On June 30 and July 1, 2011, Top Ten Social (TTS) invites you to two very special nights. Thursday night, ‘cultural Jedi’ Ashara Ekundayo hosts a discussion with guest speakers hip hop theater artist Marc Bamuthi Joseph, DJ/producer Rich Medina, and singer-songwriter Jennifer Johns, moderated by the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights’ Abel Habtegeorgis. This informal talk, part of the ongoing TTS.Speaker Series, will address themes including strategies for leveraging art to inspire social change; the role of artists as activists; how do we elevate and inform people of their inner divinity; and creating pathways out of mental slavery. An interactive audience Q&A will follow the main discussion.

Friday’s event places the Supernatural Black Experience in the context of live performance. The speakers of the previous evening join with additional guest artists and are transformed into conduits of the divine spirit, celebrating ancestors – the gods – with expressions of spirituality, sustainability, solidarity, and sovereignty delivered in music, food, & word. Bamuthi and jazz-hop virtuoso Kev Choice both pay homage to legendary jazz poet and social commentator Gil Scott-Heron; Johns channels soul diva Nina Simone, reborn as an Oakland b-girl; “rebel soul music” creator Martin Luther invokes guitar visionary Jimi Hendrix; and Medina lays down a deeply rhythmic soundscape which will touch on everyone from James Brown to Fela Kuti to Bob Marley to Michael Jackson. Ekundayo will provide the invocation for what promises to be an evening long to be remembered – in this world and the afterlife.

So, are the gods really crazy? Or is their true role to show us the insanity of the world man has created, and to reunite us with our true nature and divine selves? Find out Thursday, June 30 and Friday, July 1st, as Top Ten Social revives the Supernatural Black Experience in Oakland.

Purchase Tickets here:
http://thegods-tribute.eventbrite.com/