Richelle Kinard

 Cool Stuff! no. 4 (Southeastern and Far Eastern Asia) I’ve never knew much about China, so I decided to look up some interesting facts. Number one is, is that based on native languages, Chinese is the most spoken language in the world.  I find this interesting because I know that China is HUGE but I always thought that Russia had more people. But apparently China has 1.4 billion more people than Russia. Number two, China has the largest army in the world which honestly isn't surprising because of how big it is. Number three (which is my favorite) China owns all the pandas in the world. Now when I first heard this I was like no way because of all the different zoos all over the world, but apparently pandas are lent from People's Republic of China. I just find that to be crazy interesting and cool. Number four, 35 million people in China live in caves . It is because some people in China can't afford housing so they use Caves as shelter.  Number five the whol...

For my music and family blog I got the honor of interviewing my sweet 80 year old Grandma Lee (Aka Luedee). Since there were so many questions I thought I’d like to share all of her essential ones and her best memories.  Me:What sort of music-culture did you grow up in? Lee: I grew up listening to Gospel, Blues, Rock and Roll, and the HillBillies.  Me:Where did you grow up? Lee: New Orleans Lousianna  Me:What kind of music did you grow up with? What did it mean to you and the people around you? Did music have any particular function? When and where did you listen to it? Lee: Gospel meant alot to me because it really helped me know God and want to sing more. All the people around me enjoyed it also because growing up it was a comfort to everyone around in spite of everything they were going through. I used to listen to Gospel in the morning and the Blues in the afternoon on the radio channel WBOK.  Me:Were you involved in any music groups at school o...

I think out of all the different cultures, so far, these have been my favorite. One of the things I wanted to know more about was the religion Jainism. According to Britannica Jainism is “ Indian religion teaching a path to spiritual purity and enlightenment through disciplined nonviolence ( ahimsa , literally “noninjury”) to all living creatures.” As I was looking online for more facts Jainism I found a whole youtube channel with songs just for the Jainism religion, and they are called Jain songs. One of the songs I clicked on was called ‘ Nem Rajul Panthe’ I have no idea what the words were saying, but what I can tell you is that the piece started off with a piano melody which I thought was pretty interesting. Later on the tempo eventually picked up and it became an upbeat song. (link Below) 5:50 Now playing Another thing I wanted to know more about is Bollywood, because I've heard of it maybe one or twice but I never really put much thought into it. After doing some ...

Cool Stuff! no 2 (Black America & South America) I think one of my favorite topics we learned about during the Black America and South America was when we watched the video documentary of Paul Simon. I don’t know why I just thought it was interesting. What I wanted to know more about was the band he performed with after the tour and the album was over. For example like what did they do where did they go? So, after some digging I found their website online along with their whole journey before and after Paul Simon. “ In the mid-1980s, the American singer/songwriter Paul Simon famously visited South Africa and incorporated the group's rich tenor/alto/bass harmonies into his famous "Graceland" album – a landmark recording that was considered seminal in introducing world music to mainstream audiences. A year later, Paul Simon produced Ladysmith Black Mambazo's first worldwide release, Shaka Zulu, which garnered the group their first GRAMMY Award, in 1988, for Bes...

Music and Gender I’ll never forget how one Christmas my parents bought me a really nice drum set. For whatever reason my mom always wanted me to be a drummer, but I never wanted that. As I got a little bit older I remembered how I felt bad about never playing the drums and then justifying it by saying “That's a boy’s instrument anyways.” Oh how I was wrong. Now, looking back I wished I would have learned how to play the drums, in fact I wished I could have learned many more instruments.  Nowadays, although it is not as bad as it used to be, there is still such a  negative stigma about the gender identity of things. For example, my senior year of highschool we put on Sister Act the Musical. Around the audition period there was this one guy I knew who was an incredible performer but he was a new to everything. Well since I was a drama kid I desperately wanted him to audition I even offered him $10 to do so but he didn’t. Turns out he wanted to, but his girlfriend said she...

Over this first week of class I came into knowledge of some pretty interesting cultures. The first culture was the Native Americans. While we were watching a video in class one of the things that stood out to me was the use of the word Wakanda. Before then the only time I heard the word was in the movie Black Panther but come to find out it really means God in Native American. So, what I really wanted to know is that was the use of the word Wakanda offensive to Native Americans? Turns out it's not. While researching this very question I stumbled upon an article titled Offensive Or Not? In the article it explained why it was not offensive. “ Osage tribal member and Osage language student Kilan Jacobs wrote to ICT in an email, “It did not bother me at all. It was a sacred home place to them. Beyond that, I have no way of knowing if in some real African language this is an actual place name or word they have as well. But overall I felt no disrespect or misdoing. The movie was great...

I spoke a little bit about this in my last blog, but I’ve been in church ever since I was born. My Father is a preacher, so throughout my entire life I have been exposed to religion and the music through it. Although I have a religion I wouldn’t say that I am religious but rather that I am spiritual. Since I grew up in church one of the many things that I witnessed and learned was praise. It comes in many different forms, but it is something that is always done when music is involved. The different forms of praise are just praise in general like hand clapping, foot stomping, and arms raised. Or praise dances, where people are dancing out the lyrics of the song. The other form of praise is singing, in my church we have the praise team and we get up every Sunday Morning and sing songs unto God before the Pastor preaches. Overall praise is more of the aesthetics.  In church, I learned that the highest form of praise is actually singing and music, because the music was the only t...

Throughout my life I was not exposed to a lot of diverse music. In fact growing up the only music I was exposed to at all was Gospel music. Which is a type of cultural music of its own. My mom grew up in New Orleans Louisiana and my Dad grew up in Brooklyn in New York, at the time both places were not places you would have wanted to be in...for safety reasons. So when they got married and began living for God they decided to start a family of their own. That's when they made a decision to instill something in us kids that meant a lot to them and that was positive in our lives, thus the Gospel music. For the longest time that was the only music I ever known up until about middle school. That is the time period when I started to get exposed to various different types of music, via my new found friend group. The music I was just beginning to learn about was music inside my own culture that I didn't even know about. For example Rap, Hip Hop, R&B...etc. So that began to s...