Campus Celebrity: Mtali Banda

Name: Mtali Banda

Age: 23

Year: 2014

Hometown: Grew up in Madison, WI, Atlanta, GA, and completed last two years of High School in Brockton, MA

Major: Afro-American Studies Major

Occupation: “I guess you could say I’m an artist.”

HC UMass: Although you are from around the area, you have lived in many places in your life. Can you tell me about some of the places you have lived?

MB: “I grew up in Madison, WI until I was 12, then Atlanta, GA, and did my last two years of High School in Brockton before traveling abroad for two years.

After high school, I felt myself being a little restless, I had been accepted to a conservatory to study jazz performance in Chicago, but wasn’t sure if that was what I wanted. Being a Baha’i, I knew that the Baha’i World Centre in Israel was looking for more volunteers. I had never left the country, and I knew that this specific program attracted people from all over the world, so I seized the chance to see the world while doing volunteer service work at the same time.”

HC UMass: How did you decide to come to UMass?

MB: “When I came back from Israel, I had been gone for a little over a year and a half, and couldn’t just go into school because it was February, and the semester had already started. I did some more community based work which took me all over the Northeast, I spent time in DC all the way up to Brooklyn.

It was an eye opening experience to travel on my own, to see so many people, and to learn so much all along the way. When it was all done, it was August, and I only had a few weeks to make a decision on schools, so I moved to Holyoke, MA, where a good childhood friend was from and went to Holyoke Community College.

Originally, the plan was to do 2 semesters at most. Get my general requirements, audition for Berklee and head back to Boston. I auditioned to Berklee, got in, but decided not to go. I really loved writing and the aspects of a well-rounded liberal arts studies that could be influenced by music, but also vice versa.”

HC UMass: Once you began your career at UMass, why did you pick to major in African American Studies? And Jazz?

MB: “African-American Studies has always been my passion. Since an early age, the history of black Americans’ struggle for equality has always moved and inspired me to want to somehow make my life about social justice. An education is about making an investigation of the conditioning of your life. My whole undergraduate career has revolved around understanding systems of oppression, not just racism, but sexism, classism, and all the different intersections, and how to help fix those problems.”

HC UMass: Now to switch gears a bit, Are you currently playing saxophone or working on any musical projects?

MB: “I am. I currently am the co-leader of a live Hip Hop Jazz ensemble called YEWO, which I write most of the music for. It’s an amazing group of some of the best musicians I have ever played with, and every show we have done thus far has brought amazing crowds. This September, we are scheduled for a 3-week tour for a Hip Hop theater piece called the ‘Mixed-Race Mixtape,’ which I will be the musical director for.”

HC UMass: Where can we catch your shows and/or performances?

MB: “Just follow our Facebook page. We have a few local shows at some very big venues in the area that people can check out real soon.”

HC UMass: What are you currently listening to… any suggestions?

MB: “For the last two weeks, I’ve only been listening to Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly. But also another great album that came out recently is D’Angelo’s Black Messiah, which I am really into.”

HC UMass: You have a strong passion for music, what other hobbies or passions might you have?

MB: “My passions are my hobbies and my hobbies are my passions. All the work I do is centered around a central theme: social justice through raising awareness and helping others realize the oneness of mankind. All of the work I do is motivated by not art, but purpose, music and writing are just how I am able to do that. I am an activist who happens to be an artist, not the the other way around.”

HC UMass: What are you most involved in at the current moment?

MB: “My main projects are YEWO, and my blog Soul Latte. I am a senior editor at ProfoundlyHuman.com. I also work with RESET.com, where I am on the social media team.”

HC UMass: Now, what is Give Life to Art, and how did you get involved with GLTA?

MB: “Give Life To Art is a “For Purpose” business. Its goals are to foster community, empower businesses, artists, and entrepreneurship with the goal of building community. I got involved with them because they had seen the work I did on Soul Latte.”

HC UMass: What impact would you like to make most on your community? How about on society in a broader sense?

MB: “I’m extremely lucky to have been given the opportunities that I have been given. There are a lot of people who look like me, and because the way certain things work, they won’t get the same chances I have been blessed with, and that ain’t right. I’ve lived in some rough areas. When I’m writing for magazines or websites, I’m thinking about those people I’ve met growing up who didn’t make it out of those places. I know people that have been incarcerated, who made bad choices too young and never got a second chance, I know people who have been killed by gun violence or by themselves, because life for them was hard, all of them are/were black.

