(HKR-08-09-26) Host Davey D spoke with Pan African organizer Obi Egbuna Jr. and activist and cultural producer Russell Shoatz III about Kotelemela Bolingo, a two-album project honoring the legacies of Assata Shakur and Pauline Opango Lumumba. Meaning “resistance with love” in Lingala, the collection includes 30 songs spanning six musical genres. Egbuna explained that the project grew out of the Assata Shakur Cuba Defense Campaign, which challenged the bounty placed on Shakur and Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism. It also seeks to support approximately 4,000 Cuban doctors serving across Africa. The conversation highlighted Cuba’s often overlooked contributions to African liberation, education and public health, from training Zimbabwean teachers to sending medical brigades throughout the Global South.
The discussion also explored the power of culture to educate, organize and shape how people understand history. Shoatz described the album as more than a musical tribute, emphasizing its focus on political education, mutual aid, intergenerational organizing and the elevation of women in liberation struggles. Davey connected the project to a long tradition that includes Paul Robeson, the Black Arts Movement, Harry Belafonte and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who treated artists as essential movement partners. The guests contrasted that tradition with entertainment that glorifies gangsters, pimps and billionaires while minimizing revolutionary movements. As Egbuna emphasized, the larger struggle is over “the power to define” whether Black people interpret Cuba, Africa and liberation through their own history or through narratives manufactured by Hollywood and the U.S. government.
- Kotelemela Bolingo honors Assata Shakur and Pauline Opango Lumumba while connecting their lives to present-day liberation struggles.
- The project challenges distorted narratives about Cuba by highlighting its longstanding medical, educational and political solidarity with Africa.
- Shoatz emphasized that cultural work can simultaneously provide political education, mutual aid, intergenerational organizing and support for artists.
- Davey D argued that earlier movements prepared artists to become informed public advocates instead of treating them as entertainment added after the organizing was complete.
- Culture is a political battleground that can either glorify exploitation and erase resistance or preserve history and advance liberation.
0:00–10:00 — Kotelemela Bolingo and Cuba’s African Solidarity
Davey D introduces Pan African organizer Obi Egbuna Jr. and the two-album project Kotelemela Bolingo, meaning “resistance with love” in Lingala. Dedicated to Assata Shakur and Pauline Opango Lumumba, the collection features 30 songs across six genres. Egbuna explains that it grew out of the Assata Shakur Cuba Defense Campaign, which seeks to remove Shakur from the U.S. terrorist list, eliminate the $2 million bounty and challenge Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism. The project also supports approximately 4,000 Cuban doctors working across Africa. Davey and Egbuna discuss Cuba’s frequently overlooked relationships with African and Black liberation movements. Egbuna connects that history to his father, a pioneering Black Power organizer in Britain, and to figures including Malcolm X, Kwame Ture, Fidel Castro, Frantz Fanon and Amílcar Cabral.
10:00–20:00 — Black Power as an International Exchange
Egbuna details Cuba’s educational and medical contributions, including the training of thousands of Zimbabwean teachers, medical assistance during the Ebola crisis and the deployment of doctors during the coronavirus pandemic. Davey challenges the linear version of history suggesting Black Americans exported liberation politics to passive communities abroad. Egbuna describes London’s existing Pan African political environment, shaped by the 1945 Pan African Congress and figures including C.L.R. James, George Padmore, Amy Ashwood Garvey and Kwame Nkrumah. After playing “Women in Resolve” by Sister Struggle, Davey welcomes Russell Shoatz III. Russell praises Davey’s longstanding work and notes the strong contributions made to the album by West Coast artists.
20:00–30:00 — Culture, Political Education and Intergenerational Organizing
Davey introduces Shoatz as a longtime campaigner for political prisoners and the son of Black Panther and Black Liberation Army member Russell “Maroon” Shoatz. He also recalls Shoatz’s work with BLU Magazine, which combined Hip Hop, political journalism and original music. Shoatz explains that Kotelemela Bolingo continues that tradition while addressing several needs at once: honoring Assata and Pauline, uplifting women, connecting generations, supporting artists and creating mutual political education. Davey places the project within the tradition of Paul Robeson, the Black Arts Movement and Dr. King’s relationships with entertainers. He explains his “big microphone theory”: organizers politically educated prominent artists because the media often approached celebrities before movement leaders.
30:00–40:00 — Cultural Warfare and Manufactured Images of Power
Davey explains how Dr. King treated artists as serious partners, citing his encouragement of Nichelle Nichols and his relationship with Aretha Franklin. Egbuna recalls earlier international music projects created with M-1 of dead prez and describes the long tradition of artists using their work for liberation. He argues that films such as The Godfather Part II and Scarface helped shape hostile perceptions of the Cuban Revolution. Shoatz connects these images to Hip Hop’s adoption of Mafia names and gangster symbolism. Davey asks why oppressed people are attracted to representations of power rooted in violence, money and fear. Shoatz responds by distinguishing revolutionary commitment from the commercial performance of toughness.
40:00–50:00 — The Power to Define History
Egbuna invokes Kwame Ture’s argument that the greatest power is “the power to define.” He says Cuba should be understood through the experiences of Assata Shakur, Huey Newton, Malcolm X, Thomas Sankara and Marcus Garvey—not through Hollywood gangsters or U.S. political leaders. He highlights Cuban medical advances and its offers of assistance after Hurricane Katrina and during Washington, D.C.’s hospital crisis. Davey contrasts revolutionary service with the widespread desire to emulate billionaires. He then identifies Marcus Goodloe’s KingMaker as the book describing King’s work with athletes and entertainers. Referencing Ricky Vincent’s Party Music, Davey explains how Super Fly helped replace images of revolutionary struggle with the glorification of pimps and drug dealers while the Black Liberation Army was engaged in direct confrontation with the state.
50:00–55:16 — Reclaiming Culture From Propaganda
Davey argues that Black death, dysfunction and anti-Black controversy have become profitable industries, amplified by anonymous online accounts that manufacture division while pretending to represent Black communities. Egbuna responds that the U.S. government has long used music and culture to obscure its actions, including through Voice of America and the Jazz Ambassadors program. He describes culture as a continuing tug-of-war: governments attempt to use artists for their purposes while liberation movements work to politicize and mobilize those same artists. Egbuna highlights Cuba’s offer of medical education to Palestinian students as another example of international solidarity. Davey closes by noting that the discussion has only begun, particularly regarding Pauline Lumumba, and invites both guests to return for a second conversation.
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