Elton Brown 0:03

Welcome to SpeakUP! International with Rita Burke and Elton Brown. Round

Rita Burke 0:09

On SpeakUP! International, we pride ourselves in speaking to people from our community who we believe are silent giants. Today we have with us one of those people. His name is Rudi Quammie Williams. He's a project manager for the Canadian Institute of People of African Descent Feasibility Study. He's also an independent consultant working in organizational development, change management, diversity, equity, and inclusion. He's a business consultant as well, and facilitator with a passion for nonprofits. Qummie has a long history of service to the public. Through his work in various levels of government and in a number of communities serving organizations. He is a multidisciplinary artist who specializes in the use of arts and culture in African centered learning opportunities. In addition to his study of African and Caribbean drumming traditions, he has dedicated his career to, amongst other things, the reeducation of the African Canadian community on the value of their ancestral instruments, the African drums. Quammie Williams is also the co-founder of the EU Gemma Fathering Centers, which is a nonprofit organization serving African Canadian fathers and potential fathers, as well as Safari Sankofa and their organizations. To our guests, I introduce you to Rudi Quammie Williams, who is one of our silent giants. Help me welcome you.!

Rudi Quammie Willams 2:03

Thank you, Rita. I'm pleased to be here.

Elton Brown 2:06

We are so happy to get an opportunity to talk to you Quammie, you have done so many things. Your hands has been like a kid in a cookie jar. We enjoyed reading your resume and so I noticed that you were very much into the entertainment industry. So I'm wondering what inspired you to pursue a career in that area?

Rudi Quammie Willams 2:31

I was born in the UK but grew up. When I was I would say between the ages of three and about 11 or 12, I spent in Trinidad and Tobago, which is the place that my parents both come from. I was with my grandparents, and the environment that I grew in was incredibly musical. About two yards over from where I lived was at the time perhaps the best steel band in the country the Cavalier Steel Orchestra. And so I went to sleep with those steel bands, men playing every night. On a Sunday I heard them all on a Saturday. I heard them all day. In fact the pan players used to play all the calypsos and all on a Sunday, and my grandmother and a couple of the other older ladies in the neighborhood began to complain that they shouldn't be playing Calypso music, which was secular music on a Sunday. That was the church day. So the genius that Bobby Muhammad, he was the band's arranger and leader the genius that's man was he then taught the steel band amazing arrangements of hymns that they would use for practicing on Sunday. So much so that the the ladies, the same ladies who were complaining, invited them to play in the church. So this was my environment growing up and even though I didn't really play drums as a child in Trinidad, I heard them all the time. The community centers I've grown in a little area called Mun Repo San Fernando, where it was just a hotbed of cultural activity, and so I have to say that this was probably the genesis, even though I didn't know it at the time, but I think it was the genesis of my interest in arts and culture and my understanding of it as all simply means of telling a story and in Canada that was really my impetus, is that I felt that we as African people, African descendants, African people living in the diaspora have amazing stories to tell and one of the ways that we could do that is through the arts. So that's why having had that early feeling that it's it's a template of a palette, if you like, that we can choose from in terms of telling our story to each other, but also to the world. That's why I always viewed it that way, so that's why, I drum, I've been a bass player. I do a film and video. I've been a cameraman. I've been an editor. I really just look at it all as opportunities to tell our story.

Rita Burke 5:17

All encompassing, so we can tell our stories. I too grew up with steel pan music around me. Of course, it was frowned upon by our our parents because, I guess they thought it would lead us astray. Little did they know, or did they think that in those days, the steel pan music and the lyrics of Calypso were social commentaries on our environment, on our history and our culture. So thanks to sharing that! So I've known you since we opened our bookstore in 1994 and that for me is a long time. Yes. And it tells me that you've been contributing to our community in a very significant way for a long time. So tell me about some of the groups or individuals that you've been involved with and what changes did you see? What changes did they bring to the Meli?

