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A Cultural Loss
By lisa in News on December 3, 2011
This has been a year marked by powerful fires that ravaged historic businesses, communities, and now, culture. The fire that broke out early yesterday (December 2) morning in downtown Nassau took the shell of the straw market already destroyed by Hurricane Irene earlier this year, as well as the two historical buildings that straddled it—the Pompey Museum and the historic St. Cuthbert's Church.
While a new straw market venue downtown is set to open imminently, the damage to these two buildings which have stood for centuries in the heart of Nassau are a blow to Bahamian history and culture.
Dr. Gail Saunders, who established the Pompey Museum in 1992, mourned the loss of her project yesterday as she worked with the Antiquities, Monuments and Museums Corporation and government officials to decide how to approach it's restoration.
"I think people are generally just sort of stunned," she says. "When they called me early this morning, I just was so confused. Most people I think were very concerned and very upset about it."
"I feel that Bahamians have to demand that the heritage and culture be preserved and however much it costs within reason, but we have to restore the museum and the building too which is very historic."
Indeed the museum is the historic Vendue House, a one-story building dating back to the 1760s as a market for various commodities—most notably for slaves trafficked across the Atlantic. Though the building has since gone through many lives as a department for telegraph and telephone and electricity, it's historical significance was honored in 1992 when Dr. Saunders worked to establish it as a public museum, named after the slave who led the revolt against inhumane conditions on the Rolle Plantation in Exuma, to celebrate Bahamian heritage and culture.
"It really is representative of the whole story of slavery in The Bahamas that's known internationally as well," says Dr. Saunders. "It was established also to educate students and people of The Bahamas about their past."
"If you travel anywhere in the world and in the Caribbean especially, museums are very important attractions and this was in such a strategic location because it was downtown. It's very important from the point of education and tourism."
Indeed, besides a permanent collection of an in-depth look into the slave trade and experience of slaves on plantations and post-emancipation through significant artifacts, the Bahamian intuitive painter Amos Ferguson exhibited his paintings in the space. It has also displayed a series of temporary exhibitions such as "A Slave Ship Speaks: The Wreck of the Henrietta Marie" and the UNESCO/ Schomburg commemorative exhibition "Lest We Forget: The Triumph Over Slavery".
Though a few items could be salvaged and some books on the second story survived, an enormous amount of history, research and artwork was lost to the fire. Up until press time, it was unclear as to whether many paintings by Amos Ferguson went along with the artifacts, but if this is the case, then certainly we have experienced a deep and terrible loss of work from a beloved Bahamian founding father of visual art.
The government has committed to restoring the building and replicating its artifacts, yet just over a decade ago in September 2001, the Pompey Museum caught fire and closed for a few years for restoration. So this latest loss is particularly bewildering and unfathomable—why were proper protective procedures not put into place to ensure a tragedy like this could have been avoided? How can we now move forward and learn how to properly value, preserve and protect Bahamian art and history for future generations to understand and appreciate where they came from?
"This is a setback for us but we're determined that the building will be restored," says Dr. Saunders. "We will be able to get replicas of some of the slave artifacts that were in the museum. But it's going to be expensive and it's going to take time. We will have to be patient."
What's particularly sobering about online remarks expressing awe at the fire damage are those who are mourning the loss of the nightclub "Da Balcony". Such expressions are in themselves testaments to how little Bahamians know or have been taught to value their rich heritage, for within the history of that building, Da Balcony is simply a brief moment in time.
A testament to its rich history was embodied in the elaborate mural by local artist Kishan Munroe last year, called "Lift Up Your Head". As part of the Love My Bahamas campaign, sponsored by Coca-Cola and the Downtown Nassau Partnership, which established murals by local artists for the revitalization of Downtown Nassau, Munroe selected the building because of its history.
"This was the building I saw first that had significance—everything else they had on the list didn't hold significance, they were just buildings and walls," he says.
Wanting to tap into that significance and inspired by such murals he saw on his travels to Latin America that honored history and heritage, Munroe set out to uncover its history with the help of Dr. Saunders and Penelope Nottage and then to share it with its millions of tourist and Bahamian passersby.
