My African/American friend and I have been getting into silly arguments about African tradition. He maintains that African tradition is even more prominent in the States that anywhere else in Africa.
According to him, African/Americans lately are the main crusaders of our tradition. With old and new celebrities in the west wearing more and more African print than even in Ghana and other Africans.
This is true I admit but surely we have equalized because the trend of wearing African prints is now well entrenched back home. We now have everything African from clothes to shoes, bags, hair clips…everything!
Then he goes on to talk about how many more Africans in the diaspora enjoy African music and movies. They actually send people coming home to get them movies and there is a good market for African movies out there.
Ghanaians especially delight in stocking up on all movies from Ghana. From Agya Koo to Yvonne Nelson movies. It sometimes doesn’t even matter if the movie is a good one. As long as it is from Ghana, they will watch to stay connected to the motherland. It reconnects them with what they left behind and comforts them. Sometimes the people in these movies and musicians even get more popular abroad that at home. Same applies with Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and others.
Got me thinking, true talk coming from him right there. Even with African food…
People travel miles abroad to find African food, and most Africans and African/Americans live together. They seek out the unity in each other whereas back home, we are constantly looking to tear each other down.
He went on to talk about traditional practices like the pouring of Libation.
Which American have you ever seen pouring Libation? I asked him. I know some Africans abroad pour libations at gatherings but even that isn’t common. And certainly not with the African/Americans.
So he asked me if I watch many rap videos…of course I do!
He said can you count the number of times you have seen rappers pour drinks saying
“To all my homies” ? That is the transformation of libation right there. That is how we connect. Tradition evolves and though it is disconnected and has evolved over many years and faint memories, it is definitely not lost.
I told him the pouring of libation has deep spiritual roots and and usually evokes the spirits of the dead so we must be careful who we pour libation to. So when these African/Americans pour drink on the ground to their homies, they are evoking spirits. They should make sure the homies mentioned were good people.
He said he actually had a few African/American friends who always poured libation at a certain spot in the night and he suspected something sinister had happened on that spot. Because a few people swear they have seen a Ghost walk out of that place several times.
So I finally had to accept that indeed, the spirit of Africa is unconquerable. You can take the people out of Africa and turn them into anything you want but there will always be some Africa in them. You cannot take Africa out of the people.
Is there any interesting practice you have observed out of Africa you think has roots in Africa? Share with us.