Rudi Quammie Willams 6:12

Oh my goodness. Listen we, in Toronto we have been blessed. Because I stand on the shoulders of incredible giants, okay? Who from the time I came to Toronto as an 11 year old it has been a continuous stream of, continuous diet of, activism and and not settling for simply accept the way that we as African people can sometimes be treated in this very pervasively, racist societies that we live in and so on. If I think about activism, I think about people like Duddy Laws. I think about people like Charles Roach. I remember when I was, I think I was 12, and I had not too long come to join my parents from Trinidad and Bagel and, my parents were really keen on me having an understanding of myself as an African person. So the literature, I read Capitalism and Slavery and I was 12, because that was the literature on the bookshelf in my parents' home. I remember one day my dad took me to the Black Students Association of Black Students, Union of UFT. They had a, a black students conference that they held in Harvard Collegiate and I remember my dad, take me there one of the people that I remember from that conference is a man named Ato Seitu, who now has become a really close friend and we have a long history because he part of Truths and Rights, one of the bands that I grew up in.

Rita Burke 7:56

Permit me to interrupt you. He was my professor at York. He's the one that introduced me to all of the books, hence Burke's Bookstore.

Rudi Quammie Willams 8:05

Oh, excellent. Yes. Yeah and I was speaking about Ato Seitu, but I know who you mean. You're talking about Ato Sakyi-Otu. Who also is I consider to be a dear friend and and again, another pioneer upon whose shoulders, that I stand because when I went to York University, I encountered Ato Sekyi-Otu and was blown away, just by his wisdom his dedication to excellence and so on. Even when he was here, I think a year or two ago and they had something for him at York, I went and played for him, because he is somebody that I hold in the highest regard. But back at that conference when I was 13 Atu that I was speaking about is Ato Seitu, the artist. And he used to be called Ainsley Vaughn. And and I remember him at that conference and later, we were very involved in Truths and Rights together. They had brought Dave Dabo from Trinidad and Tobago, where I had not too long before left and it was amazing. Forest Campbell was one of the speakers. Who I was also, absolutely amazed by and inspired by I'm talking, this is when I was 12, 13 years old. When I think back on it now, I was essentially designed to be who I am in my community because my community nurtured me and made me the person that I am right now and I've been blessed and fortunate to have lived in Toronto because when I started traveling I came to realize that, not everywhere in Canada has communities like we've had in Toronto. We've had a very progressive African Canadian community, and it's not necessarily duplicated across the country. I think it's starting to happen now, but I am blessed for the time that I grew up in, Dudley Laws was a really, good mentor and a good friend of ours. When Ginelle and I decided we would renew our vows, Dudley, I think that might have been the last real out outfit that he had, but he came and, gave us a rendition of what's that song called? What a wonderful world. Oh my goodness. Because we always love when he sing that he can listen I and my family we have truly been blessed. Truly been blessed!

Elton Brown 10:19

Your experiences are fascinating. What is the Parachute Club? If this is anything like parachuting, jumping out of a plane.

Rudi Quammie Willams 10:28

It's not quite what you may think it is. So I grew up in Parkdale at first. So when I first came here from the Caribbean, I lived Jameson and king in that, just south of King on Jameson Avenue. I grew up in Parkdale. I became a musician in Parkdale. I played, the first gig I ever played was in a little church that's right across the street from the Mazara Kawan Community Center. And so that was my, my, my grounding and so because of that, my foray into kind of playing in clubs and as a musician was on the Queen Street scene, right? The street the strip between let's say Bathurst and University Avenue along Queen Street, these clubs sprung up and, in my time we were playing in the lofts above some of the factories and and the area became what it is today, which is, a hotbed of cultural activity and, music and that sort of thing and the Parachute Club was one of the groups of musicians who, many of them were friends of mine who formed this band and basically taking their cue and a lot of their lessons from myself and other musicians who had a, a Caribbean base. They forged this band that, became very popular in Canada and so they asked me if I would play on their album. I would often do performances with them and so on and so that's why they're on my on my bio because the, it's one of the things that, I really enjoyed doing and it represents for me just what we were able to do in terms of crossing over our musical styles, our musical abilities, the instruments that in our culture into the main stream music.