Orignally known as St. Cuthbert's Church or the Seaman's Chapel, the building, which dates back to the 1800s, was a mission church for sponge fisherman, which Munroe paid tribute to in the painted fisherman figures and ship sails. He also included the element of spirituality with a slave in prayer, as well as a figure in Junkanoo costume to tap into our African history and heritage. As an artist Munroe's work taps into human experience and connection, and this piece is no different with historical and contemporary figures sweeping upwards to the sky finding the common human element in us all.
Indeed, Munroe wanted to piece to be inspirational, as in the summer of 2010 the crime rate was rapidly on the rise.
"I wanted it to be uplifting, to tap into that futuristic stylized tendencies used in the world wars to inspire us to survive and move forward," he says. "I wanted to show that history isn't dead but it in motion."
Despite the mural's size and presence, Munroe, knowing the building's rich history, respected its structure and worked only on the flat surface to not drastically change the appearance of the building but rather give meaning to the phrase "If these walls could talk."
Indeed, his mural, despite its brief presence, garnered attention from both tourists and locals alike, educating people about their environment and history they may often—and still do—take for granted. For Munroe, the loss of his work and that building by fire is indeed shocking, but his outlook is positive that it has served its purpose.
"Painting has a life. You give life to a painting—that's basically birth. Anything you give life to dies. So it's not the quantity of life, it's the quality of life," he points out.
"So if you create something that lasts for just one hour and it does what it's supposed to do, then it was a good life. If it exists for a hundred years and still does not achieve its purpose then it was done in vain. But I can honestly say right now I don't think it was done in vain."
Indeed, losing both buildings to fire at the same time is a strong statement to the ephemerality of human artifacts, and if we don't realize right now that these items are worth saving for what they represent, then we will never have a proper foundation to our Bahamian identity or a sense of national pride.
Ed Fields, the Director of the Downtown Nassau Partnership, which works to recognize and preserve the valuable Bahamian buildings in historic Nassau, hopes that this time around proper consideration can be put into protecting the restored buildings.
He echoes the bewilderment, grief and sadness many feel today as we pick up what pieces we can and come to terms with what we cannot recover ever again.
"Buildings such as these go to the very heart of who we are as a people," he says. "They represent where we come from, and the struggles endured to get where we are today as Bahamians."
"Their presence is essential to our very existence. Losing structures such as Pompey and the Seaman's Chapel is akin to losing an organ. We survive, but we are never quite the same."
Sonia Farmer,
The Nassau Guardian
Published: Saturday, December 3, 2011


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Here's What We Know About The Alleged School Shooter Nikolas Cruz
Broward Sheriff's Office
By Jorge Rodriguez-Jimenez February 15, 2018 at 12:49 pm
This is the 30th mass shooting in the U.S. this year.
A shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida has left 17 people dead and 14 injured. Nikolas Cruz is in custody as the suspect who perpetrated the school shooting on Valentine's Day with an AR-15 rifle. The AR-15 is an assault style weapon that is highly customizable. The AR-15 weapon has been used in multiple mass shootings including Aurora, Colorado, Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida, and Sandy Hook Elemntary School in Newtown, Connecticut. The shooting at the Florida high school has become the 18th school shooting in a month and a half, according to Everytown For Gun Safety. That is 18 school shootings in 45 days. Students at Cruz' former high school say that they are not surprised that Cruz would commit a mass shooting at the high school. According to law enforcement officials and former classmates, Cruz' social media accounts were filled with images of guns, knives, and animals he killed with BB guns.
"All he would talk about is guns, knives and hunting," Joshua Charo, 16, a former classmate at the high school, told Miami Herald. "I can't say I was shocked. From past experiences, he seemed like the kind of kid who would do something like this."
According to Miami Herald, Cruz was expelled from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School for undisclosed behavioral reasons. Yet, student Victoria Olvera, 17, says that he was abusive with his ex-girlfriend and got into a fight with her boyfriend after they broke up. Olvera also said that Cruz was expelled last school year.
Cruz and his biological brother were adopted by Lynda and Roger Cruz, a couple from Long Island, New York, who raised the boys in Parkland, Florida. Roger died in 2005 of a heart attack and Lynda died in November from pneumonia brought on by the flu. After the death of his mother, a family friend took the two boys into their home, according to Miami Herald. The family that took him in knew about his AR-15 but made him keep it locked in a gun safe. He was given a key for the safe.
Nikolas has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, the white supremacy group Republic of Florida admits that Nikolas was part of the organization.
