Welcome to the Web page of Kuumba Events and Communications. This page serves as a jumping-off point for several initiatives that have worked to bring positive change to our community over the past twenty years. The concept of Kuumba comes from the Kiswahili language and is inspired by the Afrikan-American Kwanzaa celebration invented by Dr. Maulana Karenga in the 1960’s. Kuumba is the principle of Creativity, “To do what we can, in the way that we can, to leave our world more beautiful and beneficial than we found it.”
Kuumba Events and Communications is comprised of the following divisions:
KUUMBAEvents: an event-planning group which occasionally sponsors community meetings, parties and cultural events.
KUUMBAMUSIC: a disc jockey and live sound-reinforcement company that concentrates on music from the Afrikan American tradition. Our motto is “Exploring the Spectrum in Black Music from Afrika, the Americas and the Diaspora”. KUUMBAMUSIC is available to help plan and perform at parties, receptions, lectures and cultural events. More information can be found on the Music page.
KUUMBAReport Online: our initial foray into the “communications” aspects of our company name, KUUMBAReport Newsletter was published as a small, hard-copy community paper in the Baltimore-Washington, DC area from 1997 to 2011. Over 44 issues, we examined issues such as Pan-Afrikan organizing, political prisoners, police misconduct, political corruption, Afrikan issues, global war, historical issues that are little-known or poorly-understood, and activists who are working to heal the suffering and divisions within and between our communities. After the newsletter ceased publication in 2011 due to financial concerns, the Web site https://kuumbareport.com was launched a few years later. On that site, most of the original issues of KUUMBAReport can be found in PDF format, and regular blog posts discuss many of the issues of the day as they impact on the Afrikan, Afrikan-American and global communities.
WorldHouse Music and Sound: a subsidiary of KUUMBAMUSIC which concentrates on music from around the world. This was inspired by our discovery of the beauty that exists in music from Afrika, South America, the Caribbean, Asia and Europe. Much of the music here is also available through KUUMBAMUSIC.
What’s New
The Ancestors’ Call: Six Music Icons, February – March 2025
The beginning of the year 2025 has brought great loss for the creative community, specifically in the area of music. Six legendary composers and performers were called from this earthly plane to the realm of the Honored Ancestors. During my career as a club and mobile disc jockey, I have played music from all of these artists and I have reveled in their creativity, their energy and the positive messages and vibes they shared through their music, from classic R&B, contemporary R&B, Hip Hop, Neo-Soul, House, Afro-House, Jazz and Funk, spanning the length, width and depth of Black Music. While I feel inadequate to pen a personal tribute to these great and now departed artists, we will share excerpts of biographical articles from the open-source online encyclopedia Wikipedia (with maybe a few of my comments thrown in) on singer-songwriter and politician Jerry “The Iceman” Butler; singer-songwriter Gwen McCrae; songwriter and musician Chris Jasper; composer and singer Roberta Flack; Hip Hop lyricist, actor and singer-songwriter Angie Stone; and composer, producer, bandleader and vibraphone legend Roy Ayers. To read excerpts from their biographies, click here.
The R-Evolution Is Black Love Discusses A Call To Action: Breastfeeding, The “First Vaccination”
The Wednesday, March 12th, 2025 edition of The R-Evolution Is Black Love looks at the topic “A Call To Action: Breastfeeding, The First Vaccination” and its connection to maternal health. Show host Sis. Tomiko talks with frequent guest Grandmother Walks On Water as well as Mother Marcia Bowyer-Barron of the Maryland Council of Elders and the Seniors Advocacy Network.
Topics pertaining to the current political state in the United States, as well as several references and sources of information, were also discussed.
Grandmother Walks On Water offers her knowledge and experience as an advocate of a more natural way of living, and Mother Marcia Bowyer-Barron shares her personal experience in bearing and raising an extended family. The two of them refer to breastfeeding and living in the most natural way possible as “the first vaccination”.
The R-Evolution Is Black Love broadcasts Wednesday afternoons at 3:00 PM (Eastern Time, United States) on HAND Radio (https://handradio.org). After the broadcast, the show can be heard on this post as well as the Media Pages of KUUMBAReport Online (https://kuumbareport.com) and the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus Website (https://srdcinternational.org).
The R-Evolution is Black Love
Wednesdays @3pm EST.
https://handradio.org/
https://kuumbareport.com/
webuyblack.com
kweli.tv
“The seed you plant in love, not matter how small, will grow into a mighty tree of refuge” Afeni Shakur
“I believe in the sweat of love and in the fire of truth” Assata Shakur
To listen to the Wednesday, March 12 show, click here.
Sehwah-Liberia, Inc. and the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (SRDC) are announcing the Maisha Washington Education Foundation Scholarship for high school students in Liberia.
The Scholarship Program represents part of SRDC’s continuing efforts to build bridges between the Pan-African Diaspora and the African Community on the Continent, and Sehwah-Liberia’s continuing commitment to lift up the people of Liberia as the country continues to rise up from decades of civil war.
The Scholarship Program is named after Mama Maisha Washington, who as a member of the Maryland SRDC Organization and the Maryland Council of Elders (MCOE) had led efforts to launch a successful 2020 Pan African Summer Camp in Liberia, administered and taught by teachers in Liberia and the United States. Mama Maisha was also one of the leaders of the Pan-African Library Project, which will build the first-ever public library in Monrovia, Liberia, and which will primarily serve the countries of Liberia, Guinea-Conakry, Siera Leone and Cote D’Ivoire.
Mama Maisha transitioned to the Honored Ancestors in October 2020.
The initial goal of the Maisha Washington Education Foundation Scholarship is to grant educational scholarships to 150 high school students (9th, 10th, 11th and 12th graders) in Liberia during 2022, and to expand the Scholarship Program from there. Also, in support of the Pan-African Library Project, Liberian college-age students will be trained in Library Science to equip them to manage and operate the library once it is completed.
Another objective of the Scholarship Program will be to build relationships between Scholarship donors and students in Liberia who will benefit from the Scholarship Program. SRDC has included a Scholarship Program Donor Form, which can be completed by checking out the SRDC post at https://srdcinternational.org/maisha-washington-education-foundation-scholarship-fund/ or by visiting the Maisha Washington Education Foundation Web page at https://srdcinternational.org/scholarship/.
To make a tax-deductible donation to the Maisha Washington Education Foundation Scholarship Program using PayPal, please visit the SRDC post at https://srdcinternational.org/maisha-washington-education-foundation-scholarship-fund/ or the Maisha Washington Education Foundation Web page at https://srdcinternational.org/scholarship/.
For more information and updates, check out our post or the Web site https://srdcinternational.org/scholarship/.