They Whitewashed Spain's Greatest Genius - Here's Why

Heat. Heat. You are down. Heat. Heat. N. You are real. Feel heat. Never let me down. Never let me never let me go. Never let me go. Heat. Heat. Heat. Real. Hey. Hey. Hallelujah. Let me feel real. Feel hey. Can any can people hear me? Can people hear me? Testing one, two, three. I think you can hear me. I just hit on mute, so everyone should be able to hear me nicely. Yeah, chat. Just let me know if you can hear me. Um, press one if you can. Thank you. Khaled says Khaled 469 says one. Brilliant. Brilliant. Okay. Mhm. Let me copy and paste that in here. Then we can go.

How's everyone doing? What's going on in the world where you are? How are we doing? It's It's a mad world right now. And let's not beat about the bush. It's a mad mad world at the moment. This is our escape. Or one of them anyway. Okay. So, oh, no, no, no, no. Just move this in here. Okay, cool. G4 says, uh, surviving. Yeah, I I understand. I understand. Most certainly. Um, surviving. But you know what? If you're surviving, you're thriving. You know, doesn't feel like it, but you're thriving as well. So keep your chin up. Keep your chin up. Hi Joy. Um, just hat and everybody. Everybody. Hi Joy, you know.

Okay, so let's get into it. Um, I've been wanting to do a live on this topic for a long, long time. The longest. So, how do I start this? Um, Abu ibin al-Nafia, I think is his name. Um, it's longer than that, but we can shorten it to Zyab because that was what he was popularly known as. This individual um that we're going to be discussing um was a black man. He was possibly the most important person in medieval Spanish history. The most important figure, cultural figure in medieval Spanish um history. Now, when I first came across his story, I couldn't believe I couldn't believe what I was reading. Uh, his influence spreads to music, uh, to chess, um, to culture beyond music, clothing, um, food, um, dance, uh, poetry, name it. In the realm of culture, this man was a behemoth. An absolute behemoth. And I have a theory that one of the main reasons that we don't know about him, that he isn't more popularly known about is because of his blackness. He was a black man. Undoubtedly. Undoubtedly a black man. If this man were a man of Caucasian origin or could be described as a Caucasian individual or a modern, let's say Middle Eastern type, the whole world would know about him. In fact, one of my one of my ideas for a thumbnail uh for this live was um medieval Michael Jackson. The medieval Michael Jackson. Um, I opted for the one I got now just on a toenos coin toss. Um, and but he could he was easily the medieval Michael Jackson. Um, in fact, Michael Jackson is or was the modernday modernity's Zeryab cuz Zeryab came first and again he was a black man. This man is the reason we have something as simple as toothpaste. in the west. This man is the reason we have he's the first person recorded in the west. See, when people say the Moors brought washing and bathing, basic things like that to the to the western hemisphere. Look, it might sound funny, but it's not a joke. It's not actually a joke. This man is recorded as being the first to bring um some kind of implement um the closest thing we have um in terms of the closest thing that could be termed as deodorant back in the 9th 8th century um AD. Um, let me let me confirm that. Let me confirm that what century we're talking about. But we're talking early medieval um period. We're talking yeah, the 9th 8th century 789 to about you know, 5 800 AD. He's he's um there's so much that's attributed to this individual and people don't know about this man. They don't know his name.

So, I put a I put out a um a little poll earlier today and it was um it was uh have you do you know I think the poll went, you know, I said, do you know, be honest, do you know who Zyab is? And last I checked, 75% said no, never heard of the guy. Shout out to the 15% they've been paying attention, you know, they've been paying attention and they They um they were they must some of them maybe half, I don't know. Somebody I think I saw a comment saying I was literally just watching your video on him the other day. So why don't we know about Zyab? I tell you now, when you find out about him, you when you find out about his background, you will it will make sense why we don't know about Zyab. And the the biggest there the biggest irony about Zoyab is that in his day in his day he was kicked out of not kicked out forcibly but effectively, you know, effectively kicked out. His life was in danger because of a racist Iraqi um lord that he served. Not as a slave, he was a free man. There's lots of conjecture that he was a slave. Cave. But um Arab racism was well on its in its ascendancy back in in that in the early medieval period. And many of the early accounts refer to him as a slave, as a black slave, although the accounts show that actually he wasn't. Um, he was a free man in Iraq. Um, who was a client who was a a mer which is a term that's often used about people who um apprentice or kind of uh sell their services um to a lord or whatever or a patron. And but because of the mood of the time and around that time slavery was rampant across the um fertile crescent and across North Africa. And there was equal opportunity. You know, there was whites being enslaved. If you know anything about history, you know all of this. There were whites being enslaved. There were blacks being enslaved. Um, but one of the things, one of the dispersions that were cast on him was that he was a slave. And it was a a common, it was a crutch, sorry, a crutch, um, a sort of um, you know, a coping mechanism. His rivals called him a slave quite a lot, but the evidence suggests he was just um a free um a free mercenary basically. He fled um Iraq because of an individual that was, you know, that was um his rival and was more powerful and influential than him. He comes and he flees because the individual is mistreating him and due to his blackness in in modern day what is modern day Iraq um and he comes to a place where he's more at home amongst the Moors of North Africa and then from there he goes to Spain and then he finds himself at home in Moorish Spain Alandaloo and Moorish North Africa. Now, even there where we know Africans, black people are reigning, he still stands out for his blackness. He is. So, we're talking about a guy who in a world where black people are commonly seen uh are indigenous to and are still reigning North Africa in the early medieval period. Um, we're talking about in the dark ages according to Europeans. It wasn't dark for Africans. But um, this man still stood out for his blackness. I've seen representations of Zaryab where he's shown as a mixed kind of race, ambiguous. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That is so disingenuous when you read the accounts. This man is likened. You go and look him up. He's likened to the blackbird. A blackbird. Look up what a blackbird looks like. The only bit of a on a black bird that is not jet black is its beak. Uh, and I believe its beak is like yellowish or orange. But um, he's black all over. He stands out for his, we're talking Sudanese, southern Sudan black now, you know. So, in a world where black people dominate, he still stands out for his blackness. And yet we have debates today. So when people do bring him up, you know, you have people talk about even when nobody's talking about it, even when nobody's saying um nobody's brought it up now. Nobody said, "Oh, you know, Zyab is did you know did you know that he was a black man?" No, nobody's saying that. But you'll still have people trying to preempt that talking point and say, "Hey, was not I had a guy comment not not even an hour ago on my latest post on this live, just trying to just trying to um spread the uh promote the live the upcom this upcoming live." And the guy said he was not an African. I never mentioned the word African once. I never mentioned the word African once in my post. I said he was a black man. So what's funny is that you have people say when you talk about Africans and the assumption in your statement, the presumption in your statement is that Africans are black. You'll have people come in and say, "Not all Africans are black. Just because it was on the continent of Africa doesn't mean they were black. They were more like today's modern North Africans, the Moroccans and the Tunisians and and they had nothing to do with Sub-Saharan." Can't wait to get that word out. Sub-Saharan Africans, you know, and he could feel them shaking and palpitating and having apoplectic fits. They said, "Just because he was African doesn't mean he was black." Now, in this case, I mentioned nothing about him being African. I just said he was black. But this time, this time around, it's the other way around. It's, "Well, he wasn't African." Oh, but I noticed you didn't actually address what I said, which was that he was a black man. I I don't know who this individual is, but he was there in the chat just having a complete meltdown. Uh, giving me a screed, but no doubt he was a black man and a black man in Iraq, not far from the continent of Africa. Um, most likely originated from the continent of Africa as many experts believe that we did even all the way back to the most ancient of ancient times. So most certainly in medieval um uh Iraq um and in medieval North Africa, a black man does originate from the continent of Africa. I didn't say it in the post. You said it, but we know what's going on. So, you know, you can you can play with yourself in your head all day and and you know, fantasize, but I think people with um two brain cells to rub together or more uh know what's going on.

So, right, let's get into this live. I got someone waiting in the wings. Um, Falklands, I'm going to put you on. I've just um kind of wetted, I hope wetted our appetite on this topic, but we were talking earlier, Falklands, about you said um, I can't remember what what exactly you said you had a bone to pick, not a bone to pick, but you were kind of wondering about um his background, his origin. So Falklands, let me just tell you. Falklands is of he's linked, he he knows what's up. He knows what's up. He's um he's got an American accent as your hair, but he's from he's from he's from the ends. He's from the ends as we say in the >> so he knows what's up. He knows what he's talking about. He's not he's from a background that um I don't know if he wants me to reveal what that background is, but I'll let him talk and he can reveal what he wants to reveal. But yeah, go on. Say hello to people. >> Hey everybody. Uh, thank you TR for inviting me on this live. Um, and yeah, let's um so yeah, you were talking about a bone to pick. Um, it's interesting. We just don't know his ethnicity, his lineage, right? But we do know that he was a mala for sure. For sure. It means client. So, two things we got to think. And so, there there is a roster of what he could possibly be. Number one, he could be a um an indigenous Arab. Most like those who like the ones that you see in um Oman, the ones that al that the one that Al Kindi talks about. Uh, if you don't know, he's a Persian scholar and he talks about this interesting theory of races where if um, for example, if black people go to the land of the whites and intermix for seven generations, they become white. And if black and if white people go to the land of the black people and intermix for seven generations, uh, they turn black. I think I got I hope I got that right. But Um, so he could be uh one of the more pure Arabs, which I believe it was Al Jahis who said, you know, the darker the Arab, you know, the more pure that he is. So he could be a very, very pure Arab. Which um, I mean, at and obvious and just to be clear, like, yeah, colorism was a thing, especially during the Abbasid period. Another um, another option which I find probably the most likely um, especially considering the context of the Abbasid Caliphate, is that he is a black African. Most likely um, for me, from some part of the Swahili coast or maybe Abyssinia. That part is that part is just a little bit unclear, you know. Uh, and I'm not saying that he was a a a he could be an enslaved person, although there doesn't seem to be any evidence of that. Um, he might he could also be a Swahili but a Swahili um or of a Swahili family who immigrated right, who immigrated towards Baghdad or even Somali. Um, sadly, they're just again, uh, it's very frustrating that it seems that whoever is talking about Ziryab doesn't want to talk about it. And I'm going to get to that in a second. Uh, and a third option is that it could be uh Indian, South Indian, very dark-skinned. Some people have suggested it. Um, their biggest evidence for that is the bringing of the flamenco. However, it's not really a damning piece of evidence, you know, just because the flamenco which comes from the Romani people of India of Sindh, you know, it could be, but we we I wouldn't I wouldn't go so far as to say that. Um, it is still a strong possibility. >> There is something though um, sorry, just I believe it was um Dwight F. Reynolds and it's interesting he talks about um the the narrative, the guy who who talks about him, Al Makari. And it's very interesting and I'm I'm just going to um quote from the abstract. Close analysis reveals that Al Makari systematically eliminated all passages that shed unflattering light on Ziryab, including references to rival singers, the achievements of his own children, off-color jokes of which Ziryab was the butt of, and anecdotes uh where he was portrayed in an undignified manner. I'm going to be honest with you, I have never seen this behavior that ever to either to either black Arabs, especially, or even to Alut or to Indians, which they call Alut. They we we only see this really with black Africans. So, I'm not going to lie. Like, even the person who we have uh uh who gives us the most much much info about him, he's racist towards him. I mean, I mean, I got to say. >> You mean? Yeah. >> Yes. It's um it it's certainly a pretty bad stroke of luck for sure. >> Yeah. But it seems to me that um Yeah. >> Yeah. Sorry. Go on. Go on. >> No, no, no. I'm I'm done. >> No, you said you were saying it seems to me that >> It seems Oh, I was going to say it seems to me that the most likely option is that he is African. There is a there is a large African diaspora that was in Mesopotamia, both um free people uh who were who were formerly enslaved and people who were just free in general. >> Just just in general, they just joined. In fact, I've even heard an account where um it is possible um a prince of I believe some part of East Africa was sort of funding the Ziryab rebellion. So that just goes to show the kind of soft power we see even some of the um black Islamic sult sultanates and emirates of East Africa had on the great Muslim world of the Middle East. But I, you know, I digress. There's a lot to think about because there's a lot of unanswered information.