And when you travel, especially abroad, you see how bad it gets for people.

I remember being in Israel and hearing Palestinians talk about their family homes being seized, or how they can’t get a job because they’re not Jewish–and it hurt to hear that. I remember visiting the Dominican Republic and looking into the eyes of Haitian refugees; they couldn’t have been older than twelve, and you just know they’ve been through a storm in their lives. It was even worse when I went to Malawi, and visited my family’s village, and to see how their lives have been victims to colonization and exploitation.

When I was 10, I toured with this gospel choir along the East Coast. We went to most of the major cities, and that was the first time I saw “the hood”. DC, Baltimore, Jersey, New York, every city we went through I just saw what poverty in America looked like. It looked like me–black.

I want to impact those lives that I’ve met, of people who are going through real shit, but have no real control over it. I don’t know what that entails, but I know right now that means dedicating all my work to raising awareness over the issues I feel passionate about, and then hoping others will feel just as empowered to want to mobilize others. I know it won’t, and it shouldn’t, end there, but at least its a start.”

HC UMass: You also have your own blog, Soul Latte how did this blog come about?

MB: “Soul Latte came about as a means of raising awareness towards the issues I care about. I was turning on the news, and I never read or heard anything different. There was never any nuance or my shared beliefs over big issues. Soul Latte was a means of sharing my beliefs, articulating them in a way that not many people were doing. It turned out that my ideas mirrored a lot of people, but they just weren’t speaking up, or didn’t feel like they could.”

HC UMass: How has it felt to watch Soul Latte take off and evolve through the years?

MB: “It’s a blessing. I remember when I first began getting emails from strangers telling me how much they appreciate what Soul Latte represents. A lot of young people, too. It means a lot to know what you share is being well received. Expressing yourself is a vulnerable act, and every time I receive positive feedback it makes it all worth it. There have been a lot of rough patches in my life, and writing for Soul Latte has helped me confront those demons. A lot of personal growth has come from it. It’s a means of connecting with people all over the world over shared values and beliefs, and that is powerful.”

HC UMass: Can we expect any future projects featuring Soul Latte?

MB: “We will try to develop Soul Latte as a podcast, and we are beginning to start a web video series. So stay tuned for that!”

HC UMass: What was your favorite Soul Latte piece as of late?

MB: “I’ve written so much, usually the bigger subjects, like the Boston bombings, Trayvon Martin, and the Black Lives Matter movement, I make into a series of several posts. But the one single piece that I feel the most connected to is ‘Reflections on Ferguson: Notes From Malawi,’ because it was written while I was visiting Malawi for the first time. It was right after Mike Brown was killed, and it was crazy seeing the black American experience being highlighted and then being in Malawi and not having to experience the hardships of being  a black man when in Africa, because everyone is black. It was a liberating experience, and that piece shows that.”

HC UMass: When you have downtime, (if you ever do have down time!) what do you like to do?

MB: “I prefer to be alone. I really like films, good films. A lot of indie films! Movies with a good message, or that leave me at the end with a whole new outlook on life are the best. I love when art can do that to you.”

HC UMass: What advice would you share with current undergrads?

MB: “Your education is never about you. It’s about figuring out how to use it to honor all the people who made it so you can be here, because you didn’t do it alone. Even when you think you are here on your own achievements, there is always someone to thank.”

HC UMass: Who is your biggest supporter?

MB: “Hard to tell. It’s always been my parents, and my grandparents, especially my grandfather. He’s 91, black, fought in WWII, and been through some shit as a black man. He went to McGill and studied Chemistry and then worked in a branch for NASA. But still, he was black, and he had a lot of unfair things thrown his way. Not to mention he’s blind, but still so happy, even though he has too many reasons to be bitter but isn’t. I get the sense he lives through me. He’s a racially conscious dude, really involved in the community, but I know he’s just so proud of me. He comes to whatever show he can physically handle, because he’s so old and can’t be out too late. He reads all of my articles. It feels good knowing that.”

If you’d like to catch more Mtali, check out these links:

Soul Latte, YEWO!, Instagram

All photos courtesy of Mtali Banda.

• activism
• art
• celebrity
• social justice
• umass
• writing