Houston is a labyrinth of freeways and concrete, skyscrapers and shotgun houses, Banditos and Sheriffs, Enron and Hakeem the dream, millionaires and dope fiends, tacos and barbecue, steak and shrimp, pounded yams and crayfish.
Houston is catfish and refried beans, sautéed tofu and deep fried chicken. It is Finger Lickin’, Kitchen Near You, Soul on the Bayeaux, Caribbean Cuisine and the Breakfast Klub. It is a platter of well done filet mignon with potato salad at the River Oaks country club.
Houston is blue collar and opulent. It is rednecks and former panthers. It is baseball. It is Texas, immense and rugged, hardened but compassionate. It is pollution. It is cancer research.
Houston is America. It is traffic jams, murder, and prayer in schools. Houston is the Allen Brothers, pioneers, Africans, Indians, enterprise, free markets, billboards, George Bush Sr., Space Center, Astronauts and the Astrodome. Houston is southern hospitality.
Houston is a southern drawl, a Texas twang, Punjab, Spanish, Ebonics, Igbo, Arabic, Bamileke, Irish, Greek, Vietnamese, Thai and Bambara.
Houston is music. It is the blues, DJ Screw, ZZ Top, Barry D. Hall, Geto Boys. It is the scattered notes of Africa. It is a mixture of tones, combustion of rhythms and the interweaving of stories. It is a quilt of experiences—lived and imagined—a landscape that feeds the imagination.
Houston is a muse. It is the intellect of Otabenga Jones and Associates, the voice of Abidemi Olowira, the humanism in art and the soul of DJ Sun.
Houston is poetry: free-flowing poetry, uninhibited sentiments and uncensored ideas. Houston is jazz. It is Howard Harris. It is sacrifice. Houston is art.
This terrain, Pan-Africana is rugged with an expansive frontier that will buckle the knees of ace explorers Lewis and Clark.
Pan-Africana is vast, no doubt. Houston is vast too so what better way to initiate palapala but in this citadel of Africa on this side of the Atlantic.
Kangsen Feka Wakai
Founding Editor
Comments