So guys, if you can see my screen here, there's this video um that came up, right? So Ziryab, the father of Andalusian music by this uh creator, Philip Holm. Now, I don't know his background, but he does what a lot of dishonest people do. So I can only say look, if you're acting and moving in a certain way, then you know, it's a case of if it walks like a duck and talks, quacks like a duck, then you know. But this video I came across it not long after I did my video um on Ziryab, but I was frustrated because the whole time I don't want to play the video because it might have some copyright music in it. Um, but basically, watch the video. It's frustrating. It's the same thing when it comes to whenever whenever there's um and this, look, my problem, my problem is this, and I've said this before, it's always history, whenever there's significant um his or history of significance, human history of significance that involves black people. Okay. The people who um are in control of the narrative for better or or worse, uh white western academia, uh white western popular culture, they always have to put a question mark on whether that um key bit of human history uh was originated or or belongs to uh black people. Doesn't matter what it is. Now, there are numerous sources that this man, the earliest sources we have talk about this man being as black as pitch, uh talk about him being um yes, Iraqi because that's where he h healed from. That's where he was born. It's very likely that his parents were slaves. Um, and but by the but emancipated themselves. So that by the time he was born, he was just he might have had that, you know, heritage or background, but he was a free man himself. Um, but very likely were trafficked out of East Africa. Okay. It's very likely there is a history of that. But because see, when it's something positive, the minute it points to him being African, all of that gets becomes ambiguous. Now, if if Ziryab was not a significant figure, if he wasn't as significant as he was, you can bet everything surrounding um the fact that surrounding his descriptions, his contemporary descriptions, you know, black man, um uh slave, all of that would be evidence in the minds of many of these sort, you know, these denial types. That would be evidence in their minds. That would be enough to conclude he's obviously African. He's obviously black. He's a slave, they would say. But all of that black skin, kinky hair, whatever, all of those things do not does not in their mind because this is we're talking about significant human history. Now, this man, Philip Holm, I don't know what his disposition is, but again, it doesn't look good because he does a whole video here, 12 minutes long, and he problematizes Ziryab's ethnicity. Uh, >> In all likelihood, in all like one sec. Uh, uh, >> For sure. For sure. For sure. For sure. >> In all likelihood. >> Yeah. What's up? >> Oh, I just said for sure. Like, >> Yeah. All right. >> I didn't mean to interrupt you, >> but in all likelihood, there would be no, there's no controversy about this guy. This guy was a black man, probably. Um, most likely originated from East Africa. Uh, maybe even as far as as Falklands have said. um uh originating as deep as Swahili country in Kenya there. But this man does a whole video and when he talks on on on Ziryab's ethnicity, he decides to make it a sort of um a debate where he what he what actually this man is. Now I I couldn't help myself. I had to make the comment. My comment went this went along this this line. I said, you know, you can see it right here. There are plenty of sources that tell of Ziryab being a black man with African features. A citizen of the Abbasid Caliphate, yes, but undoubtedly originating from Northeast Africa, possibly Egypt or Al Sudan, aka the land of the blacks. Strange that you would give voice to those seeking to problematize this historical fact, rather than just cite the multiple sources attesting to his Africanity or his Africanity. Strange indeed. And I just left it there. But this is a constant source of consternation for me. Kamjiver verse peace, massive. I'm so happy to see you here. So happy to see the brother. Kamjiver says it's um warms my heart. Thank you, bro, for joining us. Um, but this is a con constant source of consternation for me. Why is it our history that we have to defend? Why is it constantly our achievements? And so, but in so doing, in so doing, we are made to look like the problem. Oh, here comes the angry, you know, the why why constantly I was thought. Let me let me branch off. Let me digress a minute here. Right. Just going to freestyle for a bit. Okay. This is my show. I might as well. Right. Recently, we we all seen what happened with Senegal and um and the African Cup of Nations. If you haven't, uh, get clued up. Okay. Now, people were talking about that whole incident that when people talk about the whole incident with the African Cup of Nations and Senegal and Morocco. Uh, recently, the African Cup of Nations, which was won fair and square by the Senegalese team, national team, um, recently, CAF, the uh Confederacy of African Football, whatever the African uh footballing authority, decided to retrospectively give the game, the final game that was played and was won by Senegal against Morocco, the host nation, North African team, decided to then retrospectively give the cup to Morocco. Why? Well, there was an incident in the match in which the Senegalese player said, "Okay, look, this is out of order. There was a penalty given. It wasn't a penalty." And if you know anything about football, soccer to you Americans, a penalty is 70 nine times out of 10, a penalty results in a goal for the um team that's been given the penalty. So Senegal, in this very tense, this very closely tight run game, are protesting that this is not a penalty to Morocco. That was it was blatant cheating. The referee has no grounds. It's been reviewed. I may maybe it wasn't even reviewed via uh video um uh technology, VAR, we call it. But it's clear that this isn't a penalty. So, you're going to this this decision by the referee is going to almost certainly give the game to this um to to this uh to the Moroccan team. And the Senegalese team walked off the pitch. Now, CAF have decided two months, not even two months, what am I talking about? Months after, just let's just say months after the match was played, the cup was lifted by the Senegalese who scored a goal, a winning goal in open play. They've decided after months after the the game has been won in real time, we're going to retrospectively give it to retrospectively give it to Morocco. Now, the narrative isn't CAF is so corrupt. The narrative when the dust is settled is well, you know, um Senegal shouldn't have walked off the pitch because Senegal protested in the game and walked off the pitch. The referee had to uh negotiate with them to come back on. The the penalty was given. The penalty was still given. But the Moroccan player missed the penalty and so uh the game went on and the Senegalese team scored a goal in open play and won the match fair and square. But that's not good enough. You had your chance based on a a cheating corrupt referee to to to win the game. You missed the penalty, but we're still going to give the game retrospectively to um this North African team. We all know what Morocco's like. We all know what modern day Morocco's like. They're not the same as their long, long, long distant ancestors who were for the most part black Africans, okay? Before racism and before invasions by the Ottoman Turks took over and changed the landscape of North Africa drastically and brought in anti-black racism. Okay. And which which just completely changed the whole game. Okay? They're not that they're not those people. They're not their people who used to be there. So we have a situation now where people are talking instead of the fact that Senegal won that match fair and square, everybody's talking about, well, should Senegal have walked off the pitch? Was it un was it unfair for Senegal to walk off the pitch? You know, this is this is something that um um, you know, Senegal was paying for because they walked off the pitch and that's what they're being punished for. It's not good sportsmanship. But what's not being spoken about is the fact that Senegal didn't just decide, oh, we're just going to walk off the pitch because we don't like one decision. There are memes of that final game. There are absolute there are memes all over the internet. This the whole tournament and it happens every time football, the African Cup of Nations is played in North Africa. The whole tournament was ridiculous. Go and go and Google it. Go and YouTube it. There are pictures of official ball boys, okay? If you don't know what I'm talking about, go and look it up. Go and get clued up on football. Boys whose job, officials whose only job, okay, is to put once a ball's been kicked out of play, to return the ball to the field of play. There are there's video of these officials, okay, on the sidelines robbing balls, holding withholding balls to waste time for on behalf of the Moroccan team. Not just in the final tournament, all over the tournament. All throughout the tournament, they did this. They did this against Nigeria who played Egypt um or yeah, Egypt in the semi-finals or no, sorry, they played Morocco. Nigeria had to suffer this playing Morocco in the semi-finals. Okay. Suffered it in silence. Okay. Lost on penalties. Shout out to my shout out to my Nigerian uh to to the to the Nigerian national team, repping them tonight. Okay. But Nigeria suffered this in silence. They went off. Senegal decided, we're not going to suffer this anymore. The corruption from the from the get-go to this final match has been too much. Now we have a blatantly wrong decision. Okay. The referee had been doing it all game. A blatantly corrupt decision given for Morocco. This was the last straw. But we're talking about this incident as if it's in isolation. We talk about this incident in isolation. So when when my point in talking about all of this is the narrative is always loaded and skewed. Everybody wants to play. Everybody gets to play how they want to play the game. Okay. Until Africans rock up and say, "You know what? Fine. We'll play you at your own game. We'll play at your game. We might we won't even raise the stakes on you." When when we decide to play, you know, by our own rules, that's when the world says, "Oh, come on now. Come on. We've got to be sportsmanly. We've got to be sportsmanly." That whole tournament was a disgrace. It was from day one. It was meant to be more, I don't know whether they p it, they just lo it, it was loaded against anyone else. And West African teams were heavy favorites, whether it was Nigeria or Senegal or the current champions Ivory Coast, they were heavy favorites. So on a on a field of even play, West Africans were built to win that tournament. The only way that these North African teams could do it was by comp. It was a disgrace. You had literally officials withholding um in a very hot climate, withholding water bottles from the goalkeeper, from members of the the Senegalese squad. You you can Google this. There are videos of the Senegalese squad. So anyway, why am I saying all of this? I'm saying all of this to say it's always us. We're always the ones. Believe it. You best believe it when people say we have to do twice, 10 times as much as everyone else to achieve things, to to prove things, to to show that we deserve the right to stand just on an equal footing with everybody else. And the same goes for this narrative about Ziryab. The sources are there. They're overwhelming. Al-Makari um, but Al-Makari is not the oldest. Um, Ibn Hayyan, I believe, is even older than Al-Makari. And he talks about Ziryab being black as soot. So much so that he was named the blackbird. The blackbird being apt rather than a raven because someone else, another the the believe it or not, the founder of chivalry, chivalric, chivalric um law, uh uh, you know, adventuring and conquer um defeating enemies and whatnot, and is a black man. He's called, oh, what's his name now? Somebody help me. Somebody knowledgeable. Maybe Falklands can help me here. Antara um >> Antara Ibnu Ziyab. >> Antara Ibnu Ziyab. Thank you. His mother was as black as a crow, probably from again from East Africa. He is the origin, believe it or not. He is the He is the source of when um of uh the Arthurian legends. It's him that the Crusaders come in contact with. It's it's his legend and his law that the Crusaders come in contact with and then take back to Europe and then seize the Arthurian legends. A black man. Okay. And again, with him, we can do another, we can do another live on him. We have to defend his blackness too. There's always somebody, somebody in the crowd comes and says, "Oh, no. Well, well, well." There are sources that document this, overwhelmingly document the prejudice he faced in his life because um of his blackness in a in a world that was growing increasingly white and and and and lighter and lighter skinned. So these people suffered injustice in their life and then after after their life, be the injustice that they suffered because of the color of their skin. Okay, now is going to be the that self-same color of their skin is now going to be denied. We're not talking, we're talking if if ever the if ever the phrase insult to injury made sense, it is in this context. So you dis you you dishonor them in their life because of the color of their skin. They rise above that despite you dishonoring them because of the color of their skin and their features and their roots. Okay? And now when they've become a hero after they've died and after we should celebrate them and what they did and how they overcame those prejudices, those people, the the descendants of these people now want to claim, "No, he wasn't even black. He was one of us." Can you imagine that? Can you imagine that? I am done being apologetic about black history. I am done looking people in the eye and saying, "Well, you know, um uh and and no, I'm done. I'm done. I'm done. You people are sick. You are sick, you know." Anyway, that that that's rant over. Let me just read a couple of comments coming through. Um, London, shout out to you, London. Just want to throw out that flamenco being attributed to India or Bohemian, Hungarian, Romanian, uh, Sigan origin is quite possibly and in my opinion, misattribution and conflation. Um, uh, let me see here. Uh, London also says, "Many have argued for Moorish Many have argued for Moorish uh and African origins and lots of muddiness with gypsy identity and attribution." Thank you, London. We'll get into that. London, um, please hit that link. Um, hit that link if you want and and and join us. Um, Kamjiverse, I'm going to send you a link. Um, you can join us in this as well. I just, you know, I just want this to be a free-for-all party. Let's just chill. I'm going to I'm going to send you a link in um on Discord. So, if you want to join us, Kamji verse, if you know anything on this topic, please join us. Um, Falklands, I don't know if you've um got anything to add before I move on to the next bit of this discussion, but um, yeah, chime in whenever you want. >> Yeah. Um, okay. Yeah, I just wanted to add just a little bit detail some of the some of the Arabic behind the Matt's um language. Lingo. So, by the way, the paper I'm I'm referencing is um Al-Makari's Ziryab, The Making of a Myth by Dwight F. Reynolds. He's actually kind of a a skeptic a little bit, but even he acknowledges his existence. It's just that he's more so talking about how how Al-Makari seems to be myth-like, sort of making him seem or sorry, addressing the uh Al-Makari, sorry, how should I say, the stereotypes, the the disgusting nature, the the slander, more so. And I want to read this, I want to read this uh quote. So um, and I quote, "One of the few constants in the historical record about uh Ziryab is that he is referred to as black as not just dark-skinned. Asma. This is very important because even Indians, Alut, or Arabs, in like um, for example, in Oman, they are called Asar a lot, but they're not really called that. That is usually reserved for Africans." Uh, and I'll continue. "Often modified with a go additional adjective meaning pure dark or jet black. It seems unlikely, therefore, that a a term for gold, uh, which, by the way, is referring to a a possible Persian origin of his name, would have been given to his nickname. Indeed, given the constant reference to Ziryab's skin color, it is it is surprising that no scholars seem to have called attention to the obvious implication that he was probably of African origin or descent." So, I just want to thought I just put that out there. >> And who said that? Uh, the paper um that this is uh um actually, I don't think the paper necessarily um uh I I cannot give you the primary source. It is on the paper though, perhaps the paper has the primary source. >> It's a Dwight F. I think you said it's Dwight F. Reynolds. >> Dwight F. Reynolds uh paper, Al-Makari's Ziryab, The Making of a Myth by um published by Routledge. >> Yeah. So um Dwight F. Reynolds is the Oh, sorry. One sec. Let me just put remove pause that. Um, Reynolds is the authority on um on Ziryab. He is He is Where's the image of him? Let me just. This is what he looks like. He's a professor on there. There there he is. So, he's not he's not uh obviously judging by the look of him, he's not a, you know, you wouldn't say he's a black supremacist just by looking at him. He looks like a modern-day uh uh quote unquote Arab man, although the original Arabs were much darker than this. Um, down there on the South Arabian continent, opposite the um East Africa um complex, but um he's he's obviously a man of some Arab uh origin, cultural origin, and so he's not got any skin in the game. So, a lot of a lot of what you will hear uh attributing admitting Ziryab's ethnicity um comes from Dwight F. Reynolds' work, you know, just putting together the uh sources on Ziryab. So, I've got right now cuz I can vouch for my video, you know, there's nothing um uh copyrightable in that. Um, so I'm going to just play my video on this topic. Uh, and then I will stop it as and when I feel the need to. Falklands, let me know. Uh, I'll stop it whenever you say as well. So, I just want to play this because I know a lot of people haven't watched my video on it. >> Um, might fast forward certain parts. Um uh, but really uh I just want to I just wanted us to get a a feel um for what we're talking about through uh this individual. Okay, let's go. Let's go. Uh at this stage, >> there are three world famous sisters. You might have heard of them. Rhythm, harmony, and melody. In the grand scheme of history, rarely have they ever been played by one man. But every few decades, sometimes centuries, there comes along a maverick, a genius, some might even say a god amongst men, who binds these three sisters to his will. And in return, they will usually hand over to such a person the keys to the greatest prize of all, the hearts and minds of men. Because nobody, red, yellow, low, black, white, nobody can resist the power of music. But who was the first Don Juan to tame the three great muses? Whose name did millions across borders, countries, even empires first call out in a frenzy of song and dance. Travel back in time and listen to the story of a being some called a dog and others called a jin. This is the account of a phenom who rolled the rise and fall of empires like Sinbad rolled the seven seas. This is the story of the man, the Moor, Ziryab. It's 700 AD. Rome is ashes. Out of those ashes stands an empire called Byzantium. But Byzantium too is burning. Beset by a new confederation of peoples from Africa, Arabia, and the Levant. Bound precariously together by Islam, the world of white emperors is crumbling. The Umayyad Caliphate, a new beast rising out of this sea of desperate peoples, now reigns over southern Turkey. All of Syria, Israel, and North Africa. The Umayyads have even begun to expand into Spain under the control of one Tariq ibn Ziyad and his famed army of black soldiers. But the same as with rises. Oh, so let me pause it here, family. Um, this is another um and again, uh Falklands, you can chime in here if you want to, but this is another uh source of consternation. Tariq ibn Ziyad is a man who it's very hard to find physical descriptions of him. I believe he is of the uh I believe he's tied into the Masmuda Berbers. Now, the Masmuda Berbers, the earliest descriptions of them link them to the uh sons of Kush. Okay? In fact, uh the earliest account tells us that Marrakesh, you can look this up yourself. I don't have to prove anything to you. Um, the earliest meaning of Marrakesh is uh Marakush, or the sons of Kush city. City of the sons of Kush. Okay? So that city, the imperial capital of Morocco, used to be known for the fact that it was started and found by black people. Okay. Now, it's in that same region or that same kind of Northwest African region where I believe the Masmudan Tariq ibn Ziyad comes from. Look up the records. His army is described is noted. Noted. Let me see if I got the quote here. His army is noted for its blackness. Um, so according to 11th century, shout out to my friend the debunker for this quote. According to 11th century Muslim historian Ishach ibn Hussein al-Munim or Munajim, Tariq's army was made up of blacks. Entirely of blacks. So just hang on to that fun fact for a minute. Entirely of blacks. Listen. Quote, "When Tariq had crossed the sea, he landed on the mountain that bears his name. That mountain is called um um what's that mountain now? Um, the Rock of Gibraltar." Okay. >> Jabal Tariq. >> Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, brother Falklands. Jabal Tariq, where we get, you know, the Rock of Gibraltar, which is um belongs to Spain today. Now, then he led the blacks. The word there is unambiguous. Okay. Also, Al-Sorry, Al-Sudan is the name there. Then he led the blacks towards combat. And when the people of Cordoba saw such a terrible image, they were frightened by it since they began to take captives to slaughter their throats and to make it appear that they were eaten, which only increased their fear and unease. Tariq, having after having reached the city of Cordoba, from where his people had fled out of fear, concluded his advance in Toledo. So that is from Akam al-Maran. It's a very long name, long title by um Talif Ishach Ib Hussein al-Munim, 10th century uh 10th century or 11th century, so uh historian. Okay, that's as close as it gets to events on the ground. And this account is telling you that this man commanded a black army. Okay. Now, any other place, any other narrative, it goes without saying that Ibn Ziyad himself is a black man. You don't even have to go to sources about, okay, fine. Ibn Ziyad was a Masmuda. What did the Masmudas look like? The Masmudas, the earliest records of them were a black peoples of North Africa and the Sahara. You don't need to do all of that. Ordinarily, ordinarily, if it was anybody else's history, the assumption would be, yeah, okay, fine. A general leading a black army. Yeah, he's black, too. You don't need to you don't need to overthink that. Okay. But what people do with this is they say, "Oh, no, no, it was a black slave army. It was a." Now, of course, yeah, there were there were um uh sort of uh slave regiments in in the Moorish in in um in Moorish history, but there were there were light-skinned slave um uh regiments as well. We know of the the slave um army that took over in Egypt. Uh, the I can't remember their name now, but um they took over in Egypt. We know of them. Okay. We know this wasn't this wasn't a purely black thing, but whenever it comes to, again, this is the pattern. Whenever it comes to black history or significant um uh historical narratives that center around black people, there has to be some denigration. There has to be some. So, it's not enough that we have accounts saying Tariq Ben Ziyad led a black army, was a Masmuda, was very likely a black man himself leading this black army. It's not enough. We have to now prove that this black army had agency and was led by a black man with agency himself. We have to prove all of that. Anyway, I just that's just a massive digression. Don't know if you want to chime in on that Falklands, but I just the mini rant. >> Yeah. Um, yes. Yes. Um, yeah. Yeah. >> I will like I just want to point out a a tiny correction. Just just the tribe names. Um, he's not from the Masmuda, but he did recruit quite a bit of Masmuda. And we know that Masmuda are sons of Ham. And I'll get into that for a second, but it seems that multiple sources like if I'm not mistaken, Al-Qadi seems to put him as a Nafza. And I'm going to read you a description of one of the pure Nafza um and this is about the about Idris I, he is prince um um and this is news about the state of the prince of Muhammad Idris, Idris bin Abdullah bin Al-Hassan bin Al-Hussein bin Ali bin Allah, Jesus Christ, that's a big name. Abulib, may God be pleased with him. His mother was a free woman from the nobles of the Nafza. He was described as dark-skinned and handsome. I can get into Nawala sources, but there's a lot and you could probably and anyone here can do research. It's about his tribe. It's there's a lot of information about that. But he, a a man who was ha who was half Arab, mo from um from from the Hashemites, and half Nafza. And just to be clear, I've decided to look at the genealogy, like the particular complexion of his ancestors. And while there are many instances of black Hashemites, in fact, black Hashemite seems to be the majority. It seems this one seems to be uh at least his ancestors in particular seem to be Abiad, light uh uh, which is uh the commendable whiteness, which is the white-skinned. But his mother seems to be black and a pure-blooded Nafza. Tariq ibn Ziyad is pure Nafza. His tribe are pure Nafza. They're black. And interestingly, um, it's unclear what lineage they they they derive from because it's never stated. But we about the Masmuda, we know that they are descendants, they claim to be descendants of Ham because the Masmuda's descendants in Morocco, right, are the Harathian. And then um Sheikh Al-Homri, I believe, I forgot his name, Sheikh something, he is the author of Black Morocco, very good book, talks about an oral tradition in the Tata Valley of Souss saying that they were the indigenous people that they were there before the Berbers, before the Arabs, and that they are descendants of Ham. Although a strange legend about him, go about Ham just going to Morocco and he had a Quran on his head and the ink attached to his skin and he became black and all of his descendants became black to inherit the holiness of the Quran's ink. It it's a strange legend for sure that explains blackness, but um, either way, um, he is recruit um Tariq ibn Ziyad, a black Nafza, is recruiting Masmuda, sons of Ham. Not sure if it's Kush, but definitely sons of Ham. It's a little bit unclear about that last part. Possibly Canaan.