This is an ongoing story. Check back to mitú as the story continues to develop.
(H/T: Miami Herald)
READ: A School Shooting Left Two Students Dead At A New Mexico High School
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Tags: Gun Violence, School Shooting, Florida
Two Racist Florida Women Are Caught On Video Telling A Puerto Rican Man To 'Go Back To Mexico' If He Wants To Speak Spanish
Neyzha Nicole / Facebook
By Justin Lessner July 11, 2019 at 10:27 am
In a video that has been making the rounds on social media, two women can be heard telling the Puerto Rican manager of a Burger King restaurant in Florida to "go back to Mexico" after they heard him speaking Spanish to an employee.
Footage of the interaction that was recently shared on Facebook shows the two women in a heated exchange with Ricardo Castillo, the general manager of the restaurant.
The two women were filmed by another customer who happened to be Latina.
Credit: @DailyMail / Twitter
Two racist customers at a Burger King in Florida told the manager to go back to Mexico – when he is from the US territory of Puerto Rico.
Another customer videoed the heated exchange as the Spanish-speaking manager told the two women to leave his restaurant near Orlando.
'Go back to Mexico if you want to keep speaking Spanish,' one of the woman is heard to say from her seat after overhearing manager Ricardo Castillo speaking in Spanish with an employee.
You can see the video that has gone viral here.
Racist women hear man in Florida Burger King speaking Spanish.
"Go back to Mexico," they say.
Turns out the man they berated is the manager. And he kicked them both out. ✊🏾❤✌🏾pic.twitter.com/QkEHsTC4rt
— Simran Jeet Singh (@SikhProf) July 11, 2019
The clip, posted onto Facebook by Neyzha Borrero on July 6, shows Ricardo Castillo, who is Puerto Rican, repeatedly condemn the two women for being prejudiced before asking them to leave after they told him to "go back to Mexico" because he was speaking to an employee in Spanish.
"When you're in America, you should speak American English," one of the women can be heard telling Castillo.
Raising his voice, Castillo adds: "Guess what ma'am, I'm not Mexican, I'm not Mexican but you're being very prejudice and I want you out of my restaurant, right now."
One of the women then says they'll leave after they have finished their meal. The general manager retorts: "You know what, I'll do it for you ma'am, I'll call the cops."
Eventually the women get up and leave the restaurant as Castillo tells each of them to have a great day.
Of course, reactions on Twitter came quick and strong.
pic.twitter.com/VeBjrPqz7g
— Tidysome (@tidysome) July 11, 2019
Nearly everyone on Twitter came to support Castillo and commended him for his calm attitude in the face of discrimination and abuse.
Some pointed out just how common these types of racist exchanges are becoming.
Credit: @SikhProf / Twitter
With many people saying that thanks to racist comments from our leaders in government and our media (such as Fox News), people are feeling more emboldened than ever to share their racist views.
Others took to Twitter to tell Burger King that Castillo deserves a big raise for how he handled the situation.
Credit: @PaulUK2901 / Twitter
Borrero, the woman who filmed the incident said "I was very surprised by his reaction. I think even though he was being verbally attacked and discriminated, he handled it very, very well. He never used profanity to them. He never insulted them, he just asked them to leave and never come back to his restaurant."
And some pointed out just how racist this exchange was.
Credit: @NeneandGaga / Twitter
Sadly, it's totally true. If Castillo had been white and speaking a language other than Spanish, we can pretty much guarantee that this racist, abusive exchange never would of happened.
Tags: Racist, burger king, Florida
These Migrant Kids Are Being Held In A Prison While Former Members Of The Trump Administration Are Making Money Off Their Imprisonment
ewarren / Twitter
By Justin Lessner June 26, 2019 at 2:29 pm
One of the most shocking parts of the American justice system is our reliance on for-profit prisons. Companies that own private prisons make money off the number of people they house, so they push for more people to be incarcerated.
This encourages the prison industry to give money to politicians who claim to be tough on crime or anti-immigration. So, essentially, what we consider to be a crime is now often influenced by the prisons and jails who stand to profit.
Along the way, the prison industrial complex ruins lives and takes away people's basic freedoms, all to make a dollar.
For example, one US company is making $750 each day for every kid it has imprisoned in its detention center.
