#WomanCrushWednesday Mumu Fresh sees me
This post was completely unplanned, but following a scroll through my Instagram, I landed upon a woman I had been following for a while, Ms. Mumu Fresh. Born Maimouna Youssef, this woman's voice and verbiage compelled me to share this here.
While I listened, I felt my breath literally steal away from me. Her first song, "Ink Pata", in her native Lakota, looped tribal chants of her own harmonies blended with her own stirring spoken word performance that journeyed through her ancestral lineage to the struggles of the present day literally put the history of our American experience, the history of the first peoples and the stolen peoples, into a sorrowful, sultry, strong and sassy spiritual.
Sharing a similar ancestry as Maimouna, I felt every chord and song, every story and family legend ever passed to me reverberated back to me.
"I am the daughter of freedom fighters and farmers."
"I am the product of prayers and potions, of heartbreak and devotions. I come from gorgeous women who will cut and shoot and don't say sorry later."
"I am the product of a gypsy and a kingpin. I exist somewhere between Egypt and Sing-Sing."
I was born to bring light into the world, that's why you see so much fight in your girl, and I have so much more to be thankful for. Because God's work is so gangsta."
"I survived the trail of tears of tears and slavery. This here is what you call unmatched bravery."
"We are just spiritual beings having a human experience, and nothing else is ever true."
I haven't felt so seen or knew I needed this until I heard it and felt so free. It was so healing to hear the interwoven stories of the original Americans and the African American, both of whom I am connected to, woven together in Mumu's own way. Tears, yall. Real tears.
Here is Mumu's full NPR Music "Tiny Desk" performance. If this doesn't make you proud to be a woman, a child of the diaspora, proud to be a person of color or an overcomer, I don't know what will. Enjoy.
While I listened, I felt my breath literally steal away from me. Her first song, "Ink Pata", in her native Lakota, looped tribal chants of her own harmonies blended with her own stirring spoken word performance that journeyed through her ancestral lineage to the struggles of the present day literally put the history of our American experience, the history of the first peoples and the stolen peoples, into a sorrowful, sultry, strong and sassy spiritual.
Sharing a similar ancestry as Maimouna, I felt every chord and song, every story and family legend ever passed to me reverberated back to me.
"I am the daughter of freedom fighters and farmers."
"I am the product of prayers and potions, of heartbreak and devotions. I come from gorgeous women who will cut and shoot and don't say sorry later."
"I am the product of a gypsy and a kingpin. I exist somewhere between Egypt and Sing-Sing."
I was born to bring light into the world, that's why you see so much fight in your girl, and I have so much more to be thankful for. Because God's work is so gangsta."
"I survived the trail of tears of tears and slavery. This here is what you call unmatched bravery."
"We are just spiritual beings having a human experience, and nothing else is ever true."
I haven't felt so seen or knew I needed this until I heard it and felt so free. It was so healing to hear the interwoven stories of the original Americans and the African American, both of whom I am connected to, woven together in Mumu's own way. Tears, yall. Real tears.
Here is Mumu's full NPR Music "Tiny Desk" performance. If this doesn't make you proud to be a woman, a child of the diaspora, proud to be a person of color or an overcomer, I don't know what will. Enjoy.
Hi Whitney,
ReplyDeleteI felt the same, Ms. Mumu Fresh brought me to tears and makes me so proud to be a man of color whose bloodlines are Native, part colonizer, and from the African Diaspora. And, as a new grad and educator I will be bringing myself and my culture into the classroom. Telling our story, which is part of the American story!