But I wouldn't be, I would be, I wouldn't be too, I wouldn't, I wouldn't jump the gun on that one. So, I apologize for the rent rant, you know, but um, yeah.

People are saying that um, thank you, London. London MC says, um, "Black Morocco, great book." So, he's co-signing what you're saying there. I like what Kelvin, uh, let's see what Kelvin says here. Kelvin says, "Greetings from Oh, can people even see that?" Yeah, greetings from Nairobi. I'm currently rereading "The Moorish Light of Europe's Dark Age" by Wayne B. Chandler. As a matter of fact, reading on Zary, a veritable emote. And even that, this is what I'm talking about, guys. Like the period that these folks call the Dark Ages, there was nothing dark about it. There was nothing dark about it. In fact, there's an argument for saying that it was the brightest spot in the Middle Ages in the era of the middle. It's not even an argument. It seeded the Renaissance because whilst uh much of northwestern Europe was in, in complete nonsense and like caveman level, you know, scratching in the mud, potatoes, all of that crap. Okay, you had Mediterranean Europe, Spain that was uh Italy, parts of Italy that were dominated by Moors coming out of Africa, black folk. You had parts of it bringing with Islam, uh, and the Arabic, uh, traditions and writing and art, preserving texts from antiquity, Greek and Roman texts, translating it to Arabic so that when the Goths and the Vandals were burning things and destroying things, it was Moorish Arabized North Africans, Northwest Africans, West Africans from Sagal and Mali that were preserving a lot of what would then be translated back into all the desperate European tongues and then be used to fuel the Renaissance. So there was no, there was no Dark Ages, but it's known as that because they weren't at the center of it. That what was going on in Europe, uh, that was worthy of talking about in terms of learning and culture, they, they, that doesn't matter because they weren't at the center of it. So Europe was quote unquote in the Dark Ages. This is what I'm talking about. This is what I'm talking about. It's all upside down. And we didn't make it upside down. Very, very, very insecure people made it upside down. Now, I'm not saying the average person today feels like that. But the average person today has been bequeathed that heritage. So people are still running around using these phrases and these names and these terms and thinking in the within the confines academically and popularly, within the confines that's been handed to them by racists, you know. So there was no Dark Ages. We, we, we were here shedding light all over the place. One of the greatest Moors, a guy who conceived of the principle of natural selection, um, some say evolution before Darwin, was a guy called Al Jahis. Again, his blackness is denied, but there are sources calling him an Ethiopian, a bog-eyed, big-lipped Ethiopian, black of black skin. Derisively, now, in some accounts, he was al-lah. He even wrote a book called "The Glory of the Blacks Over the Whites." Again, why does he write that book? Because you have with the incursion of lighter-skinned Ottoman Turks, uh, you know, taking on the religion of Muhammad, uh, who comes from, who was described as deep black from southern Arabia, you know, taking on that religion and that culture. They're coming into North Africa with their deeply held, uh, uh, colorist beliefs. And so Al Jahis has to write a book called "The Glory of the Blacks Over the Whites." We didn't start this, but we sure as heck won't be quiet, you know. We won't be quiet and watch, watch these slurs happen. But what they like to do is then rephrase it as, "Oh, no, no, no. You know, this is black supremacy here. You know, don't get all Afro." No. As far back as Al Jahis, he's having to write a book saying the glory of the blacks because you man are out here talking greasy on our name, talking crap, constantly looking for every opportunity to to let out your insecurity. So he has to write that book. But he is one of the greatest. He's known as the first ever zoologist. He writes tomes, encyclopedic books, volumes, literally classifying animals. All of them. A black man, a black man of African extraction did that. And that his tomes are influential. But you'll never get what these people then go on to do is they just write him out. You have to dig to find out that Al Jahis is the source of a lot of knowledge that, um, zoological knowledge that Europeans are using in, you know, the late Middle Ages into the Renaissance. You have to dig deep because they don't like people talking about anyone else but themselves. They don't. It's just disgusting. Let me hit play on this before I lose my mind. Falls can be just as spectacular and unexpected. At its height, the Umayyad dynasty is overthrown by the Abbasids, or as they were known to their Chinese adversaries, he dashi, the black-robed dashi. Dashi means Arab, but the Abbasids are not Arabs. Influenced by Islam, they might have spoken and written in Arabic, but in fact, they are a people emerging from the ruins of an older force. The Abbasids are merely the latest in a long line of reincarnated Babylon. Baghdad, Iraq is their home. Against this reawakened force and after nearly a hundred years, Umayyad domination comes to a brutal end. Umayyad slaves and servants are slaughtered. The Caliph's harem is not spared as the blood of concubines is shed freely, and even children, potential scions whose existence threatens the black flag of the Abbasids, are beheaded. One man escapes. Abd al-Rahman is his name. Son of an Umayyad prince and general. Historical accounts tell us a 20-year-old Abd al-Rahman fled Damascus with his sisters, his brother Yahya, his four-year-old son, and his Tidbits back.

Go on, Falklands. What you saying?

His mother is Napsa. His mother. Just want to point that out there.

Whose mother?

Um, Abd Abd al-Rahman the first.

