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ArtsNew wave of Afro-British culture hits London arts scene
He wrote the play as a dark love letter to his wayward, crime prone son. Now, Black Briton Kwame Kwei-Armah's award-winning "Elmina's Kitchen" has hit London's largely white, middle class theatregoers like a triple Jamaican rum punch. Urban drama Armah, at 38 and married with 3 children, is the first home grown Black dramatist to hit the London stage since the wave of Caribbean settlers post-World War II. He credits seeing in Washington, D.C. August Wilson's play "King Hedley II" about African-American life as catalyst for his own work. "I went back to my hotel room that night and said, 'O.K. I now know what I want to do; I want to chronicle the Black experience in Britain," he told The New York Times. "White audiences can now see themselves through someone else's cultural lens," says Armah. Author's background Armah grew up in sixties London in troubled times. While his immigrant parents from Grenada struggled to earn a decent living, Kwame, with mounting anger, had to face violence and racist thugs on the streets. His creative instincts kicked in when in his twenties he gave up his "slave-master's name Ian Roberts" handed to him by his parents. He adopted three names from Ghana, home of his ancestors, meaning one most ancient, one born on a Saturday, with wisdom to find the way.
Musicals "Making it big in London's theatre land is a notable achievement," says Alex Pascall, chairman of the Black Members Council of the National Union of Journalists. Especially in a business where plays dealing with Black people and social problems are uncommon and considered a financial gamble. New Black presence Others argue that white middle class lives are running out of dramatic content. Or that white parents are getting sensitised to their children's tastes for imported Black popular culture ÷ America's hip hop, the Caribbean ska revival, and Afro-jazz from Africa. In any case, Black culture has hit the big time and there are prospects that Black dramas and musicals will start playing to full houses on more than a week-to-week basis. Firsts in the
arts Another first is unfolding in the prestigious Pall Mall district close to the Queen of England's Buckingham Palace. London-born Ekow Eshun has commenced his imaginative appointment as director of the avant-garde Institute of Contemporary Arts. The 37-year-old son of Ghanaian parents has a wealth of experience as a writer ÷ his recent book "Black Gold of the Sun" is a memoir of Black identity in the diaspora. Playwright pioneers The pride and the anger of Black youth was portrayed by Mustapha Matura in "Black Pieces", Edgar White in "Lament for Rastafari," and Michael Abbensetts in "Empire Road". Future challenges Others will have to deal with symbolic moments such as the urban rebellions of the 1980s, and the unsolved racist murder of the youth Stephen Lawrence in 1993. "Themes of Black-white working class solidarity are waiting to be addressed," says Pascall, who has authored "Common Threads" a hard-hitting musical that fuses the melodies of exploited Caribbean sugar cane workers and Welsh coal miners. Black intellectuals in all the arts have a deep well from which to draw their inspiration and portrayal of Black people's experiences. Consider their African Caribbean aesthetics, trans-national migrations and world outlook and their carnival, sport, style, urban culture, music, crafts and arts as well as issues of race, class, gender and the Blackness of being in a white society. All, through their creativity and commitment, must add their voices to the demand for recognition of Black talent in mainstream British arts and culture.
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