SAN­DRA L BLOOD

blood­l­sandy@gmail.com

Last De­cem­ber, African singer/record­ing artist Tan­do N’Ko­su re­leased the spo­ken-word/at­mos­pher­ic track and al­bum project, I Am Africa (stylised I Am Afri­ka), which per­son­i­fies the African con­ti­nent as an eter­nal, di­vine moth­er. It speaks about the land, its peo­ple, and its heart­beat – cel­e­brat­ing African her­itage, na­ture, and iden­ti­ty.

Its spo­ken open­ing: “I am Africa. The drum that beats with­in your chest. Eter­nal, fierce, and di­vine, fol­lowed by the haunt­ing and sul­try vo­cal­i­sa­tion: “I am Africa. I am the moth­er. I am the song of cre­ation. The heart­beat of every na­tion,” seeks to clar­i­fy many quan­daries about the root of every na­tion, de­spite the unique fea­tures re­spec­tive na­tives re­flect.

Whether Asian, Amer­i­can, In­di­an, Caribbean, “Africa is the pulse of every na­tion,” and work­ing in tan­dem with the track to help boost glob­al aware­ness and un­der­stand­ing, is bilin­gual con­tent cre­ator, fit­ness coach, ac­tor, mod­el, and mod­ern-day African war­rior, birthed An­to but cul­tur­al­ly called Afro­guardian, al­so a project.

The Nairo­bi, Kenyan-born said he isn’t just a war­rior, he’s the sto­ry, Africa, and he doesn’t sim­ply rep­re­sent Africa – he car­ries a piece of it with him. “I am Africa, an­cient as the first foot­prints on dust, where the drums pulse in bone and blood. I am the breath of end­less grass­lands.” Afro­guardian out­lined the old­est in­dige­nous peo­ple, some of whom re­side in the Caribbean.

The old­est in­dige­nous peo­ple are the San peo­ple from South Africa, Ainu (Japan), Na­tive Amer­i­cans, Aus­tralian Abo­rig­i­nals and Tamils (In­dia).

The San peo­ple are said to be heav­i­ly pop­u­lat­ed around the Kala­hari Desert, with Botswana be­ing home to the largest pop­u­la­tion. They are al­so found in An­go­la, Namib­ia, South Africa, Zim­bab­we and Zam­bia.

The Ainu peo­ple pri­mar­i­ly live on the north­ern Japan­ese is­land of Hokkai­do, which is the main cul­tur­al and mod­ern cen­tre for the pop­u­la­tion. They can al­so be cur­rent­ly found in the Tōhoku re­gion and with­in their his­tor­i­cal home­land in Sakhalin and the Kuril Is­lands, span­ning in­to parts of east­ern Rus­sia, where small num­bers have al­so resided.

The Na­tive Amer­i­cans are record­ed as hav­ing shared a long, com­plex his­to­ry of al­liance, in­ter­mar­riage, and shared re­sis­tance against coloni­sa­tion. In Flori­da, es­caped African slaves found refuge among the Semi­nole na­tion, in­ter­mar­ried, fought along­side each oth­er in the Semi­nole Wars, and cre­at­ed a blend­ed cul­ture.

The Aus­tralian Abo­rig­i­nals (Abo­rig­i­nal Aus­tralia) live across the en­tire Aus­tralian con­ti­nent, in­clud­ing Tas­ma­nia and near­by is­lands, but most live in New South Wales and Queens­land, fol­lowed by West­ern Aus­tralia, Vic­to­ria, and the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry, while many groups main­tain deep con­nec­tions to spe­cif­ic an­ces­tral re­gions. The Abo­rig­i­nals and Tor­res Strait Is­lander peo­ples are ac­tu­al­ly the first peo­ple of Aus­tralia who were there for thou­sands of years be­fore coloni­sa­tion.

The Tamil peo­ple live pri­mar­i­ly in the south­ern In­di­an state of Tamil Nadu and the Union Ter­ri­to­ry of Puducher­ry, form­ing the ma­jor­i­ty of the pop­u­la­tion, but a less­er num­ber do so in neigh­bour­ing states such as Ker­ala, Kar­nata­ka, and Andhra Pradesh. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Tamils are heav­i­ly pop­u­lat­ed in Sri Lan­ka, most­ly in the north­ern and east­ern provinces (Sri Lankan Tamils) and in the cen­tral high­lands (Hill Coun­try Tamils).

Re­gard­ing di­as­po­ra, mil­lions live out­side their tra­di­tion­al home­lands ow­ing to his­toric mi­gra­tion and mod­ern dis­place­ment. In South­east Asia: Malaysia and Sin­ga­pore. West­ern coun­tries: Cana­da, the Unit­ed States, the Unit­ed King­dom, Aus­tralia, and some Eu­ro­pean na­tions. Oth­er re­gions: South Africa, Mau­ri­tius, Fi­ji, and parts of the Caribbean.

Al­so re­lat­ed to di­as­poric her­itage is the sto­ry be­hind stilt walk­ers, who are preva­lent in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Afro­guardian said stilt walk­ers are a tes­ta­ment to cul­ture, cre­ativ­i­ty and pride.

“Stilt walk­ers walk with a con­fi­dence that makes the im­pos­si­ble look or­di­nary. While the cat­tle grazed be­low, the young men moved across the hills on noth­ing but long wood­en stilts – bal­anc­ing strength, skills, and tra­di­tion with every step. To some it may look like a sim­ple game but some­times, the things that look sim­ple car­ry gen­er­a­tions of cul­ture, cre­ativ­i­ty, and pride.

“The moun­tains watched, the cat­tle grazed, and the young men kept walk­ing – re­mind­ing us that African tra­di­tions can be ex­tra­or­di­nary in ways the mod­ern world some­times for­get.”

Afro­guardian cre­at­ed the cul­tur­al so­cial me­dia page (the project) to pre­serve her­itage, vi­su­alise cul­ture, and in­spire oth­ers via cin­e­mat­ic walks, fit­ness and strength, and sto­ry­telling.

To bring her­itage to life, he wears tra­di­tion­al African war­rior at­tire while walk­ing through mod­ern city streets.

“Cul­ture is more than what we wear – it is the sto­ries we car­ry, the tra­di­tions we pro­tect, and the iden­ti­ty we pass to the next gen­er­a­tion,” ed­i­fied Afro­guardian. “From the el­ders to the chil­dren, every de­tail tells a sto­ry of her­itage that de­serves to be seen, re­spect­ed, and re­mem­bered.”