Hello all! Meet Ms. Paris Finesse; Mental Health professional, beauty influencer, brand owner (shop Style & Finesse), and holds many titles to the people in her community – mother, sister, daughter, friend. Paris talks about how she defines her community, how she transitioned to her own spiritual African journey, and what loving Black people truly means. We celebrate you Paris, check out the video below!
Hello all! So I know it’s not Music Mondays but, it’s still Wordy Wednesdays, LOL, and my songs still have words in the right? Well, as an addition to yesterday’s blog post, I want to share a song with you that I wrote and produced that explains the blog post perfectly. It was written and published on SoundCloud in February 2020, called History Lesson: 400. Here’s the lyrics © 2020
Red Igbo
Red adam
Red bone on her throne
Not the type you used to know
First woman Ada Born
Igbo made
Hebrew slave
Colonized, Egypt came
4 rounds
Igbo’s saved
Egypt made, price paid
Stubborn slave
Idols made
Gunned down, fight for change
No change made
Idols came
Brainwashed, new slave trade
Black star line
Betrayed
Fallen soldiers
Renegade
We forgotten, thee begotten
We forgot the price paid
Future reference
Ain’t no preference
Black skin they see reckless
But forget them
Let’s respect us
Let’s protect us
Don’t neglect us
Our ancestors fought so reckless
They deserve the best remembrance
Let’s do this in the remembrance
Of our soldiers past & present....
Enjoy!
Hello all! So last week, I talked about how reading the bible from Genesis to Revelation helped me discover an untruth about the Jews of the bible. I had already been asking God to show me the truth about God and everything I ever knew, to come to a new understanding. My love for my Black people never changed, but I wanted to have an understanding of the world outside of everything I ever knew. I asked God to remove everything from me from every institution, and replace it with truth. For me, I’ve always been a prayer faith warrior, so that part of my life and experiences as a result of pure faith I couldn’t change, but the names I used to describe it did. I began to say that my religion is Love, and my faith is in God. What I knew about many people is no matter what they claimed to believe, many lacked faith. What I found most is that the Bible is a story of people who had faith, which means, when they had no Bible, they still had faith. So whether Adam or Eve came first, or whether women should submit or not, which are definitely reminiscent of white ideologies, I came to know God for myself and realized those are not important aspects to faith, and that all I can do is follow my purpose in this world and I felt that was what God really looks for, people who will live out their purpose, so I adopted the faith of my ancestors, and that is what I go by.
The first time I began taking seriously that the Jews of the bible could really be Igbos, at least one of the 12 tribes, was in 2014. I struggled to find information, but I dedicated myself to finding it. The one thing about me is, the closer I get to God, the closer I get to understanding that I live for Black people, and whatever we are doing, so I began to pray more, “God, show me what you want me to know about Black people” I fasted, I prayed, I dedicated time to information, but it wasn’t until I read that bible front to back, that many pieces of the puzzle started to come together. You see, information is often not just one sided, sure, colonizers lied and added their own remix to the bible, but they depended on the fact that most of us won’t dig for our history to match the scattered parts. I began to read information from the Egyptian Book of Life, what Colonizers misinterpreted as the Book of the Dead. I began to read information about Odinani, the religion of pre-colonial Igbos. I began to read ancient myths and creation stories from parts of the world in Africa, and not in Africa, and I began to see trends. At the time, I was also the Director of Education and product development for Express Igbo 501C3, and I sat in on the Igbo classes, where I first discovered words that closely matched with Hebrew words, I said, hey, this is a start. I’d like to tell you all that I wrote a book about this, published in 2019, and I will not be selfish, I will publish it again now that I know you all have interest in this. Read this as a blog post, and take key words to search for information. My book, however, is a full story, these blog posts are pieces to introduce you all to information.