Wow. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. The Moorish connection is deeper than most people because they try to make him very Syrian, very Middle Eastern.

They really. His mother's side, his m the maternal tribe that took him in. that Napsa was a black tribe who who helped him reconquer, who helped, um, the prince conquer Spain.

His tribe.

So, just want to point that out there.

Thank you. Thank you for that because this is another bone of contention. I believe sources I've not been able to pin down, um, the original source, but I think Abd al-Rahman the first was described even primarily himself as I, but I want to say Al-Aswad, but I, I haven't pinpointed the original quote, but so I'm not, people don't quote me on that, but thank you for bringing that up. And again, uh, none of this matters. It's, it's just because people try to deny people. Basically, people try to deny that people got around. Okay. They, and actually, they don't. Let me be, let me be, let me be real here. They don't try to deny that people got around. They try to deny that black people got around. This is the problem. They want to pretend that black people were waiting in Africa for the transatlantic slave trade. You know, so lots of white people went into Africa, went into North Africa, dominated North Africa, you know, blah, blah, blah. But black people, no, we were just sitting there, you know, twirling our thumbs. I don't know what they thought we were doing. Uh, the grass skirts, the whole trope, you know, people got around. Black people got around, too. And when Islam was on the rise, a lot of the people that got around were black folk. And black folk were heavy in Syria. They were heavy across, um, that whole region that's connected literally to Africa. So, you know, guys, we can walk, and we walked. In the very least, we can walk, you know, in the very least. All right, let me hit play. Thank you for that, uh, Falklands. Greek servant, a man named Badr. They attempt a daring journey down into Egypt and across North Africa to Tunisia, then known as Ifriqiya. Only Abd al-Rahman and his servant Badr reach their intended destination. Abd al-Rahman loses his four-year-old to his pursuers, and his brother Yahya is beheaded on the other side of the river Euphrates. Though he hears the death gurgle from Yahya's open throat, Abd al-Rahman barely looks back as he swims for dear life. Ashore, he runs till exhaustion. Against all odds, Abd al-Rahman not only reaches the court of Ibn Habib, governor of Ifriqiya, but through a series of remarkable events, crosses over to Spain, marshals a force of Yemen warriors to defeat the governor of Cordoba, Yusuf ibn Abd al-Rahman, and makes himself the first emir of Cordoba. Abd al-Rahman, or Abd al-Rahman al-Dakhil, the immigrant, as he became known during his years of exile, becomes Abd al-Rahman the first of Cordoba and establishes the last stronghold of the Umayyads in today's Spain. The emir's 32-year reign is one of splendor and struggle. He builds the Mosque of Cordoba, which today is the Cathedral of Cordoba. But to the south, the Abbasids are knocking at the gates of his new kingdom. Still further south, he banishes them back across the Mediterranean to North Africa. But the Abbasids are not easily defeated. They are relentless. Employing the most Machiavellian of tactics, they wage an all-or-nothing campaign against the last of the Umayyads, even allying with the Europeans north of Cordoba, the armies of the great Charlemagne.

When I, sorry guys, press one if you're enjoying this because I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, listen, if, if, uh, if no one will say it, I'm saying it. I'm, I'm enjoying my own voice, you know. If no one will be for you, you have to be for yourself. I'm really enjoying, I've not watched this since I posted it and I'm actually loving it. Say what you will. Loving the sound of my own voice. So, press one in the chat if you agree with me. Are you actually enjoying this? And press two if you're seeing it for the first time. Shame on you. But we will. All right, guys. I don't know what happened there. Sorry about that. Um, internet connection. Um, but I'm back now. Press one, please. Let me know if you can hear me. Press one if you can hear me. Um, thank you. I see, I see your response to my last, uh, call out. Uh, good to see. But let me know if you can hear me now. Press one, please, if you can hear me, chat. I'm back now.

You can hear just fine.

Okay. Brilliant. Brilliant. That's good. That's good. Right. Let me just take my, um, that's frozen as well. Okay. Thank you, Infinite Guy. Thank you, Kieran Grant. Thank you, guys. Right. Right. Let me present that again. What's going on, man? The forces. The forces wrestling not against flesh and blood and principalities out here. It's a man who had his who accepts Abd al-Rahman, or Abd al-Dakhil, the immigrant, as he became known during his years of exile, becomes Abd al-Rahman the first of Cordoba and establishes the last stronghold of the Umayyads in what is today Spain. The emir's 32-year reign is one of splendor and struggle. He builds the Mosque of Cordoba, which today is the Cathedral of Cordoba. But to the south, the Abbasids are knocking at the gates of his new kingdom. Still further south, he banished.

So, let me just pause it there. Just think about that. All of that, that, that great mosque that's been become a cathedral. Um, all of that was built by black people, black folk, as per, even if you're just going to go as per what, uh, Falklands has been letting us know about the Aasa tribe being a black North African tribe. All of that built by Africans. And you see, I don't know if you guys notice the red and the white motif there. That's a Moorish motif that you see later. Every time you see Moors, I'm talking about black folk now, not ambiguous folk, you know, as they became later known, just Muslim North African Muslims. Every time you see black folk drawn in in Renaissance art by white folk, you see that red and white motif. You see that it's a red and white turban. And that goes well back. That's not an Islamic thing. That goes well back. You can see that being worn, um, on the heads of people in the Mali Empire, the Songhai Empire, that goes deep into Africa, not just North Africa. You're seeing, in fact, there are images of, um, uh, the Asante, Asante wearing that red and white, um, motif. So that is an, that's an African thing. Well, that's a rabbit hole to go into for another day. If anyone wants to do their research on that and hit me up on Instagram, please do that. Please do that. Troll Black at Troll Black Gram. U anyway, let's go on. Them back across the Mediterranean to North Africa. But the Abbasids are not easily defeated. They are relentless. Employing the most Machiavellian of tactics, they wage an all-or-nothing campaign against the last of the Umayyads, even allying with the Europeans north of Cordoba, the armies of the great Charlemagne. When Abd al-Rahman the first dies, his sons take up this forever war. Hisham the first of Cordoba reigns for eight years before his son Al-Hakam takes over. After whom the mantle falls upon a man the world will know as Abd al-Rahman the second, warrior and philosopher king, the fourth emir of Cordoba. Abd al-Rahman the second was a man who struck fear in the hearts of all and sundry, not least his would-be Christian usurpers. They were left resorting to paintings and sculpture. Look at this. Look at this image that you're seeing now. This image that you're seeing is something called the Santiago Matamoros. There's lots of different, uh, variations of it. Um, it's, it's mythical. It's about how St. James, uh, comes and and appears in a battle and defeats the Moors almost unanimously. These are contemporaneous artwork pieces. Now, on Wikipedia, when you look up the Moors, you don't see any of these images. What you see are anachronistic images, images that we don't know that are made years later, centuries later, not contemporaneous. But when you look at contemporaneous artwork that Europeans are drawing, and there they are, there's a plethora, there's a, I don't know how you say that word, plethora, whatever, okay, of these images, but they will be the last ones you see. Again, tell me that's a coincidence. Tell me that's a coincidence. Tell me that's a coincidence. Why?

I don't think so.

Why? Why? It's ridiculous.

Of make-believe battles in which Abd al-Rahman the second is bested by an appearance of St. Thomas fighting on behalf of the Spaniard King Ramiro the first of Asturias. These paintings and sculptures still exist today. They bear testimony to the description of Abd al-Rahman the second by medieval historian Ibn Hayyan in his famous history of the kings of Al-Andalus. There, Abd al-Rahman the second is described as being, quote, "tall and brown, a lighter shade of the quote black his father was described as." In Abd al-Rahman the second, the black had no doubt been washed down, as could only be expected, seeing as his mother was recorded as being a mixed-race woman or quote a muwallad." None of this. So what I'm saying there is documented. It's documented. Shout out to the debunker. He provided me sources on this. I could, I could pull them up on the screen, but it's just too long to do that. You're going to have to take my word for it in lieu of you going your own research. But please feel free, have at it, to go and look into this. Okay. Um, the same word used to describe Abd al-Rahman the second's complexion is the same asma. People want to make out that that word just refers. Okay, let me just finish that train of thought. People want to make out that that word just refers to, um, modern North Africans. That's not true. Okay, that's not true because when it's being used in the time it's being used, you're talking about a people heavily melanated. Often people who are described as asma in the Arabic texts are also described with big lips, uh, snub nose, uh, uh, something particular. The stomos is something that was used derogatively to refer to Africans at the time. And the same word as brown, deep brown, that's used for, um, uh, Abd al-Rahman the second is the same word that's used to describe Mansa Musa. Let me show you something. Mansa Musa. Nobody apart from some fringe weirdos, uh, gropers, whatever you want to call them, uh, um, Nick Fuentes types. Everybody.

Snow taps.

Huh?

I call them snow taps. Robert.

Thank you. Thank you, Falklands. Um, everybody agrees Mansa Musa is a, is a, the king of Mali is a black African man. Okay. But even he is not described in a stereotypical jet black, ink black. When you see him drawn in, um, when you see him, um, described in medieval accounts, Arabic accounts, they call him brown. They, they use the word brown for his complexion. Um, they also use, um, so let me quickly show you this image of him. He's juxtaposing this image by to another person who is often whose blackness is often denied. This is Abu Bakr ibn Umar, that you can see up on the screen. And on the left-hand side, jet black. This, this man, whoever did this, really, he needs to, he needs to be shot, metaphorically speaking, of course. Well, and he's long gone, so I can say that because this man didn't even bother putting features on Ibn Umar, he just, he just painted him jet black. Okay. And you can see Rex Abubakar there. Down below on the right-hand side, he's meeting Mansa Musa. Now, the ink has been kind of, um, not lasted on Mansa Musa, but you can see his his protruding lips. You can see his bulbous nose. And you can see, if you look, if you're careful in your looking, you can see that a very deep brown has been kind of washed away over time. Um, so he was a brown, he was an African, he was a black man, a person who within a European context would be casually called black, but amongst other Africans, he wasn't the blackest. You know, Arabs were describing him as brown. So even amongst the al-Sudan, Mansa Musa wasn't black. So just because someone was described as al-asma, uh, is not, is no, um, evidence for these people, um, who like to deny African history and black history. It's no evidence. There's not enough evidence for them to say somebody wasn't black. You can't call him black, he was brown. No, no, no, no. And also, again, going back to his mother, Abd al-Rahman the second's, um, mother was described as a mixed-race woman. Now, that's, that gets dark, no pun intended. Um, the Moors, um, they had a penchant for, let's be honest, they had a penchant for all kinds of women. Uh, but they heavily divested. They heavily divested. Okay, there's, there's records of the Moorish kings, black kings, talking about, um, uh, "fix me up with one with blonde eyes." You know, in some, in some accounts, European accounts, they, there, there are, um, tribute that has to be paid to the Moorish kings of Spain, Al-Andalus, from France and and the land of the Gauls and from Northwest Europe is blonde, white blonde women with blue eyes. Now, that's exotic to them. That's what they liked. And so a lot of their seed, a lot of their sons, a lot of their children lose that melanin and become caramel and become what you know, what we would call today. They look more like modern North Africans. But that's, that's no denying that doesn't, that doesn't, that doesn't really deny what's going on. Doesn't really deny that the people originally who are seeding these, these Moorish caliphates and empires are Africans, are black people, are people from, if not Africans strictly speaking, they're from, uh, southern Arabia, which was adjacent to Africa and which was filled with many, many black and dark-skinned people. Um, so anyway, sorry, go on, Falklands, you want to say something?

Yeah, uh, just, just wanted to chime in on a couple things, uh, when it comes to the, uh, history, right? Um, him being brown, uh, or at least like dark. I want to point out the fact that Fani and Black Duad actually call themselves white to this day.

So, just to be clear, um, their southern neighbors who are just their neighbors, it's not a huge distance down, are calling themselves brown. You got to understand from their. So I'm just, I'm just saying that Mansa Musa was very heavily melanated from an African perspective. He would, like, like, like in the choice of words. So in reality, it actually is something probably dark brown, just dark brown in general, cuz, you know, yeah.

Um.

There was something I, shoot, I think I may have lost my, my second track of thought, um, but please continue.

Okay. I'll hit play. Maybe if you, as soon as you remember, just let me know and I'll pause.

For sure.