Rita Burke 12:14

So we're hearing a lot about your involvement with the arts and your involvement parti and your leadership in terms of music, I wanna shift gears a little bit here and ask you to talk about the fathering centers that you're a part of.

Rudi Quammie Willams 12:33

One of the things that have always been important to me is the role we as African men play and need to play. In the lives of our families, in the lives of our children. And I believe that, young people who don't have an opportunity to have those kinds of healthy relationships with both parents. But in our case, we were focused on fathers. But people who don't have that, are starting off at a disadvantage and so the effort with Ujima Fathering Centers was, a young man named Noah, who was a student at U of T at the time. Took the opportunity presented by the Youth Challenge Fund to create what he thought we were lacking in the community, which is a fathering center that would help to support young black men in their journeys to be committed and involved in the lives of their children. This resonated greatly with me and even though I was really too busy at the time to get involved when he laid it out, I said, yeah. This exemplifies what I try to do with my own life. I'm somebody who's in life, been a single dad before and the children that I was a single parent with Juma is still very close to me. He is a young man with autism who we, he's a great dancer and he plays the drums and whatever. And then my, my other child Abna is has been a scientist. She's an attorney. She was a judge in Baltimore and now she works for the U.S. Government of the U.S. Department of Education. I've lived that experience of the results that can come from fathers dedicating themselves to the lives of their children, and the betterment of their children, and measuring their success. Based on not how much money they made necessarily or how, or whether they were able to climb the corporate ladder but measuring their success based on how are their children doing, and that's what I've always done.

Elton Brown 14:35

When you're working with children who don't have young men who don't have fathers, do you find that there is a common denominator that encompasses all of the kids that you work with. Is there like just one common denominator that you find that's always either missing or they should have or you're gonna give it to them? What is that one thing?

Rudi Quammie Willams 14:58

Some of the things that I find to be common are people who don't have the input of their father. Especially young women often don't know how to choose partners later because for a young woman a healthy father is perhaps the greatest role model and as I'm finding out now that my children are older it's a never ending thing being a dad. And it gives young people and even when they start to, to get into their thirties and forties, it gives them a foundation to be able to have someone who loves you without reservation and will give advice and someone who you can bounce things off and so on, but who has no agenda other than your own success and if you think about what that actually is that's an incredible resource for any human being to have, and it's a role that parents can very easily play because, if parents have spent time nurturing their children, in our community it's not I'm saying dads, but we also use the term father figure because we are fully aware that in our community sometimes the people who are providing the role of father of fathers are not necessarily the biological dads. You know what I mean? I, myself, I have five children, but I actually have about 15.

Rita Burke 16:31

Yes and many of the men in our community have got children much like you, whom they didn't, they were not involved in bringing them into the world per se, but they have got skills that they are able to share with those children, particularly boys who need a male model a male template as to how to become a man in this world.

Rudi Quammie Willams 17:00

Absolutely and to finish my answer to Elton's question, which is, is there something that we tend to see all the time in folks who have not had fathering? And I would also say that one of those things is a sense of esteem. There's a sense of esteem that's associated with your dad putting you first with your dad being there for you. And it starts very young, right? I and I can see that, even this young man that I'm busy running around right now, trying to get him off to to catch his bus to Philadelphia. I see the confidence that he has around knowing that I'm gonna be in his corner all the time. You see what I'm saying? And starting, he's 17 now, and he is already starting to ask questions about, so when I have a family, then, and I find that to be fascinating, right? Because because that only comes from being healthy. That you're 17 and you're thinking not about just, what you can do with girls, but you're thinking about family, and I'm very happy about that.

