Biking to Babylon

I bought a new bike frame yesterday and I'm really pumped because I figured out what direction I want to take it in. I've decided that it's going to be a blue and white love letter from myself to John Pentsil. Sure, glory is fleeting, but the dude moved me and what else do we pay tribute to but that?



Ghana has so much righteous music! I can't handle it. I can only dream that John Pentsil's presence will inspire some forward-thinking Jews to play some highlife music about kabbalah. I will pay top dollar for it. In other mystical news, I believe this link recreates the relationship between G-d and moses on sinai! Cuz you can't see his face. Or maybe it's just weird and vaguely psychedelic.



Anyway, what would tie a post about Africa and Israel together more than music by African Jews? Yeah that's cool, but what about Africans who converted to Judaism by their own volition without any contact with other Jews and who made up a completely separate liturgy that is by similar to traditional Judaism and totally unique? Well...funny you should ask, because I've been listening to some music that fits that bill pretty well. Accordingly, here are two tracks by members of the Abayudaya (Lion of Judah) community in Eastern Uganda. Check it out on wikipedia and elsewhere, because the story is amazing and crazy and righteous and really fuels my pan-semitic fire! Okay, maybe this post has been a little weird, but I swear you'll feel this really hard.

Psalm 136
Mwana Talitambula (The Child Will Never Walk)