Afro-Native Poetry and Rhymes
AfroN8V (Afro-Native) is a Miami, Florida born and bred MC, Spoken Word Poet, Socio-Cultural Historical Independent Scholar, of African-Native (South) American heritage. He was exposed to the African Diaspora at an early age through his own Afro-Colombian heritage and growing up in Miami Gardens, FL (Florida’s most Black populated city), where he grew up alongside African-Americans, Afro-Caribbeans, Afro-Central Americans, and Afro-South Americans. He began deep historical research on the African Diaspora, with a concentration on Afro-Colombia as a teenager, and then went to take classes in the African New World Studies program at FIU, although he did not pursue the degree beyond taking a few classes. Instead he took the independent scholar route, and left the program to go live in Colombia for four months at the age of 19, specifically exploring Afro-Colombia and his heritage from the Pacific Coast to the Caribbean Coast as this was not covered in any college program in the United States. There was no school that ever taught him his story, so he sought it himself. This trip changed his life forever. His poetry is written in standard English, African-American Vernacular English (AAVE), Afro-Caribbean English-based Creole – Jamaican Rastafari Patois, and Afro-Colombian Pacific Coastal Spanish. He is a student of Afro-Creole Language linguistics, Afro-Colombian history, African World History, Cultural Anthropology, and Sociology. His Spoken Word Poetry covers social affairs concerning his African and Indigenous descended people in both English and Spanish. Although there’s a resemblance to the Jamaican flag in the colors, the front cover is actually the flag of his ancestral hometown of Barbacoas, Nariño on the Pacific Coast of Colombia and a proud symbol of his ancestry. The green symbolizes the rainforest lushness of Barbacoas as it’s situated in the Chocó rainforest, the yellow is for the history of it being a colonial gold-mining town where enslaved Africans completed this labor, and the black is for the people. Today Barbacoas is a predominantly Black town with an Indigenous minority (the Awá) in Southern Colombia which borders Ecuador, and it’s within this region that Africans and Indigenous peoples united to fight against the Spanish during the colonial days. This region of Tumaco-Barbacoas in Southern Colombia and San Lorenzo-Esmeraldas in Northern Ecuador was then known as the Republic of the Zambos (colonial term for Afro-Indigenous people). AfroN8V has based his life from this legacy and all his work is written from the Afro-Native perspective. This book covers a selection of his best poems written over a span of fifteen years.