Rita Burke 18:07

Mr. Kwame Williams, you have talked about our history. You've talked about social activism in our community. You've talked about a number of things that I know would be of interest to our listeners. SpeakUP! International seeks to educate, inform, and inspire, and there's no question that you're helping us to meet those goals today. Talk to us a little bit about the role of the farm and enhance, enhancing, or contributing to our community.

Rudi Quammie Willams 18:42

Yeah, I would have to say that, what we have culminated in at Adinkra Farm are ideas that began back when I was 18 years old. When I was 18 years old. I was involved in a place in Toronto called IMMIGAN. It was short for Immigrants in Canada, and it was a project actually that was founded by, a group of young men who were students at Ryson at the time. And the person who played the role of mentor to the program was actually Dudley Laws. That was the first time I met him when I was, 17 or 18 and at that time I formulated in my head that we need in our community to have more spaces. Outside of the concrete that belonged to us, that we can foster opportunities for our own healing. Because I happen to be one of those young people who recognize very early, you know what I used to say when I was like 15, I used to say that if I could afford it, I would check the entire black race into psychotherapy because there's no way that we are going to be able to overcome all of the trails and all of the dysfunction and so on as a result of our history and a and as a result of the exploitation and disenfranchising, there's no way we can overcome that without a focus on healing ourselves. I recognize that even as a teen, and I said that one day I would, I want to have a place where we can start that process. Where I can contribute to that process. And that really is what Adinkra farm is, and so the group of musicians that I played with when I was a teen they were called Truths and Rights. And they were, at one point, one of the bands that really brought reggae music in Canada. And but we were music with a really incredible message. We were centered in Region Park and and tried to really speak for the community of young African people in Canada. In terms of what we were concerned about and so on and so one of the things that we were concerned about was this kind of healing of our people and the ability for us to unite, because we realized that with the lack of resources, we tend to have, unity is really a significant and important tool in how we can overcome these things. And so a Adinkra Farm, which I happen to, to meet a beautiful woman. Who had a very similar vision herself. And so it was it was very easy for us to know when we got together as husband and wife, that we needed to move in this direction to provide opportunities for our community and for the young people in our community to have that healing, to have that strengthening, we've been living up there in in the area for almost 14 years. We ran the summer work camps and workshops for young people. We've been doing that since we were living in Toronto. It started from a March break situation where we said to all the parents, the black parents, we said, look, you bring your children to our house for March break. We will keep them. All you have to do is come one day and give to all of the children something of value and they would come and say, okay, I'm working with them on cooking today. Another person would say I can't do much, but I'm sending over so and so, and who's a singer? And she's going to, work with them on singing. This is the genesis of the involvement we have with young people. We continued it when we moved up to the farm and made it a central sort of foundation of Adinkra farm to support the growth of young people, to help community members to reclaim some of the heritage that, sometimes have either forgotten or lost to continue to build and grow and so on and this is what we've been doing in our own small way. I'm happy to say that now that we've been doing it for a little bit. The cohort, the first cohort of young people who started coming to our camps and so on, they graduated university last year. So try to imagine, we've seen now young people who came to us at four and five years old who are now 22 and 23, and who are still involved. When we have the camps, we realized that we were doing something absolutely correct when that first cohort started to get to be about 14, 15, 16 and it's supposed to be a camp that goes to 14 or 15 years old and they started saying yeah, but we wanna still keep coming, right? So I ended up having to do like a leadership group and talk to them about entrepreneurship and, all of those things. And then eventually they came and they ran the camp, which is what happens now. Ginelle and I really just do oversight.

Elton Brown 23:43

That sounds, wonderful. It sounds like it's very beautiful there and I'm wondering what would I receive just walking through the grounds and enjoying the trees and the rustling that comes with them. What would I get out of such a, an experience?

