Wanda's Picks

This is a black arts and culture site. We will be exploring the African Diaspora via the writing, performance, both musical and theatrical (film and stage), as well as the visual arts of Africans in the Diaspora and those influenced by these aesthetic forms of expression. I am interested in the political and social ramifications of art on society, specifically movements supported by these artists...

First guest: Byb Chanel Bibene, San Francisco, CA Artistic Director and Choreographer for his company Kiandanda Dance Theatre. He was born and raised in the Republic of Congo where his technical and aesthetic sensibility is rooted.  As a survivor of the civil wars that tore apart the Congo in the 1990’s, Bibene is creating a theater piece titled, Taboo and Heroes, that explores the subject of vict...

Fela, the musical is coming to town, Oakland, to be exact, June 4-9.  Today we speak to Melanie Marshall, who is wonderful in her depiction of "Funmilayo," Fela Kuti's mother. Ann Chinn joins us once again to update us on The Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project which is hosting an ancestral remembrance ceremony in Yorktown, VA on Memorial Day, May 27, 2013 8:00-9:30am on the waterfr...

Sunday afternoon, July 7, 2013,  I was with journalists at the Zanzibar international Film Festival where the Dhow countries are celebrated and its people united in a shared legacy connected by land and more importantly sea, the Indian Ocean. We spoke about journalism in the region and specifically new media, such as Internet radio and social networking media like Twitter and Facebook, Linkedin an...

We open today with a conversation with Marcus Shelby, an award-winning musician and composer, is highly renowned and sought after for his discography, his theatrical and film scoring, and his music for ballet and dance.  His empathy as a human being who understands the impact of social justice for all Americans will propel the writing of original music for Gwah Guy:Crossing the Street. Gwah Guywil...

We open with an interview with Bay Area playwright and activist, Regina Evans. Ms. Evans speaks to us about her one woman show at DivaFest in San Francisco June 1, 8 p.m. and later in the year the full production is a part of the San Francisco Fringe Festival.  Bio: Regina Y. Evans is a Poet, Playwright and Social Justice Performer. She volunteers as a Modern Day Abolitionist in the fight against...

  Fela, the musical is coming to town, Oakland, to be exact, June 4-9.  Today we speak to Melanie Marshall, who is wonderful in her depiction of "Funmilayo," Fela Kuti's mother. Ann Chinn joins us once again to update us on The Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project which is hosting an ancestral remembrance ceremony in Yorktown, VA on Memorial Day, May 27, 2013 8:00-9:30am on the water...

This is a black arts and culture site. We will be exploring the writing, visual and performing arts of African people in the Diaspora. It is my claim that the artists are the true revolutionaries, their work filled with raw unfettered passion. They are our true heroes. Ashay! Remember to tune in on Wednesdays from 6 AM PST to 7 or 8 AM and on Fridays from 8 AM to 10 AM. We also host special broadc...

We are joined in the studio for a special broadcast this afternoon to speak to Jenna Kozel, consumer security advocate at Lookout, a security technology company located in San Francisco and Anbu Anbalagapandian, Senior Software Engineer at Lookout, to talk about  Charity:water is a non-profit organization that's been bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations since 2006...

Quinn DeVeaux, from Gary, Indiana, has packed houses and astounded audiences in the bay area for years with his smooth and dirty spank you voice and cool melodic songwriting. First he started an early Chicago Blues band and then a New Orleans soul and gospel band. Both groups had audiences clamoring for more. Now he has combined it all in the Blue Beat Review a self-styled crossroads of his many m...

Today we celebrate the life and legacy ofEl Hajj Malik El Shabazz with muscian, Steve Wilson, activist and MOVE member Ramona Africa with poet/teacher, Malcolm Shabazz Hoover; filmmaker, writer, educator, Chike Nwoffiah; and professor, historican, Manu Ampim. We feature the music of Soulfege. The event honoring Judi Bari, that Ramona Africa speaks of in her interview is Sunday, May 23, 7 PM at La...

We open with Dr. Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, author, visual artist, drummer, and Zen Buddhist priest, lives in Oakland, CA where she teaches at The East Bay Meditation Center and leads a small practice group in her home. She was ordained by Blanche Hartman and her priest training is being guided by Abbess Kiku Christina Lehnherr. Her book Tell Me Something About Buddhism (Hampton Roads Publishing, 2011...

We rebroadcast an archival interview with Wadada Leo Smith speaking about 10 Freedom Summers, a musical survey of the Civil Rights Movement. At the time of the interview it wasn't available. Now it is. Rene Marie speaks about Voices of My Beautiful County from an interview broadcast taped on June 29, 2011. Music: Wadada Leo Smith's "Spirtual Light," "Don't You Remember"; The Pyramids's "What the W...