Credit: @dee4peace / Twitter
One company that appears to be making a killing off of the Trump Administration's inhumane immigration policies is Caliburn International Corp. Caliburn charges $750 per child, per day to house immigrant children at a temporary shelter in Homestead, Florida.
At $750 per day, the children could literally be staying at the Four Seasons hotel in Miami.
The children who find their way to this facility are unaccompanied minors who arrived at the U.S. border seeking asylum. Most of them are Central American.
Unfortunately, the shocking levels of connection between the government and for-profit prisons aren't really shocking anyone.
Credit: @CREWcrew / Twitter
Former Trump chief of staff John Kelly recently joined its board of directors. He previously had been on the board of an investment firm that now owns the company.
This same company owns the now infamous Homestead facility which many people described as being like an actual prison than a detention center for child migrants.
Credit: @ewarren / Twitter
The Homestead facility caught the public's attention for its prison-like conditions in which children are not allowed to touch one another and walk single-file to 15-minute meals. They may not use the restroom without permission and are only allowed two ten-minute phone calls with a family member per week.
"These children are battling a sense of deep helplessness and sheer frustration and confusion on why they don't know anything or on why they are still detained," attorney Neha Desai told the Miami Herald. "It's profoundly distressing for them and something needs to be done."
The facility sits on federal property, and unlike established children's shelters, such as smaller group or foster homes that hold migrant children across the country, is not governed by state child welfare regulations designed to protect kids from harm.
Over 2,300 children are currently at the facility and some stay for months, even those who have family members waiting to pick them up.
Many weren't surprised by the news and pointed out that we probably don't even know the half of it.
In the two and half years of the Trump administration, story after story of government corruption has been uncovered.
Tags: children immigration, Florida, Immigration Detention Centers
Woman Pays The Bond Of A Woman Being Held In ICE Detention Center And The Internet Is Living For This Moment Of Kindness
The woman says what she did isn't a big deal, it's something that she had to do since she had the means to help someone less fortunate.
These Kids Were Released From US Custody But They're Sharing The Trauma They Experienced In Their Drawings
These kids were recently released from migrant detention centers and when asked by therapists to draw their experiences, the images they create are heartbreaking.
We Now Have A Better Look At What Migrants Are Facing In Detention Centers Thanks To Joaquin Castro And A Secret Camera
Members of Congress toured a Texas migrant detention center and their descriptions and images of what they say should have us all concerned.
A Viral Tweet Claims Disney Took The Story Of 'Coco' From A Family In Mexico And There Is A Lot Of Debate

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


You let out a sigh as you click the "export track" button in your DAW after a long day in the studio.
You've spent hours on this one, and you're proud of it. The next step? Asking for feedback from your producer friends. You know they'll love it.
Creating an interesting song is difficult. It's easy to go too far and make something unnecessarily complex or not go far enough and end up with a skeleton of a song instead of something that's enjoyable to listen to.
In this post, I'm going to share a step-by-step approach that you can use to make your music more interesting.
When faced with a track that seems uninteresting, the default solution for many producers is to add more stuff.
Now, adding more stuff can make a song more interesting, but it only works if the fundamental ideas in your track are interesting in the first place.
If your melody is too repetitive, badly written, or simply not catchy enough, it will cause listeners to lose interest.
If your drums are a key part of the track and they never change, then it's likely that your drum sequence is contributing to a lack of interest.
So, before doing anything else, you need to make sure your key ideas are solid. You need to make sure your songwriting is tight. Adding more stuff to fix bad songwriting is like putting a band-aid on a severed leg.
The easiest way to fix this is to start with your chorus, or the most important part of your track. If you can fix the composition in your chorus/drop and make it interesting, the rest will follow.
As you can hear, this isn't terrible. The melody is decent, it's catchy and there's enough variation for it to be repeated.
The bassline on the other hand is boring. It repeats the same note across the 8-bar section.
Let's change a few notes around and compare the difference.
You don't necessarily need to change a lot. Sometimes it might be a single note that needs changed to add variation, other times you might need to write a completely new chord progression. But don't think that you need to make some sort of drastic change, only do so if it's necessary.
Less is more. If you have a phrase or melody that's too complex, it can actually reduce interest instead of adding it. The listener needs to understand your music. A short, catchy melody works much better than a complex melody that has no defining motif or structure.
