Verbal Arts
Currently, an "Extempo King" is crowned each year as part of the carnival in Trinidad. Three-time Extempo King Black Sage (Phillip Murray) has performed in New York a number of times along with other calypso masters including Mighty Gypsy (Winston Peters). In this scene, filmed at the Tropical Paradise, a Trinidadian restaurant in Brooklyn, Black Sage duels against a relative newcomer to the scene, Fat Man George. These picong performances preserve an important part of Afro-Caribbean culture and heritage.
Two concert performances by master kora player Keba Bobo Cissoko from June 1997 and May 1998.
Ganjina Qurbonbekova, a Shughni speaker from Khorog in the Pamir region of Tajikistan, now living in New York, sings the Shughni lullaby made famous by singer Nargis Bandishoeva. In ths second video, she discusses this famous Shughni lullaby and the efforts of the Shughni-speaking community in New York to maintain its culture and language.
This video presents some of the stories collected for the LI Traditions' exhibit "Freeport Waters" about famous celebrity Guy Lombardo who resided in Freeport for many years until his passing in the late 1970s.