I want to focus today on the cross cultural observations I made between Igbo, Egyptian, and Bible culture. Why Egypt? because, if the Hebrews had been enslaved in Egypt for 400 years as the bible says, there must be some evidence of Hebrew/Igbo presence. First of all, the bible creation story is just a compilation of many original stories, representing creation of humans, tricksters, and humans being an extension of God or gods. I was not as much concerned about who came first, Adam or Eve; again, that is white man’s spin and narrative of patriarchy to set the tone for patriarchal themes throughout the bible. What I did care about was the description of Adam, which means, “to be red/the first man created”. Along with Adam, the Edomites in the bible were described as the red people of the bible. Now, my first middle name is Adaeze, Ada meaning – first born daughter. Here we had Adam, meaning “to be red/the first man created”. Well, again remember I am arguing that Hebrews stole their religion from Igbos, and have illogically argued that Eve came from Adam’s rib, when in actuality, humans come from women’s ribs, but I digress. Ada, and Adam have similar meanings – one is a Hebrew word, one is an Igbo word. Next observation, just as the red people of the bible, clear evidence shows that colonizers described and overwhelmingly agreed that Igbo enslaved peoples were red people, and termed us “Red Igbos” in the Caribbean, and the Americas – which led to the term “Red Bone” (Black people know what a red bone is). When looking at the presence of Igbo slaves, it is said from researchers that at least 60% of Black Americans have at least 1 Igbo ancestor. In Nigeria, currently (I have been to 6 states in Nigeria), there is a consensus that Igbo people are the “lighter” people, not that everyone is light, but overwhelmingly lighter, seeing that Nigeria is very close to the equator, and all other indigenous ethnicities there are darker. This observation in Nigeria isn’t the argument that Igbos are red people, but it is evidence that everywhere Igbos have been, we have always been distinguished by our varying color from other Nigerians, and other “sub-saharan” slaves. Next observation: there has been no evidence found that the current jews actually lived in Egypt as enslaved peoples (as mentioned in the bible), so I had to look for evidence between ancient Egypt and Igbo cultures, to find some commonalities, here’s what I found: on the left is the Egyptian word, on the right is the Igbo word. I assumed that there were cross cultural exchanges, if in fact the Hebrews were enslaved in Egypt, for 400 years.
KAKA(God) | Ka (greater, superior)
Ani (ground land below) | Ani (ground land below)
Ala (Land of) | Ala (Land of, ground, boundary)
Miri (water) | Miri (water)
Ka (higher) | Ka (greater, higher, stronger, above)
Bi (to become) | Bia (to become)
Feh (to go away) | Feh (to fly away)
Budo (dwelling place) | Obodo/ubudo (country, dwelling place)
Dor (settlement) | Dor-Nor (sit down, settle)
Ra -Shu (light after darkness) | La -Shu (sleep)
Wu (rise) | Wunie (rise/Jump up)
Ma (to know) | Ma, Ma-li (to know)
Nen (the primeval water mother) | Nem (mother)
Amu (children) | Umu (children)
Pa (open) | Meghee/Payee (open)
Isi (leader) | Isi (leader, head (body part),
Paa/Faa (fly) | Feeh/Faa (fly)
Beka (pray/confess) | Biko/Beko (to plead, please)
What does all this information mean? I am arguing that through the bible, we can find similarities between Igbo culture, Egyptian culture, and Bible culture – using the bible to bridge the gap. When I look at the acknowledgement by the United States government of the 400 years of slavery via them passing the 400 years of African American History Commission Act (2018-2020), I know that even they know the significance of the 400 years. The number 4 is very important to Igbo culture, and Egyptian culture, and the number 4 has been seen throughout the bible as a number of significance as well. When I read in the bible that the Hebrews were scattered to the 4 corners of the earth, the only other group of people scattered, are black people. The current jews can say they experienced the holocaust, but they can make no claim to being scattered through the 4 corners of the earth (Isaiah 11:12 – And He shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth). Specifically, the number of Igbo slaves is significant, and our presence of being scattered through the 4 corners of the earth from the Bight of Biafra is high. Again, at least 60% of Black Americans have 1 Igbo ancestor, and our presence remains in words and cultures such as okra, and Geechee, still seen today. Again, Many African nations were enslaved, so there could be other ethnicities as part of the 12 tribes, but the current israeli people are not one of them. Imagine, in my research I found a place in Australia called Israelite Bay, the reason it was named Israelite Bay was because that is where the Black people were found. They did not specify Igbo, or red, but Israelite is a strong indicator and another connection I made to at least, the original Israelites are Black, not the people seen today.
I’ve written a lot today, stay tuned for more tomorrow.
Hello All! Today we have another Episode of “How Has Your Culture Shaped You?” Featuring Rakeem Shabazz of Wise the Dome TV! He is a brethren that is very wise and educates us everyday on wisdom related to Hip Hop and the Black Diaspora. His channel features Black/African people from all walks of life that educate on hip hop, politics, spirituality, consciousness, and forward moving thinking for knowledge of self. Rakeem is a 5 Percenter, which you’ll learn more about in the video as well as his journey to get where he is today. Let us celebrate Rakeem, enjoy the video! Make sure to subscribe as well.