Iterate, iterate, iterate. You won't get it right first time. Make some changes, ask for feedback, and then do it all again. Eventually you'll find the sweet spot.
If your track is well written and you've added a bunch of FX but it still bores the listener, it might be because it's simply too long.
There's an art to making shorter arrangements. You need to introduce ideas faster. You need to be more creative with transitions. And most importantly, you need to rip out everything that's not important.
But if you do this, and you shorten your arrangement to the point where it leaves the listener wanting more, you've made an interesting track.
I've written about this before in my article If In Doubt, Make It Shorter.
Start on the macro-level. If you feel your arrangement is too long and you want to shorten it, you need to start looking at the high-level. Does your intro need to be 32 bars? Could your breakdown be shorter? Is there any section that drags?
Don't avoid abruptness. Long arrangements tend to have long transitions. If you want to shorten something, it's likely that you'll come across a part where you have to transition from two completely contrasting sections very quickly (drop > breakdown for example). Don't be afraid to transition abruptly.
Study other music. Look at songs in the style you're making and study their structure. If it's shorter than yours, figure out why it's shorter. What have they emphasised? What have they kept short?
One way to add interest while making your song more memorable is to include a motif.
It's a small idea that repeats itself multiple times throughout the arrangement.
In a lot of electronic music you'll hear the first few notes of the melody or vocal being played during the intro (and often outro). This can be considered a motif.
Keep it short but powerful. A motif should be remembered. It doesn't have to be a sequence of notes, but this tends to work best in terms of interest and memorability. Another option is using obscure samples or sounds that listeners will remember.
Figure out the frequency. No, not the frequency of the sound, but how often it's going to play in your arrangement! Do you want your motif to sound every 16 bars? 32 bars? Find a frequency and stick to it.
Use vocals. If you find it hard to write your own motif, scroll through some vocal chops and loops to find a phrase that could be repeated throughout your track. Some of the best dance tracks of all time have a vocal hook, that keeps the track interesting (and also makes it memorable).
A lot of producers go overboard when using FX. They feel like they have to add 5 different crash cymbals or other producers will call them out on it.
No one cares if you use the same crash cymbal every 16 bars, in fact, it's probably a good idea to do that as it add cohesion to the arrangement.
So, when it comes to adding FX–be it crash cymbals, white noise, downlifters and snare rolls–be liberal when adding them, but don't feel you need to have 20 different channels of FX. Sometimes you just need a few core sounds to build up the bulk of your FX sequence.
Make your own. It's not hard to make your own FX, and you'll have much more control over how they sound if you make them yourself. Instead of taking the easy way out and looking for a riser in a sample pack, why not make one in a synth? Take a square wave with multiple voices -> detune it -> high-pass it at 200hz -> drown it in reverb -> sidechain it -> automate the pitch from -12 semitones to +12 over 8 or 16 bars.
Think push and pull. If a crash cymbal on the downbeat is your push, the reverse crash cymbal that leads into it is your pull. Make sure you have both in your arrangement. Read: The Advanced Guide to Tension & Energy.
Ask: does this make the track more interesting? Sometimes a lack of FX can make a section more interesting. Take a heavy bass drop for instance. If it's a unique drop, adding a crash cymbal to it can reduce the novelty and actually make it less interesting (at least initially). If the music (drums, bass, leads) can hold itself for the first 8 bars, then it might be a better idea to let them stand out.
The final step in the process is to run through each channel/instrument and ask yourself whether you can tweak it or automate a parameter on it to make the overall project more interesting.
The way I like to do this is start at the top of my channel list and work down.
High-pass the kick for the first 16 bars and last 16 bars of the arrangement.
Automate a lowpass filter from bar 49 to the breakdown at bar 57 for a smoother transition.
Remove two kicks just before bar 97 to add tension.
I'd then move on to the Perc 1 channel and see if it's lacking in the interest department or if there's anything to be improved. The goal here is not to make each instrument or channel sound interesting by itself. In fact, the majority of the tracks will remain untouched.
This is a straightforward process, but it forces you to think about how each element contributes to the whole.
Making interesting music is important. You have no more than 30 seconds to capture the listener's attention, and once it's captured it's very easy to lose.
I encourage you to use this process. Tweak it. Try different steps. Or even simplify it if you feel like I'm overcomplicating things.
Question: what techniques or processes do you use to make your music more interesting? Comment below!