We open with an archived interview from two years ago with Rachelle Farrell, who is in town this weekend, May 3-5 on both sides of the bay. Visit yoshis.com Today we speak to playwright Beverly Brown about the encore production this weekend at El Cerrito Theatre of her fourth gospel play For Every Mountain. The play features talented Bay Area actors, musicians and vocalists in her depiction of a m...

We had a conversation with dir. Kalyanee Mam about her latest film, A River Changes Course, screening at the 56th Annual SFIFF this year. The film won the World Doc Award this year and is up for a Golden Gate Award as well.

We open with Gina Breedlove, who will talk about her new CD and concert, Sunday, May 5, 2013, in Berkeley at Freight and Salvage. Visit http://www.ginabreedlove.com/ ; next we speak to Jacque Barnes, a Bay Area Keeper of the Culture AfroBrazialian style who is recovering from open heart surgery. There is a benefit for her medical expenses Sat., April 27, 7-9 show; 10-2 party, at BrasArte Casa de C...

It's all about the 56th San Francisco International Film Festival April 25-May 9, 2013. We speak to director of programming Rachel Rosen and a new director, Jeremy Teicher about his first feature: Tall as the Baobab Tree.  Jeremy Teicher, Director / Co-Producer / Co-writer, is a Student Academy Award-nominated director whose first feature film, Tall as the Baobab Tree (Grand comme le Baobab)   (20...

We open with a rebroadcast of our interview with Keith Josef Adkins on his latest play, The Patron Saint of Peanuts, which honors George Washington Carver; we then shift to an interview airedd two years ago with Camille T. Dungy, editor of black nature: Four Centuries of African Nature Poetry. We then celebrate with author Judy Juanita the publication of her forst novel, Virgin Soul. The novel is...

Keith Josef Adkins' joins us to talk about a reading Monday, April 15, 2013, at LaMama Theatre of his The Patron Saint of Peanuts, first produced a play based on the life of George Washington Carver, commissioned and produced at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival's Southern Writer's Project 2004). Other plays include Farewell Miss Cotton (Black Dahlia Theater February 2006), Crossing America (Mark T...

We open the show today, which is dedicated to freedom fighter, Mrs. Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (Feb. 4, 1913-Oct. 24, 2006) with an interview with scholar and Parks biographer, Jeanne Theoharis, Ph. D., a professor at Brooklyn College, CUNY NY.  Her new book, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, comes on the 100th year of Mrs. Parks's life. Dr. Theoharis is the author and coauthor of six books...

We open with an interview with Larry Americ Allen re: the World Premiere of "The Expulsion of Malcolm X," which opens in San Francisco at the Southside Theatre in Ft. Mason Center, Bldg. D., 3rd floor, (510) 213-0401. Directed by Michael Lange, the play runs F-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun., 3 p.m. April 12-May 5, 2013, browntickets. The next interview is with the subjects: Amlan Ganguly, Salim Shekh, and Sikh...

We open with an interview with Bay Area author, journalist and political columnist J. Douglas Allen-Taylor about his  first novel, Sugaree Rising, set in the South Carolina coastal area Lowcountry in the late Depression years and discuss his well-crafted female characters like narrator Yally, Aunt Soo, Na'Risa, Nana'Timbi, Eshy. . . to hold the bridge between the past and the present as this commu...

Wanda Sabir welcomes Simone Missick, (Camae) in Katori Hall's TheMountaintop at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley at the Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto, CA, through Apr. 7, 2013 with performances Thursday, Friday and Sunday afternoon. Visit www.theatreworks.org Wanda's Picks is a black arts and culture show. Mountaintop looks at the evening before Martin Luther King is killed. The one act play  takes...

We close our March celebration of women with a look at the legacy of Sojourner Truth, Rosa Parks, and Harriet Tubman. We start with a conversation with Avery Sharpe, a visionary composer, educator and musician whose work “Ain’t I a Woman” consists of compositions based on formerly enslaved abolitionist and women’s rights advocate, Sojourner Truth’s life, the title of the project taking its title f...

Women's History Month is closing with a bang in Berkeley with "Just Like a Woman," a concert featuring an all-star line up of women vocalists and musicians among them Rhonda Benin, the show's producer, with Paula Harris, Terrie Odabi, Kellye Gray and the Lillian Armstrong Tribute Band  with musicial director Tammy Hall, at the Freight and Salvage. Visit http://www.thefreight.org/event We close wit...