Rudi Quammie Willams 24:03

So I, I think that there's a lot to get out of the experience of being outside of the concrete, as we call it, because the push to create us as a people that is, that are somehow to be identified by urbanism is not something of our doing. Okay. It's something that has been forced upon us. And so we are a people, I believe that are grounded in nature. That are grounded in nature. That's why people always notice, if you wanna know how many black people live in the neighborhood, wait till the summertime, right? Because. Because we respond to the sun and to the trees and, and to nature. And first of all, if you come to Adinkra farm, just to walk through the bush, just to walk on the path, just watching the animals just, it is something that provides a respite from the concrete, people when they come to Adinkra Farm, one of the funniest things we used to laugh about this all the time because when people come to visit us, they're like, why am I sleeping all the time? And we said so. Yeah, because your mind is finally relaxed, right? You don't hear any cause where we are. You see what I'm saying? The loudest thing in the summer on Adinkra farm, the crickets and or the frogs down by the pond this is important for human beings. Sometimes we don't realize how much tension we are living in until we actually get away from it. And that's what people find when they come out here. They come and they're like, I'm just sleeping all the time. I said, yeah, that's gonna happen for the first little while because your body is taking back. It's rest, and so on. The other thing is, The other thing is that often we give space for people in our community who are interested in planting and learning how, harvest. We're very interested in fostering a generation of young people who understand the need for food sovereignty because I think that, food is gonna be a battlefield. In terms of our health as a people, and I have some colleagues who are, they're more, I learned from them, like Anan who I actually played with in Truths and Rights, but who is, has dedicated his life to teaching black people about food security and food sovereignty and so on.

Elton Brown 26:30

Let's say there's a group of individuals that hear this podcast and now they want to know how can they get in touch with you

Rudi Quammie Willams 26:38

Right? Thank you for that question. So first of all, I would say that they need to contact us directly. Our email address is really simple. It is adinkrafarm@gmail.com. Okay. A D I N K R A F A R M@gmail.com. If they're not prone to emailing they can actually get on our site. On our page, www.adinkrafarm.ca and they'll be able to, to, to contact us that way as well. And then if all else fails, they can actually call me directly at (647) 979-7834.

Rita Burke 27:21

Mr. Rudi Quammie Williams. This has certainly been a joy for me. I'm sure it will be for our listeners as well. You have answered our questions in a profound way. You have filled lots of voids for me and I certainly appreciate your presence on SpeakUP! International. I felt black joy as you spoke.

Rudi Quammie Willams 27:46

Beautiful that is certainly our purpose and I thank both of you. Please let me know how we can support you in continuing this work that you're doing. Because I think it's a wonderful thing and I truly hope that that you're able to attract some of the young people in our community because, there, there's a gap we're trying to fill, often are the young people are coming on they're often really keen, really smart, but sometimes don't have an idea of what went before. So that, they're building on sand when, there's perhaps a few foundations already.

Elton Brown 28:20

I can definitely say for Rita and I members of SpeakUp! International that we are very interested in talking with these young adults, leaders of tomorrow, and if you forward them to us, we will definitely have conversations with them.

Rudi Quammie Willams 28:41

Okay wonderful I want to invite both of you to Adinkra Farm and I'm giving you this invitation once because I, the way we operate at a Adinkra Farm is that once you've got the invitation, we don't tell you again. You you're family. You come, when you come when you want, you re when you're ready, you just call and say, Hey, I'm coming. Okay?

Elton Brown 29:01

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. You have a wonderful afternoon.

Rudi Quammie Willams 29:06

You too. Thank you. Thank you.

29:09

Thank you for listening to SpeakUP! International! To request more information about our guest, Rudi Quammie Williams. Please send your inquiries to adinkrafarm@gmail.com. Adinkra Farm is spelled A D I N K R A F A R M@gmail.com. Do you have a service or organization you would like to announce to our communities? Please send us your name, company name, website, description of your organization and the service you provide and your email address to info@speakuppodcast.ca. To listen to more of our podcasts, you can go to www.speakuppodcast.ca or wherever you listen to your podcast and look up, SpeakUP! International. You can find us on social media platforms, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Our logo has the woman with her hand pointing up mouth open speaking UP!