Them that in intellect class is described as in quote, "tall, black-skinned like the Moors," ed by an appearance of St. Thomas fighting on behalf of the Spaniard King Ramiro the first of Asturias. These paintings and sculptures still exist today. They bear testimony to the description of Abd al-Rahman the second by medieval historian Ibn Hayyan in his famous history of the kings of Al-Andalus. There, Abd al-Rahman the second is described as being, quote, "tall and brown, a lighter shade of the quote black his father was described as." In Abd al-Rahman the second, the black had no doubt been washed down, as could only be expected, seeing as his mother was recorded as being a mixed-race woman or quote a muwallad." None of this surprises the reader of history who accepts that the Moors were largely just as described again and again by antiquity's greatest authors and in the dictionaries of the Enlightenment and the 19th century. precocious in a history of the wars, quote, "black-skinned like the Moors," from Eli Levita's 16th-century dictionary, quote, "Moor, Ethiops," and from Samuel Johnson's seminal 1755 dictionary, quote, "Moor, Latin Maurus, a negro, a blackamoor." Rudimentary aside, once Emir Abd al-Rahman the second wants desperately to show the Abbasids that he is not just their superior on the battlefield, he plans to show them that in intellect, class, and taste, he has blue blood driving through his veins, that he is a rightful heir to the empire they stole from his great-grandfather. And so he sets about building a Cordoba befitting. He commissions public works and erects great monuments, adding more colonies to the Mosque of Cordoba. Medieval and Moorish historian Ibn Hayyan in his famous work Al-Muktabis would later point out that, quote, "The Emir Abd al-Rahman the second was the first of the khifs who glossed over the monarchy in Al-Andalus, clothed it with the pomp and majesty, and conferred a reverential character, choosing men suitable for functions." These men were the great and the good of their day: scholars, architects, artists, poets, and musicians. And one of them was a man making a final desperate roll of life's dice when he wrote to the emir of Cordoba for a second time. That man was Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Nafi, known to his friends and foes as Ziryab. Many have called Ziryab a slave who hailed from Iraq. On both counts, they are incorrect. Yes, he is recorded as being referred to in one near-contemporary account as "Abbasid, a black slave." But this most likely was an attempt to denigrate a man who had his enemies in almost equal measure as his friends. In truth, Ziryab is described by most accounts as a mawla of the second Abbasid Caliph, Al-Mahdi Muhammad ibn Abu Ja'far al-Mansur. That word mawla is the same word used to describe Badr, the Greek servant who served the patriarch of the Cordoba emirate, simply meaning a free servant, client, or companion. Indeed, it was not strange for a mawla to achieve great wealth and authority of his own, so long as he played his cards right with his patron. It seems that Ziryab was doing just this until he ran afoul of an envious eye in the royal court at Baghdad. Several accounts exist of this fall from grace, but something close to the truth can be deciphered when the accounts are carefully pieced together. In Baghdad, Ibrahim al-Masili is Ziryab's teacher in the arts, in music, poetry, astronomy, all the essentials a man of intellect needs to flourish in the court of the Caliph. Except that Ziryab's talents, particularly with music and poetry, start to get him noticed a little too much by the Caliph, too much for his teacher's liking. A classic tale of the student exceeding his master is unfolding before Al-Masili's eyes. And this is not a tale Masili particularly cares for. Everything he has worked for seems to be disappearing right before his eyes, and all because of an interloper, a black man whose true origins are far from Baghdad. The last straw for Al-Masili seems to come when Ziryab overplays his hand and allows something like hubris to overtake him. Moorish and Arab scholar Ibn Abd Rabbih in his famous verse "The Unique Necklace" describes the incident. Perhaps in a bid to shame Al-Masili for his increasing ill treatment, Ziryab sings before Al-Masili and the Caliph's court verses of the hanging of 'Antara ibn Shaddad, the Ethiopian warrior poet. Quote, "This is indeed my mother, black as a raven, from among the sons of Ham. For this you have maligned me, yet I am adept with flashing sword edges and with dark spearheads when you come to me. Were it not that you fled on the day of Tumalt, I would have bested you in battle." Close quote. The Caliph and his courtiers applauded, appreciating the double-edged recital as a great example of one-upmanship. But Ziryab's is a Pyrrhic victory, a disaster in truth. Al-Masili is not amused. Ziryab has made a mortal enemy, and a very powerful one at that. In a fit of rage, accounts tell us Al-Masili strikes and threatens Ziryab with death should he remain in Baghdad till mourning. This happens probably in private and not before the Caliph, as the drama-hungry accounts suggest. Realizing his actions were impetuous and short-sighted and that his charms and grace are no match against the influence of Al-Masili, Ziryab flees Baghdad.

So, let me just pause it there just to recap. Um, I know none of us here are stupid, but just in case there are some trolls listening, that's an account from, I believe, Ibn Hayyan, who is the earliest, um, the most, uh, comprehensive and earliest account of Ibn, I'm sorry, of Ziryab's life that we have. And he talks about that incident happening in the court of, uh, the Abbasids where Ziryab uses as a sort of double on 'Antara uses the lines from Antar ibn Shaddad, famous like I've already said in his life, famous black knight, okay, where this black knight talks about, you know, um, people denigrating him for his skin color and for his Ethiopian, um, uh, heritage. Now, it's, there's no, that's a very, very brilliant thing that Ziryab does, but it costs him. It costs him. So, again, look to Dwight Herf Reynolds. He's done great work on this and he compiles all the different sources together that show that really what's going on here is plain old prejudice from, uh, an, not even prejudice, really, just jealousy. So Masili is jealous that this, this servant of his, this free servant, okay, just a servant, is getting more popular and he's, he's rising, you know, his work is being acknowledged and and he mistreats Ziryab. So Yab decides, this is my moment, and he uses this moment before, uh, the king, the Abbasid Caliph in Iraq to kind of to tell on what Masili is doing, you know, and he uses this famous line from the guy's just spitting bars in modern parliament, he's spitting bars and he's sending shots and Masili gets that, he understands what's going on and he's not too happy. And this is what then leads to Ziryab having to say, "Look, I got to pack up and leave this place. I've, I've wound up somebody that I shouldn't have wound up, somebody with power." And he, and he flees for his life. But again, it's not enough to leave it at that. It's not enough to say, "Do you know what? Fair play to this man and fair play to his, his legacy. People now today, um, from the same region, you know, as the words of the scriptures would have it said, you know, in in similar words to scripture, you know, they are like their fathers who killed the prophets." That's what Jesus said. That's what the Lord Jesus said in the Bible. He said, "You hypocrites." Because you talk about the prophets. He was talking to the Jews, the Pharisees. He said, "You talk about the prophets. Oh, Moses. And if Moses were alive, we wouldn't have done Moses, uh, we wouldn't have done Elijah like like our fathers did Elijah. We wouldn't have treated these great prophets. We wouldn't have stoned them. We wouldn't have harassed them. Oh, what?" Then Jesus said to them, the Lord Jesus said to them, "Look, you're crazy. You're liars. You're fraud. You're hypocrites because you're doing exactly what your fathers did to the prophets to me. You just lie. You just lie. You, you, you even testify against yourself by saying your father's a prophet. So you do admit that they're your ancestors and not just your ancestors in blood, your ancestors in spirit. So the same people whose ancestors chased this black man out of Iraq are today now saying he wasn't even black. You see? You see the sickness of that? You see that? You see that two-way insult? Just sick. Just sick. Anyway, that's what happens to Ziryab. That's how he leaves. That's how he ends up leaving, um, um, Iraq. Again, you guys have the problem, not us. We don't have the problem. I still have people coming to me. We'll get to it. Talking about how he didn't bring chess to Europe. He did. He blooming well did. And your ignorance is no excuse, you know. We, we'll get to that. We don't know when exactly, but at some point, he arrives in Ifriqiya and resolves to making a living there. But the rulers of Ifriqiya are vassals of the Abbasids and to seek to ply his high trade in the court of Ziyadat Allah permanently would have been too risky for Ziryab, especially when sources from the time remark that he had begun to offend the temperamental governor with some of his edgy verse. In Ifriqiya, Ziryab is on borrowed time. He could go south, deeper into Africa into territory unknown to him and risk obscurity. Or he could go back east, see whether the dust has settled in Baghdad, and if time hasn't healed old wounds. But sometime in the 820s, still in his youthful prime, Ziryab has a stroke of genius and carves out a third option for himself. Knowing the very recent history of the Umayyads of Cordoba and their sworn hatred of the Abbasids, he sets off for Spain. Once in the famed Al-Andalus, he takes ink to parchment and sends his own servant with a daring message to Al-Hakam the first. Medieval scholar Ibn Hayyan tells us that, quote, "The singer Abu Mansur was the messenger of Master Ziryab the singer to the Emir Al-Hakam. It was he who carried Ziryab's message." What exactly was in this message is anyone's guess, but Ziryab is a shrewd operator. We learn of this from much of Ibn Hayyan's writings. Ziryab's story is one that closely mimics the first emir of Cordoba's, Abd al-Rahman the first's, trail of tears. By now, everyone in the Muslim world and in Christendom knows the famous underdog story of the Umayyad's last stand in Cordoba, in Al-Andalus. Does Ziryab play up the perils he faced in Abbasid-dominated lands? Most likely. Does he talk up his admiration of what the Umayyads have accomplished in the face of the treacherous Abbasids? Almost certainly. But here is another idea. Knowing that the emir hailed from strong Berber stock, a man renowned for his own stark black complexion, Ziryab might have reprised the story of his recital in Baghdad and told of how his extraordinary blackness had been something of a handicap amidst the fair-skinned Abbasids. We know of Ziryab's color from numerous extant sources and can therefore estimate that in origin he was probably from the plains of Ethiopia or modern-day Sudan, where today some of the world's darkest-colored people reside, even by African standards. Ibn Hayyan tells us that, quote, "Ziryab was a nickname given to him in his homeland because of his black color, his eloquent tongue, and the beauty of his features." So check this quote out, guys. So Ziryab was a nickname given to him in his homeland because of his black color, his eloquent tongue, and the beauty of his features. They named him for a black songbird found there because I don't even know why I'm reading this. Sorry, I just let the video play. What's wrong with me? They named him for a black songbird found there because of his resemblance to it." End quote. There's more that Ibn Hayyan tells us, chiefly that Ziryab's letter to Al-Hakam is a success. The music-loving emir has heard of Ziryab and is convinced he will be a boon to his court. So he sends for the Blackbird. But almost as soon as Ziryab lands in Cordoba, devastating news reaches him. Al-Hakam the has become Al-Hakam the dead. Ziryab cannot turn back. He's in too deep now with nowhere to go except forward. Ibn Hayyan. Quote, "So he stopped and wrote to the Emir Abd al-Rahman the second, who ruled after Al-Hakam, expressing his condolences and describing to the new emir his situation and his intention of traveling to him and the hopes he placed in him after the death of his father." Close quote. A final gambit by Ziryab, and it pays off. Ibn Hayyan again. "Abd al-Rahman answered him solicitously, saying that he would be pleased to receive him, urging Ziryab to hasten to him and promising him a good position in his service." So upon receiving these most auspicious of signs, Ziryab sped towards him. Close quote. He would have done. Put not your trust in princes, said one king. But if you do, make sure you get to them before they die. Ziryab was not about to make the same mistake twice and waste one more second in gaining the favor of another powerful benefactor. Whatever were his hopes, he could not in his wildest dreams have imagined the success that would greet him at the court of the emir. Abd al-Rahman was utterly delighted and welcomed Ziryab's arrival, offering him luxurious lodgings, giving him preference and priority. Ibn Hayyan in the court of the emir of Al-Andalus. Ziryab finds a place where the arts are allowed to flourish. The nobles, even the king, are men of open minds, thirsty for knowledge and new ways of doing things. In Al-Andalus, Ziryab finds that he might just finally be at home. Might. It is a dark irony that today many of those from the land Ziryab fled in tears because of the color of his skin now claim him wholesale, saying that he was Iranian, a Kurd, or Iraqi in origin, but certainly no more. This irony gets darker, all pun intended, for many of those same voices can today be heard viciously denouncing the claims that Ziryab was a black man whose ancestors probably made their way to Baghdad in chains before later being freed. They give out the usual frenetic cry that in citing historical accounts and descriptions, the ever-dreaded Afrocentrists are at work again, under every bed and in every cupboard. It hasn't occurred to them yet to accept Ziryab both as a man of African ancestry and an Iraqi by birth. Whatever their motives in denying the readily available historical accounts of Ziryab, they may be right in one claim they make: that Ziryab meant the golden one. Ziryab's more common nickname, that of blackbird, might well have been conflated with the word "zur," which was Persian or Kurdish in origin and which some historians tell us properly meant golden one. Ibn Hayyan may not have been conversant in Kurdish or Farsi when he wrote his great work on Ziryab and thus assumed Ziryab meant the same thing as his more popular Arabic moniker of blackbird. Interestingly, the two are not entirely dissimilar in sound. Shaher being the Arabic for blackbird and jer being the word for gold in Kurdish. One thing is certain, just as with the name Blackbird,

It's interesting he's called Blackbird. I, I, I really say this because, you know, whether he is an Arab, whether he is a, um, an Indian, whether he is, um, a black African of of sorts, of any sort, these peoples like in large numbers. Yes. Large numbers, especially back then, a thousand years ago, you know, they were dark-skinned. There were so many of them. So when the context of him being called the blackbird is clearly very derogatory, people kind of, it seems like we're calling him that simply because he was a, a, a black man in court. This was to them just a, a little bit unacceptable. So I think, I think even that, even his nickname is an indication of, you know, the race of, of, sort of the racism going on and the race or colorism, uh, colorism going on, you know, in the Abbasid court. I, I just want to point that out that, you know, um, like and the reason I, I bring this out because some people like to say, "Oh, he might be a Baloch, you know, or he might be, um, for example, uh, um, like an Arab, but more so a, like, cuz in their minds they think Arabs are mostly light-skinned and that there might be an occasional dark-skinned Arab, you know, and and they might bring up that argument, which I have seen people do, and it's just, it's, it completely, it completely, it's, it's without context. It's without context. Like these are, like these people, the fact is is that his lineage is never stated or his origin is never stated. And the groups of dark, of very melanated people in in Baghdad, in southern Iraq, you know, they are very common and large in number. Whoever is calling him this is is trying to insult them. I, I know I'm saying it almost like in a sort of investigative.

