Three Griot Mixes

This is our attempt at 3 different mixing styles, recognizing that each person has his/her "own blend...[his/her] own mix" (39). As you listen to/watch/experience each mix, here are some thoughts from the chapter to keep in mind:

• As we think about “the mix,” remember the “new and renewing possibilities that are emergent in the many complex practices of the DJ providing the mix: selection, arrangement, layering, sampling, beat-matching, blending. In the thought that anything – any sample, any sound, any tradition, any clip – is available to be used in any text” (35).
• “And one must teach in the idiom – not just the language practices but the ways of seeing the world, the ways of being in the world, the values, attitudes, knowledge, needs, hopes, joys, and contributions of a people as expressed through their language” (49).
• When people “see themselves as griots” they “value the oral tradition and print and digital literacies, and…develop writing and rhetorical practices that link the three toward the goals of building community and deep democracy through critical literacy” (83).

We present the mixes in no specific order. Feel free to experience them as you want…

Mix 1: http://digitalgriotreadinggroup.tumblr.com/ (Password: readinggroup2014)

Mix 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRV28dwoMaM&feature=youtu.be

Mix 3: http://youtu.be/ToMEtT3Yjw8

Christine, Heather, and Logan 

Animated Griots

To tell our story, we decided to represent ourselves as cartoons that look and sound exactly like we do in real life. We were also too cheap to upgrade, so we were limited to 30-second videos. Hey, isn't the essence of DJ-ing improvisation?

(Click on the links below)

Introduction

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Conclusion


Sincerely yours, Jen, Aimee, Bruce, and David

Philosophy

I think, therefore I am. ~ Rene’ Descrates, Le Discours de La Methode, 1937

Ubuntu [I am because we are] ~ African Philosophy

Rene Descrates claims that he “thought” himself into being so he offers a central premise upon which European (and Euro-American) worldviews and epistemologies rest—that the individual mind is the source of knowledge and existence.   

A counter perspective is the African concept of “Ubuntu,” translated   means “I am because we are,” resting on the belief that individual existence (and knowledge) is contingent on relationships with others.   

I admit that these are two contradictory perspectives: opposite and conflicting epistemological stances.   

It is within the spirit of Ubuntu that we move through the semester.

Wheels of Steel: The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash

DJ Grandmaster Flash The Wheels of Steel