MWALIM *7)
The Voices of A Black Wampanoag WarriorOne day, back in the early summer of 2001 in New York City, a trio of friends met for lunch in a Brooklyn eatery. Their conversation switched to arts happenings around the city. One friend talked about seeing an interesting little experimental play up in Harlem a couple of weeks earlier; another talked about a soul artist and his band that he saw at a club in the Village over the past weekend; and the third mentioned a poet that shed heard at a spot on the Lower East Side during the week. It turned out that they were all talking about the same person, a cat named Mwalim. - 2001, Ronnie Gilman. Freelance Journalist
Considered by critics and peers alike to be one of the true modern masters of the oral tradition, Mwalim is a multifaceted, Black Wampanoag performing artist, writer, filmmaker and educator. Once asked what he considers to be his main art form, his answer is communication. When asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, the answer would sometimes change from day to day or minute to minute: a writer, a singer, a musician, a composer, a playwright, a filmmaker, a director, a lawyer the last notion bit the dust otherwise, Mwalim has done it all. Mwalim first emerged to public attention in the mid 1990s in the east-coasts growing spoken-word and storytelling scene, appearing in coffeehouses, lounges and various poetry venues.
As a fourth generation musician on his mothers side, Mwalim was exposed to all kinds of music: jazz, blues, soul, classical, opera, Calypso, rock, and funk. At the age of 12when he snuck out to a park party in the Bronx, hearing hip-hop in its rawest form. Reminding him of his godfathers jazz records, the young musician heard a sound in his head that would become a central influence in his musical style. His first instrument was the viola, but as a freshman at Music & Art High school his interests in composing led to his taking up the piano, taking lessons with his grandfather, noted big band leader and arranger for the stars, Allan Nurse. In his junior year of high school, Mwalim joined a band that played covers of pop and R&B tunes as well as original music. Co-writing several songs for the group, Mwalim gained his first studio experience producing the bands demo tape. While the band didnt go anywhere, the tape did land in the hands of a few folks in the industry who encouraged Mwalim to continue his efforts, advising him on how to form a publishing company to protect his music. Over the years, Mwalim continued writing and producing music for a variety of artists, as well as film and theater projects until early 2000 when he released a solo CD-Single Thief in the Night (Midnight Groove/OTC Records) which became an underground hit, followed by a limited edition E.P. called Jazzy-Soul Club Grooves in 2001, which became a favorite among dance music DJs in the USA, Canada, the U.K., Germany, and France.
As a kid, Mwalim wrote stories to amuse himself in school during boring classes (Which were most of them). In high school, a teacher confiscated one of his writings and turned it in to the English Department's writing competition and it won. After that, he started entering and winning citywide and regional short story competitons for high school students. As a student at Boston University, he joined the Black Drama Collective, a student theatre group, as a stage band musician, but soon ended up writing sketches for the collectives coffeehouse presentations. The collectives faculty advisor, actor, director, and Black Arts Movement pioneer, James Spruill, too Mwalim under his wing, bringing the young artist into New African Company. Here, Mwalim received formal training in theater arts, while finishing his BA in Music and earning a MS in Film Production at BU.
He soon distinguishing himself as a playwright, director, actor and arts teacher winning awards, grants and fellowships throughout the region for his work in theater and film. In 1998, Talking Drum Press published his first book, A Mixed Medicine Bag, a collection of his original Black Wampanoag folk-tales. The book quickly became a sought after piece of literature by multicultural studies and native literature courses and enthusiasts worldwide.
As a filmmaker, a lot of his projects consisted of producing experimental shorts for museum and gallery installations, combining music and spoken-word with visual images, as well as his freelance work as an editor for various production companies throughout the country.
His award-winning one-man show A Party at the Crossroads is subtitled the tales and adventures of a Black Indian growing up in a Jewish neighborhood, has been presented at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum in Connecticut and as a part of the Indian Summer series at the American Indian Community House in New York City. His performance piece, based on memories of Mashpee of the past, "Backwoods People" was presented at the 1999 National Black Theatre Festival in Winston Salem, NC. His romantic comedy, Working Things Out was a hit at the 2005 festival. Mwalim is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Oversoul Theatre Collective, a professional Black and Native American arts and education organization formed in 1994.
Mwalim earned his MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College in July of 2006. His focus was playwriting, where he studied under the award-winning and legendary playwright, Leslie Lee. His thesis project is entitled Wetu In The City the story of a tribe of Black Indians whose territory was once the entire Bronx, now reduced to a triple-square block in the South Bronx which a real estate develop is now trying to take out from under them.
Mwalim is still actively engaged in music, theater, and film. His plays are regularly produced and presented throughout the country. He was recently named Filmmaker-In-Residence by WGBH, Bostons PBS television station. He will be the residency programs first narrative filmmaker, where he will be producing a film adaptation of Look At My Shorts, a collection of Mwalims short plays exploring contemporary Black Indian experiences in Massachusetts. His album Bronx Jazz is due for release in early 2007. He is a professor of English and African/ African American Studies at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where he teaches courses in drama, digital filmmaking, and Black Aesthetics & Folklore, with a strong emphasis of the roots of Hip-hop culture, the Black Arts Movement, and the Harlem Renaissance. Mwalim currently lives in the Wampanoag National Territory in Massachusetts with his son Zyggi.