You think you think it was actually an insult, not originally, and then which just became positive in time?

Um, yeah, I think it is an insult because of just the redundancy. There were like, a thousand years ago, there were many black Arabs, many black dark Indians, and there were many, uh, black black people. They just, they've been here for forever. So that goes without saying. Um, and so it's a little bit redundant. It's a little bit redundant. Whoever's calling that, they want, they are trying to, like, there is a, a, a clear colorism of some sort that's going on. So just to point that out.

Thank you for that.

The golden one proved to be an apt name for Ali ibn Nafi, because in Cordoba, Ziryab shone just like gold. Abd al-Rahman the second has favorites who compose music and poetry and perform regularly before him and his courtiers. Ibn Hayyan names them. Among them were the singer Abu Ya'qub, the two Hassans, Hassan al-Hilali and Hassan al-Qarawi, Mansur the Jew, and others. Close quote. Ziryab supplants them all. Quote, "Bro, I know you're more, um, off with the Arabic tongue, uh, based on your background."

Um, how am I, how do I do in this video out of 10 with my Arabic pronunciations? I've been thinking about it, but also, um, I'm just, I'm going to throw it out to the to the chat as well. Any Arab speakers in in the chat, how am I doing with my Arabic pronunciation? One, uh, on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being, you know, perfect, just let me know. Type, type your number in there. But what, what do you think, uh, Falklands?

Well, I mean, it, I mean, for, um, for a beginner, it's pretty solid because even for me, right? Um, trying to, because Adabe is not my first, it's not, it's like, first of all, I don't even know the language. And the, the fact is is that I know these terms, uh, simply because I've been, I've literally actually been in a school where it was like 70% Muslim. Uh,

Ironically, in in the American South, which is, uh, pretty lucky for for me to get these terms. So, yeah. Yeah. Plus, plus, of course, people from, um, other contacts of mine from all across the the greater Muslim world have come and educated me and, uh, they told me there how to pronounce those words. Uh, and I'm grateful for them. So, um, you know, um, no pressure, no pressure. Uh, I guess it's just exposure, exposure. You know, there is a guy that I think would be very helpful for you, u, and does talk a lot about black out of history. I think I mentioned him, uh, in our previous discussions. Master Builder.

Um, oh yes. Yes. I've seen his, uh, TikTok. He's brilliant.

Oh, yeah. I mean, when it comes to sources, citations, he is, it's just, wow. I'm blown away. And honestly, I think it would be a very interesting video to talk about black adabs in Africa and in Europe, you know, because I feel like that isn't necessarily talked enough, you know, because and while they are Moors, and even the Spaniards agree on this, um, it is rather interesting that the, the Moor seems to be more of a connotation of Africa. And I do think exploring the Arab, the black Arabian element in Africa and in Europe is something worth, uh, taking a look at. Especially Europe.

That, because it turns out a lot of Semitic lineages that are apparently found in Europeans, a lot of these geneticists like chalk it up to Jewish ancestry. But something tells me I don't think so because a lot of those are shared by the very dark Arabs today, like the ones that are dark today. They were darker even a thousand years ago.

So it really, it really begs the question.

But please continue. Khaled says six out of 10. Thank you. I'll take, I'll take that. That's a 2-1. That's not bad. One more and I'm in first. Okay, well done. Thank you. Um, anyone, let me know. Let me know on a scale of 1 to 10, how good's my Arabic pronunciation? Right, let's go. These were the most prominent of his singers until Ziryab the Iraqi came to him. He was the master of singing, the wonder of Al-Andalus, who became the emir's favorite and conquered his heart. Abd al-Rahman elevated him above all others who practiced this profession, male and female. Close quote. So far, Ziryab has proven himself a man who makes fortune bend to his will. Beginning life as the son of the enslaved, he has gone from zero to hero in the land of the Abbasids, then back to zero after running afoul of a malicious adversary. Undeterred by those infamous imposters, triumph and disaster. On another facet of the globe, Ziryab has willed his way upwards once again and is now the apple of the eye of the Lord of Spain. In Cordoba, he is showered with gifts, jewelry, the finest clothes, slaves, servants, and land.

So guys, this is obviously a very charismatic man to say the least. Obviously a very, very charismatic man because you don't go from the court of the Abbasids to North Africa, work your way to the court of the Tunisians, which is Ifriqiya, uh, then he gets in trouble there and he finds himself again in the court of the lords of Spain, the Moorish lords of Spain. Don't do all of that without, and he's doing it without any real connections here. We're not hearing of he's doing it off his own back. He's doing it chanting his arm, writing letters, um, applying his trade and singing. So this must be a very, an immensely talented but also charismatic person to be getting in in these circles just of the strength of his, of his, of his personality. You know, I just wanted to point that out. Ibn Hayyan wrote that Abd al-Rahman's generosity to Ziryab, quote, "granted him privileges far beyond those given even to beloved guests and the closest most trusted viziers." This favoritism does not go unnoticed. Whispers turn to murmurs as Ziryab bewitched the emir with magic as black as his skin. Easy to ridicule these suggestions today. But was there some truth to the rumors of sorcery in Al-Andalus? Or is Ziryab's success the rightful reward of a man not afraid to experiment with his music? A man unafraid of the opinion of others in the pursuit of his art? A free spirit unconstrained by the norms of his time? In short, is Ziryab a mad genius, or is he in league with the devil? Believe it or not, both could very well have been true. Over a thousand years later, a modern expert on Ziryab would write this, quote, "His arrival at the court of Cordoba in the year 822 is the beginning of an Andalusian musical tradition distinct from the eastern musical traditions of Mecca, Medina, Damascus, and Baghdad. And he is popularly credited with the creation of the nawba, or suite form, which is the basic structure of the Andalusian musical traditions of modern North Africa. He is said to have memorized the lyrics and melodies of 10,000 songs and to have composed innumerable songs of his own. He developed new techniques for teaching the art of singing and added a fifth string to the Arab lute. In short, he single-handedly crafted a style and repertoire that became the foundation for all Andalusian music from the 9th century to the present." Let's just hit pause there. That's Dwight F. Reynolds, the authority, the authority, the modern authority on. He's made his life's work. He's a PhD. He's a doctor and.

A professor, uh, out there in America. And he's made his life's work. I called him a man of Arabic. Excuse me. I called him a man of Arab extraction earlier based on his name. That's possibly cap. I don't know that for sure, but he looks like it. He looks like he's got something when you look up his image, uh, in the mix there.

Um, but the authority, the modern authority on Ziryab, says he basically is the foundation for, I'll read that again, new techniques for teaching the art of singing and added a fifth string to the Arab lute. So the Moors, uh, bring in the lute. You can look this up.

Let me see if I can present this. A friend of mine, the ever-present and always, uh, researching London, who I'll be having on, um, soon again. Um, possibly on Melanin Intel, possibly on Trill Black, uh, channel. Go and subscribe to Melanin Intel. Melanin Intel. But, uh, London, my good brother London, has provided me with sources. Um, he's just been asking, um, Google's AI.

Okay. Uh, let me show you something that you'll find amazing. So, what you can see on screen, I hope you can see. Anyway, uh, let me see if I can see it. Yeah, it says, Moors introduced the second highlighted group. Moors introduced, uh, earliest versions of several instruments, including the lute or oud, the guitar or guitar, and the lyre.

Uh, I don't know if you guys can hear me. I was a bit away from the microphone there. Moors introduced, basically, the guitar. Okay. And one of the major improvements made to this instrument was by Ziryab, who is recorded as having added a fifth string. Um, which would have seemed wild and crazy at the time in a very conservative space musically and, and just culturally. He decides to add a fifth string to it, and it, and it just revolutionizes, uh, the music.

Um, London, I think, is a guitar player himself. So he would, he'd be able to come on and possibly, I don't know if he's, if he's listening right now, but again, he's got the link. So if he wants to come in and even demonstrate that, um, how revolutionary that would have been. But that's, that's what Ziryab does. That's one of the first wow things he does once he gets to Spain, uh, or what I should call Al-Andalus, uh, properly speaking.

Let me head back to the video. Quote Dwight F. Reynolds. Others have stated that Ziryab's musical madness led him to fuse traditional Indian and Iranian music with the music of North Africa. The result of which was the creation of the famous Andalusian beat based on the qanun. This, they say, was the precursor to the famed flamenco. And then there are those.

So the flamenco is rep, is meant to be, uh, originated by the gypsies, but the very foundation of it goes back to Ziryab. It goes back to something called the qanun, which goes to Ziryab, and, um, uh, the freestyle sort of, um, fusion of different musical traditions that Ziryab brought. Um, I'm going to show, I'm going to present, um, sources for that later. This video's, I want this video to play out.

>> Those who knew Ziryab and what they swore about him was that this was no earthly talent.

>> All right. Um, go, go on, uh, Faulland.

>> I just like to give a counterpoint to, to the Indian hypothesis. Um, for people who might think he's Indian because of it, um, for people who might think he's Indian because of it, I just like to point out that I think that would, I think, I think that would rather speak on him being from Mesopotamia, from Iraq, you know, that he brings about this culture as opposed to, you know, whether he's Indian or African, you know, just want to, I just want to point that out there in case anyone on your life tries to,

>> demographically, obviously, because he's coming from that Mesopotamian region anyway. So he's very likely to, um, yeah, he's very likely to do that. And, and there's lots of, sorry,

>> but that is has a, it is the largest city in the world. It's 1 million, and it is tech, it is by all intents and purposes the center of the world, the most cosmopolitan place on earth. So, and, and, and Ziryab, honestly, that makes Ziryab even more impressive. I mean, way more impressive. If anything, I mean, this, this guy was literally, this is a man who was at the center of the world, influencing the center of the world, who, and through, through late, you know, various nations that were affected by his influence centuries later would spread it even further.

Just, just want to point that perspective out. When you say the center of the world, are you talking about the Abbasids or the Umayyads, the, the Al-Andalus?

>> Uh, Abbasids. Abbasids.

>> You, you talked about how, um, you said something along the lines of how, you know, um, Western Europe was, um, sorry, Europe was kind of like a backwater, and for the majority of Europe, it's true. But I'm not, but instead of talking about Byzantium, I actually think, um, one of the reasons why they scholars don't like to talk about Ziryab and his blackness is because scholars increasingly are re, are realizing that Al-Andalus really was a European entity, and at, but at the same time, a Moorish entity as well. And that truth is extremely uncomfortable, very uncomfortable to, to, to those particular personalities of people. Like imagine an integral part of Europe that is black, and how black, and how that blackness is, how that blackness, how this Moorishness is intrinsically, is, is effectively European.

>> I mean, it's an infiltration, um, to the minds of these racists. It's an infiltration that is completely unacceptable. So,

>> again, because even the most, even the nicest cookie-cutter, um, European, they, they kind of, um, they smart at these notions. They instinctively think they're being hoodwinked into something, you know, when you tell them these things because they don't realize how much of a, how much they've inherited the supremacist tropes of their forebears. They don't realize how it's in the movies. It's in the movies they grew up on. It's in the, uh, you know, the classical movies they grew up on, the movies from the 60s, and, and it's, it's, it's all they've ever known. So when you start to tell them these things, even so-called objective minds in academia, they, they don't know how to deal with it. So they project, you know, feelings of, oh, you're being supremacist, and, and you're, uh, but the sources are all there. The sources are all there. So, yeah, I agree with you, definitely.

>> What a gift from the,

>> Go on. Go on, bro.

>> I just wanted to point out one more point, um, about what, just to bounce off what you said. I also think it's something, this might be strange to say, but inherently tribal about it. Um, and I'm going to paraphrase from, um, a pretty good book I read, um, Trevor Noah's Born a Crime. Um, and he talks about, um, he gave an example about the situation going on in Africa, that, and how that, or South Africa, and how that relates to him. And he was saying that how, um, for example, um, an out, um, a person reaching out to, um, an, uh, to an other group, right? Whether, and he, and he says like, a black man that plays with white men, and the white men accept him because he is at least somebody who is, he, who is from the outside, but is acting like them. And then he gave an example of, for example, um, a white guy who really wants to be into black culture, and so he hangs out with his black friends, right? And he says, and then, and then he says, like, the black friends accept him because although he is from the out-group, he's accepting of their culture. But then he talks about, um, how if a, if a white man, right, tries, uh, tries to act too black in a, in a white group, or a black man tries to act too white in a black group, it's seen as, in, is as extremely offensive, very alerting, uh, and with rebuke. And I think that that right there is why more, why Moorish Europe just cannot be talked about because it's the in-group. Europe is the in-group for, for a lot of these people talking about Moors being in there. It has a vitriol tribal reaction.

>> Um, that's my hypothesis on it. But I just couldn't help but notice that similarity between what Trevor Noah said and the situation that, um, I just thought of.

