rapper Yo-Yo and the Million Marijuana March

Rapper Yo-Yo being interviewed by one of the leading advocates for marijuana.


Rapper Yo-Yo signs autographs as the event unfolds.


Yo-Yo and a cast of marijuana advocates poses for the camera.


Anambra State-Nigeria-born Chi Chi performing one of her favorite tunes "Chukwu Nyere Anyi Aka" to wrap up the event.


An advocate wearing the Home Grown T-shirt and a performer on stage.


Kelly Love Jones holds her baby while entertaining the crowd as the cameraman takes his shots aground the stage.


Los Angeles, CA -- Saturday, May 08, 2010: It wasn't like the 2010 Playboy Jazz Festival Community Event Series I had attended a week earlier at the Beverly Hills Civic Center Plaza, on Rexford Drive and Santa Monica Boulevard, which featured the Grammy-award winning pianist Ben Cunliffe and his Septet, or the swinging big band vibes of Johnny Crawford and his Orchestra, courtesy of Resonance Records.

It was the "Million Marijuana March" held on the grounds of the historical Leimert Park with an amazing crowd. Female rapper and hip-hop artist, Yo-Yo was around. Born Yolanda Whittaker, who back in the early 1990s exploded in Ice Cube's single "Amerikkka's Most Wanted" and a year later with her own debut album "Make Way For The Motherlobe" and the smash hit single "you Can't Play With My Yo-Yo?" featuring Cube, was obviously the center of attraction in an event of its own kind.

Chants of legalizing marijuana was in the air as in Peter Tosh' "Legalize It":

Legalize it; don't criticize it
legalize it, yeah, yeah
and I will advertize it

Some call it tampee
some call the weed
some call it marijuana
some of them call it ganja

it's good for the flu
it's good for asthma
it's good for tuberculosis
even umara composis;

And the music, too, was loud with a legendary Bob Marley's vibe:

One love! One heart
Let's get together and feel alright
Hear the children crying' (one love)
Hear the children crying' (one heart)
Saying give thanks and praise to the Lord
And I will feel alright
Saying let's get together and feel alright
Wo wo-wo wo-wo

Let them all pass their dirty remarks (One love)
There is one question I'd really love to ask (One Heart)
Is there a place for the hopeless sinner
Who hurt mankind just to save his own beliefs
One love! what about one heart? (one heart)
What about - ? let's get together and feel alright
As it was in the beginning (one love)
So shall it be in the end (one heart)...

Nevertheless, what mattered was the stuff that Rapper Yo-Yo does -- giving back to the community where she was raised with her youth foundation, "Let Your Light Shine Youth Foundation" along with Lana Moore. And my credo on that, is, by her foundation mentoring, educating and engaging in all kinds of social programs by way of providing positive influences to the youths of today.

Yo-Yo has worked alongside producers and artists in the likes of Missy Elliot, Keri Hilson, DJ Quik, Ceelo, DJ Toomp, Eric Sermon, The Lab Rats, Raheem Davon, among others. Also, her acting career sprang from the 1991 film "Boyz N The Hood" to "Menace II Society," etc.

So you go girl! It was all good!

WE ARE INCUBATING LEIMERT PARK VILLAGE, SAYS BEN R. CALDWELL

I had watched on Saturday evening, April 17, 2010, the resident drummer, Cornel Fowler, perform with a visting group of jazz musicians at the World Stage Performance Gallery before heading to 7th Street Bar on 7th and Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles where grafitti rock and things like that is now the order in an amazing, evolving generation of a new era.

But on Sunday, April 18, 2010, I had to come back to Leimert Park Village, the hood I have known for many years now, with a whole lot of stuff going on. As it happened and as usual, I bumped into filmmaker, motivator, and founder and director of the Kaos Network, Ben R. Caldwell, who spoke at length on how to keep the historical Leimert Park Village moving. He talked about everything related to the neigborhood. He talked about Laura Mae Gross, founder of the quintenssential blues bar and restaurant in Leimert Park who died last October at the age of 83 and why no major event had been scheduled in rememberance of what she did for the community besides extensive stories written about her by the Los Angeles Times, and the curiousness of tourists who troop the park to find out more about her.

Caldwell talked more about how the younger generation should carry on with the legacy of keeping Leimert Park Village afloat in meeting up with the challenges and what he called "incubating the park" positively and engaging activities. Caldwell is just a cool cat and was serious on what he was talking about.


Sika Dwimfo's Alley Catwalk Models Fashion Show behind the vacated Vision Theatre parking lot as part of the festivities that kept Leimert Park Village activities moving yesterday.


Rastafarian and performer, Jamaiel Shabaka and friend pose for the camera at the park while brisk business was being made. Jamaiel's friend prepares African health-related traditional dishes for patrons and tourists who troop to the park.


This is one of my favorites as I walked around the park and in my conversations with Caldwell. It's kids stuff and inspiration...


Local ensemble The Hurricane Band entertains in "Blues at the Park."


Like a spiritual revival, Rene Fisher Mims leads the women group as they stomp and dance to the vibes of the hand blasting drums of Najite Agindotan and the Leimert Park Village Drum Church Circle.


Leimert Park Village hairstylist, Sherrie "Sirena" Tamu (left) poses with a vendor and a friend who made brisk business selling homemade old-fashion way variety of juices as part of encouraging small businesses in the community.


A motivator and parent instructs the kids as they begin to learn crafts in a variety of disciplines.


Shobiz promoter/model/poet, and resident 27th Street performer, Storm da Poet, poses with a vendor who traded in a variety of authentic African accessories.


Former Chief Priest Fela Kuti's hand drummer, Najite Agindotan and the Leimert Park Village Drum Church Circle entertains the audience at the park.

Afro-Cuban ensemble on the sidewalk featuring Wadada and Horold Lott on the sidewalk of Degnan Blvd and 43rd Street entertaining tourists.


Complete bargain and the provision of services, the African way.


Ben R. Calwell making his point on the incubation of Leimert Park Village.


One of the vendors is all smiles as brisk business is being made.


Motivational speaker and activist, Sista Paula Robinson who will be speaking on "Empowering Our Community" at the Los Angeles City Hall on April 22, 2010, invited by Councilman Bernard Parks and sponsored by Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs had a field day at the park speaking on "sisterhood and brotherhood" to make our community the best it could be in meeting up with the challenges ahead.