How Fahamu Got Us To Drink His Red Kool Aid

8 February 2009 One Comment

Betcha Can’t Do It Like Me: How Fahamu Got Us To Drink His Red Kool Aid

By Edward M. Garnes Jr

Photo: www.myspace.com/shannonmccollum

The following joint is an exclusive excerpt from FAHAMENON, internationally acclaimed artist Fahamu Pecou’s art catalogue.

Certainly there is, for the American Negro artist who can escape the restrictions the more advanced among his own group would put upon him, a great field of unused material ready for his art.–Langston Hughes

The major dilemma facing artists is learning to get out of their own way. Fahamu Pecou would have been nice filler for Black History Month programs had he folded under lofty expectations of others and not decided to become a visual art rock star. In this age of cultural disconnect, nobody had time to digest the symbolism and ethos of his early paintings exploring the emotional depth and spirituality of the African Diaspora. Not when what Sean ” Diddy” Combs eats for breakfast or the latest music industry buffoon’s Billboard hit take precedence over real quality of life issues like poverty, political autonomy, and freedom. So Pecou developed an alter ego, a more digestible super hero donning flashy threads who always has the flyest chicks on his arm, to do his dirty work against the powers that be.

TO ORDER YOUR LIMITED EDITION COPY OF FAHAMENON CLICK HERE:

http://www.fahamupecouart.com/FAHAMENON/

Award winning writer, educator, counselor, and activist Edward M. Garnes, Jr. is the founder of From Afros to Shelltoes: Art, Action, and Conversation, a nationally acclaimed series of cultural productions confronting the social divide between elders and hip hop heads, and holds a B.A. in English Writing from DePauw University and a M.A. in Counseling from Michigan State University . His seminal essay, ” Sweet Tea Ethics: Black Luv, Healthcare, and Cultural Mistrust,” currently appears in Not In My Family: AIDS in the African American Community, a 2007 NAACP Image Award nominated collection edited by Gil Robertson. (www.afrostoshelltoes.com).