Great spirits of Islamic folklore, known sometimes for their treacherous trickery and other times for their benevolence. If these creatures dealt with Ziryab, then they seemed to offer him benevolence. This from Ibn Hayyan's scrolls. Ziryab had complete mastery of the skills of the craft of singing. In his understanding of the details of music theory, none among the practitioners of this art surpassed him. They were simply blind in that which for him had been revealed. He combined his own innovations to what he had learned from one master to the next. He was one of a kind, for God had brought together in him what he had scattered among the other people of his field. It is even said of him that the jinn would teach him every night. He would leap up suddenly from his sleep and call for his two excellent singing slave girls, Gizlan and Hunida, to take up their lutes, and he would pick up his own. He would transmit to them what he had been inspired with that night, and he would write out the poetry for them and perfect the crafting of the song. The two of them were called Ziryab's two registers. And after his death, they entered the service of the palace to teach the other singing slave girls.

There, uh, someone said MJ and Prince. Shout out to Kieran Grant. MJ and Prince. This is like Mozart, Amadeus, before Amadeus. Guys, this is the kind of, these are quotes now. These are quotes. We've gone past the fact that this is a black guy we're talking about. You know, let's not play any stupid, uh, games anymore. This is the behavior of, this is Mozart before Mozart. We have Amadeus. We have great films about the, uh, about people like that, but we have nothing. And I keep saying this. I know some people aren't with me on this. They think we just do what we're doing and we stay in our lane. Shout out to, um, sinners and whatnot, but we need to go beyond vampire films in traumatic spaces, you know? We need to go beyond this. We have stories to tell. We have stories to tell, and we can do it. This story should have been on our big screens by now. This, this would make a great epic sword and sandals film. You know, um, we've got Hollywood is not like it used to be. We've got many actors of color now, many people of color in Hollywood who can, who can team up with, um, you know, uh, white allies in Hollywood to produce this story properly. This guy's waking up with songs and, and off-the-beaten-path, uh, rhythms and fusions, and it's, it's just, it's a story that should have been told by now, and it would have been told. I, I'm telling you now, I can almost bet, I could, I don't know what I could bet on it, but I can bet you that this would have been told if we were talking about somebody who didn't hail from the background of Ziryab.

Um, this flamenco thing, thank you. I, I've seen your, um, what you sent me, London, and I will, I will share it with the, um, with the audience. Uh, flamenco is Moorish. People try to, uh, uh, say the gypsies. No, no, no, no. This goes back to the Moors. This goes back to the blacks and their footprint on the European continent, uh, before they were kicked out and then maligned and made the first victims of the transatlantic slaves. The first people, don't know this, the first, uh, black slaves to be taken from this side of the Atlantic to America weren't even from Africa. They were from Europe. There were black Moors. There's another one to put in your pipe and smoke for people who tried to deny that the Moors were black. They were from Spain. They were, they were exiled from Spain. They were found, some found themselves as France were captured again. There are letters going to the queen of England talking about how we must round up these Moors, these blackamoors, and make them slaves and send them over, put them to use in in the tropics, in in the Americas. You know, um, it's just, it's just disgusting. The whole thing's disgusting.

Um, but anyway, um, it's disgusting because, you know, like, history is history. People do horrible things to people, whatever skin color, but to retrospectively try to also deny us the agency and, and the notoriety of our part that we played in, uh, significant human history. That's what's just uber disgusting about it. It's not enough for you to have to have, you know, traded these people and, and mistreated them. Now, anything of note that they achieved, you retrospectively pretend they didn't, you know, it's just, it's just small, small member energy, you know, just disgusting. Whatever. Let's hit play. I will, I will share the flamenco sauce with, um, with the audience in a bit. I just want this video to finish. You're near the end.

>> They spread this story about their late master and what befell him during these secret whisperings from the jinn and maintained that it was true. Whatever the truth behind Ziryab's musical genius, it paved the way for him in Cordoba. He became a close advisor to Al-Hakam II in matters of culture, art, and more. even transported back in time to the court of Al-Hakam II. A modern observer might well have confused Ziryab for the emperor of Al-Andalus himself. Such was the power and influence yielded over to Ziryab and the whispering nobles of Cordoba. They had no choice but to follow suit. While women desired him, men desired to be him. Just as we today are fixed on the lives of celebrity, the musical and theatrical stars of our day, so was Spain in the 9th century fixed on Ziryab's every move. Before his arrival, the people of Al-Andalus were recorded as having generally kept long and disheveled hair. But Al-Makari, an Egyptian writer of the Renaissance, writes that when the courtes of Cordoba saw the coiffure worn by Ziryab, his sons, and his womenfolk, they embraced it for themselves and for their servants. Whether you believe the multiple accounts from his time as history or the makings of a myth, that is the history reader's prerogative. But those same accounts also credit him with advances in applicable chemistry. Litharge, a derivative of lead, was used by Ziryab as a non-staining deodorant. The toxicity of this strange alchemy notwithstanding, Cordovans apparently lapped this up too. The first recorded use of toothpaste in Western Europe from a scented mixture Ziryab used on his teeth. This too the Emir took a liking to. Even his eating habits were thought wise by the king. Ziryab is credited with bringing the concept of a meal eaten in three separate courses to Europe. But before such a meal was laid out, the king and his nobles paid heed to Ziryab's practice of using leather and not silk as tablecloth, a material which allowed for much easier cleaning after use. When they were done eating, Ziryab's new plaything, a checkered board with stone figures moved to and fro across. It seemed to be Ziryab's favorite pastime. Modern author Robert W. Labeling Jr. writes that the Indian

>> So, you know, this is probably the perfect example of how Moorish Europe, you know, intrinsically is very European, you know, what is European culture is Moorish, uh, and more, more, more Moorish Spain is in, is in the continent of Europe. And so, again, this is really, this is the crux, the instigation, instigator of the, um, the, um, of of the negative psychology of a lot of, a lot of scholars, you know, this is just like, not only is it, it's not just unacceptable because a black man made it. It's unacceptable because a black, because, uh, a black man in Europe, you know, God forbid a black European made it. It's just too intrusive. It's just too intrusive. They'll talk about Mali. They'll talk about Benin, but the Moors, it's just so, yeah, this is, yeah, just, just this is just the perfect examples of that.

>> Bro, you know, I was watching, um, I, I have been thinking about it, but I thought to myself, "No, don't put that out there because you'll just get laughed at." But obviously now I don't care. But I kind of kicked myself, uh, when I saw, uh, shout out to The King's Monologue. Uh, might have been him. Might have been Without History. Uh, but one of those two, uh, giants, Without History or The King's Monologue, they put out a video in which they talked about this tradition of this, you know, the curly wig that gained ascendancy in, uh, about the Enlightenment period, first in France, and they talked about how that's, in their belief, whoever put the video out, came from people of Moorish extraction or Moorish heritage living in close proximity. Now, at the time, I kicked myself because I, that thought had crossed my mind before, because why do you have a people with very silky straight hair donning hairstyles that, in the very least, in the very least, mimics people of mixed heritage? You know, you don't see white people walking around with that with that kind of head of hair. So, uh, I think we, I'd like to see, I say that because in this point, in this video, um, I'm talking about how the sources speak of Ziryab's, um, hair styling, um, fashion being, uh, you know, being adopted by the Moors in Spain and, and, uh, the courtiers. Now, did was that legacy left in, did that legacy stay in places like France and Spain? Particularly amongst people of African extraction who remained, who survived the, the purge of the, um, uh, of the, uh, these inquisitions? Did it stay? And then that was then that then became this wig that we see, uh, from that time? Uh, I don't know. I don't know what you think of that theory, but I've seen other, you know, bigger people than myself put that out there, and I, it doesn't sound crazy to me. You know?

>> I, I have, uh, heard this theory and I've even discussed it myself. Um, and I think it's rather suspicious that, um, from what I was able to learn, the wig, the fashion, right, was introduced by none other than Louis the 14th, known as the Sun King.

>> M.

>> So, and if you've ever seen King, King's Monologue's video about, uh, King Louis and his, his, his darkness, skin-wise and blackness, um, I got to say, it's just rather suspicious that one of the blackest kings of France, according to European accounts, and shout out to King's Monologue,

>> um, happens to introduce a style where the curly wig is, is a very popular one. And King Louis, uh, the, is it the 14th or the 16th? Yeah, it's the 14th. He is one of the most influential kings of all of Europe. This is a guy who, uh, actually did introduce quite a bit of fashions to, to other parts of, to other European courts, which is, I mean, that's, we'll talk about a parallel between him and Ziryab, um, Ziryab.

>> So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

>> Wow. Wow. Okay, that's for another day, guys. But, um, definitely something there to look into. Philosophers who Ziryab introduced to the king's court are the first to teach chess in Western Europe. Ziryab's accomplishments in Spain reel off the tongue almost endlessly. Now, you might just be forgiven for thinking everybody is pleased. Not so. Human nature never changes, whether you are in Iraq, Spain, or Timbuktu. For in Cordoba, just as in Baghdad, Ziryab's success begins to provoke the eye of the jealous. Abu Marwan Ibin Razin, a contemporary and eyewitness of Ziryab's, describes him and his relationship with the Amir disparagingly in a poem, calling Ziryab a dog and black as a raven. Quote, "Thanks to those who have debased silk by leaving it in the mouths of dogs who put black perfume on the temples of a man black as a raven." Close quote. No doubt some joined Ibin Razin's ranks and added to the negative intrigue surrounding the Golden One.

You hear that, guys? As black as a raven. So, you might think, well, if the Moors were black, why are they, um, talking about why, why is his blackness? First of all, um, it seems that he was really black, and this is nothing new amongst Africans. Amongst so, I'm, I'm, um, native, I'm a Nigerian, okay? Uh, from the southwest of Nigeria, and amongst us West Africans, we have slurs against, sorry, but our Senegalese brothers, our Gambian brothers, because we consider them even darker than us. Uh, we have slurs that we use amongst each other. Um, now, I say slur, slur is a strong word, but it's more playful, uh, than than this slur. Well, if you're not on the end of it, anyway, but I don't, I don't know what it's like to be on the end of it. But, um, for the most part, it's playful. They're playful kind of names that we call each other, uh, based on how deep our black is. And I believe this goes back, probably it's intensified post-colonial, um, post-colonialism, but pre-colonialism, I believe that was there already, that, you know, people, it's just physical characteristics, and, and so you can have people blue-black amongst what the West will call a black population, and they be noted for their blackness, even amongst a quote black peoples. That's not, you know, that's like wondering why, you know, that's like Italians or or Spaniards or Greeks looking at, you know, or even Frenchmen looking at, uh, the Scandinavian and saying, "Whoa, you know, you know, I so pale, you so pale, you know," so it's that's not, and, and, and remarking on their whiteness, you know, the Nordics. And, and that's not, and that shouldn't surprise anybody. But again, I just point this out to say this, this brother was black. So any, all these, all these, um, all these, um, accounts, sorry, not accounts, these portrayals of him, you know, there's a guy called Robert Labeling. He, he does a great, he does great work on Ziryab, and he put out these periodicals, these, um, sort of pamphletized, um, informative accounts on Ziryab's life. But one thing I don't like that he does is, whoever did his illustration for him, you can get these PDFs online and, and here and there. He's a sort of authority as well on, um, on Ziryab. But what I don't like that he did in his work is that whenever there's an artistic representation, he needs to just get his money back from whoever did his artwork because they present, he's there talking about a guy who's called a crow and a raven and a blackbird, and he's showing images of someone at best is of mixed extraction. You know, someone very, very, very light-skinned. Okay, fine. You could call them black, I guess, but they're very mixed. You can tell that they're obviously, in the very least, half-caste or whatever, you know. So, I don't understand that. That's not what we're dealing with. That's not what we're dealing with here. We're dealing with somebody who was unambiguously black. Okay. So, anyway, I'm going to hit play.

In turn, Ziryab begins to see treachery everywhere. Not least from Abdullah Ib al-Sir Ib Numeir himself, an accomplished member of the king's court and a favorite of the Amir. A comedian par excellence, the Amir makes one too many jokes at the expense of Ziryab, and history truly repeats itself. Except this time, Ziryab is the persecutor and not the persecuted. Ziryab demands from the Amir that Ibn al-Sir be punished, and the Amir, ever under Ziryab's spell, throws Al-Shamir in prison. But unlike his adversaries, Ziryab has a streak of empathy running through him. He is entreated by Shamir's friends to speak favorably to the Emir on Shamir's behalf, and Ziryab, probably remembering his own humble beginnings, relents. The Emir releases Ibn al-Shamir. Both him and Ziryab are brought to a delicate truce. Till one day, Al-Shamir crosses his bounds again. This time, Al-Shamir's fate seems sealed. Drawing from varying versions of the incident, Ibn Hayyan once again provides the most fluid account. Not long thereafter, the Emir Abd al-Rahman rode forth with his entourage to Al-Rusafa and ascended from there to the foot of the mountains, intending to hunt magpies. He carried on his arm a sparrow hawk of his that was skilled in hunting them, but he was unable to find any. Finally, he said to his companions, "Whoever brings me a bird shall receive whatever he decides as a reward." So Ibn al-Shamir came rushing towards him, saying, "Oh, don't weigh yourself out searching for a magpie, for there's one right here next to you." The Emir replied, "Where?" Al-Shamir replied, "Ziryab, of course." If one were to do his buttocks and his armpits with a bit of white cheese, it turned out as black and white as a magpie. An awkward silence follows, and then a chuckle. Quote, "The Emir was overcome with laughter and he said to Ziryab, 'This shows you that buffoonery and shamelessness are part of Ibn Shamir's very nature, and neither desire nor fear can rid him of them.'"

What do you think, Ziryab? Whether the Emir was entirely unwitting of an attempt to humiliate Ziryab, or whether a brilliant actor. Kieran Grant says that was funny though. It was funny. It was funny. And do you know what? Ziryab shows he has a sense of humor because the account, like Ziryab, doesn't he take it as the joke that it is? But this Shamir guy obviously has an issue with Ziryab, whoever he was, because you, you're out on sort of good behavior. Ziryab is, you know, he's, he's, he's decides, you know, I'm not going to flex on you. You can come out. You can, um, I plead on your behalf. And he's at it again. He's at it again. This guy, he needed to go. I don't know if I would have, he needed to go, but, you know, shout out to Ziryab for just, um, you know, just letting it slide. You know, it's not every day, just you got to let, you got to let these, um, these types have their day sometimes of diplomacy on the Emir's part. In his response, the Emir seemed to have saved Al-Shamir from Ziryab's anger. "It is as my lord has said," replies the blackbird. "I call as witnesses God and all those present with us that I will not hold him to account ever again. Let him say what he wills." All well that ends well, then, because Ibn Hayyan writes that later, quote, "Ziryab and Al-Shamir were reconciled through friendship and good company." Close quote. Map out the course of Ziryab's life, and you can draw a full circle. In an amazing story cited in the medieval work Al-Muktabis, another famous singer of Ziryab's day, Al-Ulya, is reported as having sat to eat with the Abbasid Caliph on his visits to Syria. The two sit down to eat inside a glimmering room at a palace that once belonged to the Umayyads. After the meal, Al-Ulya is asked to sing something for the Khalif. And out of Al-Ulya comes the following words: "If only the Banu Umayya were around me now, the men I see speaking would not speak." Close quote. Gasps and prayers of intercession fly upwards from the lips of those present. "Al-Ulya is insane! They must have whispered. Why would a man of his rank dare to summon in song the sworn enemies of the Khalif in such a warm light and in the presence of the Khalif himself?" Perhaps Al-Ulya has a death wish, and death seems sure. But no, Al-Ulya's daring, Ziryab-esque play soon becomes apparent. Al-Ulya himself records that the Khalif looked at him angrily. "God curse you," spits the Khalif. "God curse you and the Banu Umayya." "I realized that I had made an error and so began apologizing for my mistake," says Al-Ulya. "I said, 'Oh, Commander of the Faithful, do you blame me for mentioning my former masters, the Banu Umayya?' Ziryab, your former client is now with them in Al-Andalus. He rides forth in an entourage of more than 100 servants and possesses 300,000 dinars in addition to the lands he owns, while I hear among you, I'm dying of hunger." Close quote. Ibn Hayyan doesn't tell us if Al-Ulya's play for better means is successful or not, except to imply that he keeps his life. That is another story altogether. What matters is that even as far away from Spain as Syria, news of Ziryab's exploits had flown. In the end, Ziryab the blackbird, like all men, dies. Even the jinn cannot give eternal life. Cordoba buries him and mourns the passing of a legend. Centuries later, Al-Makari would write, quote, "There never was either before or after him a man of his profession who was more generally beloved and admired." Close quote.

Ah.

>> Okay. So, so, um, we're pretty much done. Um, yeah. Yeah, that's a good translation. That's a good translation, Kieran Grant. Um, he says, uh, your, your, your cheap AF. Uh, cheap as f. I can't floss. So, basically, that's what that man at the end was saying. You know, he was, he was not happy about his, um, his means, uh, under the Abbasids. Um, uh, I want to present, um, something about the flamenco. Uh, I need to, I need you guys to see this. I needed to be on, on the record that this goes back to the Moors and Ziryab. Uh, Falklands, take it away if you got anything to add at this stage.

Well, I was always under the impression that flamenco was, um, of an evolution from the, uh, dances of the Sindh region of India, but I'd love to see these sources either way.

>> No, tell us about that. So, what, what's, um, from what region? Uh, the Sindh, the Sindh River, uh, around this region is the origin of the Romani, who are the ones who primarily practice the, um, the flamenco, which is acknowledged by those of Spain, but, you know, um, as for the Moorish origin, I really haven't heard of this.

>> Again, like I said, when I said impression, like I have a basic surface-level understanding, but sources are always welcome.

>> Okay, so I'm going to, I'm going to present something London sent to. Okay. Um, let me just see. Okay. So, this is from a book, um, called. London, if you're listening. Um, so I've got these screenshots from this book. Um, but do you mind telling me what the name of the, this, the actual book is? If you're, if you're listening, I'll present it anyway. Um, let me see. Um, okay. Okay. Let's go for. Let's go. Let's see if I can read this out. So this source I'm reading from, um, says this, uh, Andalusian dance and music says, uh, foreigners apply the name flamenco to all these dances. But the flamenco is only one of a large group properly called, uh, balika al-Andalus. Flamenco is also a name given to the gypsies themselves. When the Spaniards held, uh, Flanders, the lowlands, they adopted the habit of calling everything that was strange to them flamenco. The term flamenco is also used today to describe anything redolent of the soil of Al-Andalus, with such as its dances, uh, a bright peasant costume, a very brave man. These dances are as old as the Moorish occupation itself, is the Moorish occupation of Spain. And how much longer they flourished on African soil before the Arabs transplanted them into Spain can only be a matter of conjecture. So maybe you're still right. Maybe it does, cuz everything can still be traced back to some ultimate point. So maybe you're right. It does come from, uh, the Indian region you're talking about, uh, Flam, Forklands. But, um, this source says in so far as its root into Spain and into Europe, it comes from the, um, uh, the Africans there, these, and the Moors. These dancers are as old as their Moorish occupation, sorry, these dances are as old as the Moorish occupation itself. And how much longer they flourished on African soil before the Arabs transplanted them into Spain can only be a matter of conjecture. Not the dances alone, but also the music played or sung to accompany them is African. Travelers in the dark continent have heard the latter among the natives further south than Arab influence has ever been known to extend. Okay. So, uh, the identification of both dances and music with the flamenco, uh, is doubtless due to their having made both their own when they came into Spain, as they found them fit, they fit their temperaments and habits. They have held tenaciously to them ever since. I don't want to be crude, but guys, dancing, it's dancing. And not to go on stereotypes, but come on now. Come on now. Um, but, um, okay, let's, let's, I want to present, um, another, um, um, the next page of this, um, book, and see what it goes on to say, cuz I'm learning as I'm going as well. Okay. So, flamenco, two, I've got this thought. Let's, let's present this.

>> Uh, by the way, T, I just like to point something out. Uh, for the longest time, um, gypsies were actually thought to come from Egypt. In fact, the term gypsy is actually sort of the, uh, um, a transliteration of the Latin term Egypt, or I believe Greek, Greek or Latin. So, when they're saying African soil, I think that they're referring to, um, Egypt specifically. In fact, the idea that they come, that it comes from India is actually relatively very, uh, very recent, and it was only, and it was due to, uh, linguistic evidence, ironically, um, some, I believe it was a Hungarian linguist who heard two Sikhs talking like in the same building as he was, and found it very odd that it sounded very strange to, or similar to Romani. Um, and, and, um, and of course, with further evidence, like, for example, the Sarakali statue, or, or saints, I mean, that was kind of a dead giveaway. I'm not going to lie to you. But, as for, as for what it says here, and, and again, I don't, I'm, you know, I do want, I, I still think that the, the most likely position is that it is, uh, Indian in origin. Um, so, you know, not, not.

>> I don't, I see, I don't even mind. I don't, I, wherever the evidence leads is where the evidence leads. But, um, yeah, and that's, that's that could very well be true. Um, but, um, I find this at least, you know, noteworthy and worthy to present. Um, I, again, I just want to find out, is the book says, at the heading here, it says, "In the Heart of Spain." Um, I want to get the author as well, um, to find out if they've got a skin in the game, cuz, you know, they could be a black writer. But it doesn't really matter. Doesn't really matter. But I just want to read what it says here. Um, lastly, the negroid custom of hurling ejaculations at the dancer, dancers to inspire and encourage their efforts, just as negro youth dancing their step on a far away Virginia plantation shout to each other such phrases as, "Now you're talking, honey." Uh, go ahead, [ __ ].

>> I don't care. I don't care if I get demonetized. I don't really mind. Um, but it's what I'm reading here, but, um, and the like. All these manifestations may probably be traced to a common African ancestry.

Um, so this person is saying like, there's elements of, um, there's elements of flamenco, which I'm not all too familiar with, but I, I can, I can invoke it in my imagination. I have seen it, but, um, yeah, there is that, there is that element as well with the flamenco where they're shouting on the sidelines and, and like, yeah, I've never thought about that. I've never thought about that. All of that goes back to the Moors and the Africans. This isn't even actually far-fetched because you have the Gnawa tradition, or is it the Ganawa tradition? Maybe it's a silent G, but the Gnawa tradition in North Africa, which is quickly, uh, intensely being whitewashed as we speak, but that comes from Africans as well. Um, I mean, black black folk, you know, and, but when you see people perform it today, it's modern-day Moroccans that perform the, the Gnawa dancing and the Gnawa music. So you'd be forgiven for thinking this is something that Arabs brought in. But this is again, because we have the sources and the receipts, this is something that, quote unquote, black slaves, they say, brought in. But I, I don't buy that anymore. Excuse me. I don't buy that anymore. Whatever, wherever they see black influence, it's always a way to, to denigrate that influence by saying, "Well, it was slaves that brought it." I'm not sure. I think you have to double-check that. You have to double-check whenever they try to inject these slave narratives, um, into black narratives, um, you always have to check them on that because actually quite often it's erroneous. It's just lazy, um, lazy scholarship, and quite often malicious scholarship, you know. But, um, so it wouldn't be surprising that this flamenco goes back to, um, um, um, African, uh, dancing traditions. It says, "We have pointed to a strikingly African character of the, uh, um, uh," Okay, this person says, "If indeed the gypsies had introduced this music into Spain, and if they themselves were of Bohemian origin, then they must have left every vestige of their own musical expression behind them. In Andalusia, there is not a trace of the passionate abandon of the lyrical and melodious music of the Bohemian, Hungarian, and especially of the Romanian Siganis, the gypsies of the present time."

>> Yeah. Well, you know, that's, that's that line of thinking. I don't know what you make of it. Um, Faulland's.

>> Um, I actually had no idea that people were suggesting a Bohemian origin, and I'm actually a bit kind of surprised by that.

>> I think that's worth looking into, cuz, cuz even if it's wrong, there's still an idea of, you know, a foreign dark-skinned people are associated with Bohemia. I feel like that's something that should be investigated for sure.

>> Bro, it's late out here in the UK, chat. It's late out here in the UK. It is almost 1. There's so much I'm going to have to leave on the table. There's so much I wanted to talk about in this, but, um, time, you know, time waits for no man. And I'm just, you know, I'm just, um, I'm pooped a bit. Um, Forkland, I'm going to have to have you back, man. You, you've been an amazing helper. And you seem to like, you seem to have the sources ready. You seem to just have, I don't know, you, you're obviously well-versed in this, um, as versed as a casual, um, uh, person with casual interest can be. So, bro, really, really, I'd appreciate it if you come back another time. We can just talk about the Moors in general. Is, is that something you can do?

>> Absolutely. And I really appreciate you, uh, um, hosting me on my, on, host, having you, uh, having me come on your live. Thank you very much.

>> Yeah. No, that's, it's not a problem. You, you've done me, um, you've done me the honor. So, chat, I'm out for tonight. Um, I started, look, man, I started angry. I started, I was ticked because, and I feel like, um, we have to be, um, to get any of this research out, to even dig, to dig, to have the energy to dig through the nonsense, you have to be a bit angry and a bit suspicious. So, but, um, as this has gone on, I've kind of chilled. So, apologies if you're not used to, um, that kind of, all that kind of energy. But, you know, this is, it is what it is. You have to be angry to do this work. You have to be angry to weigh through the lies and just all the nonsense they, they try to come with when it's, when it's, when it's our history. Um, it is what it is. But, um, again, thank you to Falklands. Uh, thank you to London. Um, and I'm seeing, I'm kind of hoping I can get London on, on a live soon. I've had him, um, pre-recorded things on Melanin Intel. Shout out to Melanin Intel. Make sure you go on that channel, subscribe. But, um, I need to have London on a live, you know, um, seeing him interact with the people. I'm sure some of you guys would love to interact with London. Um, he's been very popular, uh, with, um, with, uh, with Trill Nation. So, yeah, London, thank you for your help. All right, family. All right, chat. Thank you so much. Um, it's been a great one. You know what it is. From Kush to Compton, it's been Trill Black. No doubt. Take care, everyone. Have a great Easter. All bless. Bye. Bless.