Episode 25 Part II: Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Culture, Family, and Community

Ep 25 Part II: Kwanzaa: Live Event at Boulder Public Library

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Episode Date: December 29, 2025
Live Event Recorded: December 10, 2025 at the Canyon Theater in the Boulder Public Library

This special Part 2 episode of The Cause: Conversations on Music, History, and Democracy comes from a live community gathering held on December 10, 2025 at the Boulder Public Library. Rooted in dialogue, reflection, and shared practice, this episode centers community voices as they engage the principles of Kwanzaa together.

Hosted by Dr. Reiland Rabaka, this live recording extends the Kwanzaa conversation beyond explanation and into collective experience. Audience members reflect on unity, purpose, creativity, and responsibility, offering insights grounded in lived experience, cultural memory, and community care. Rather than a lecture, this episode unfolds as a communal meditation on what it means to practice the Nguzo Saba in everyday life.

This episode is accompanied by a specially curated Kwanzaa playlist, designed to support the season as a whole. The music serves as a cultural and spiritual backdrop for reflection, gathering, and renewal throughout the seven days of Kwanzaa.

This is an exclusive community episode, available only on the Center for African and African American Studies website. It will not air on radio or external podcast platforms.

Listeners are invited to engage deeply, reflect collectively, and carry the spirit of Kwanzaa beyond the season and into sustained practice.

See our photo gallery of the full event

The Kwanzaa Playlist

Listen to The Kwanzaa playlist on Spotify

A NOTE FROM DR. RABAKA
Kwanzaa is more than a celebration, it is a spiritual, cultural, and political tradition woven from the full spectrum of African diasporic sound. The holiday’s seven principles, unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith, resonate deeply with the rhythms, laments, anthems, and rebellions carried through Black music for generations. This playlist extends the episode’s reflections into the musical realm, offering thirty songs that trace a lineage from West African drumming to spirituals, from the blues to rap, and from Pan-African liberation anthems to contemporary affirmations of identity, community, and hope.
 
Music has always been a gathering place for African and African diasporan people: a workshop for the imagination, a forum for democratic practice, and an archive of our collective memory. The selections here honor that tradition. They highlight how art has helped us survive, how sound has announced our presence, and how rhythm has carried our dreams beyond the limits imposed on us. These songs echo the same principles Kwanzaa teaches every December, and indeed every day: that we are a people of creativity, purpose, resistance, and renewal.
 
This playlist invites listeners to engage Kwanzaa not only as a cultural holiday, but as a living tradition of sonic activism—a way of hearing our past, feeling our present, and imagining our future. Each track speaks to one or more of the Nguzo Saba (The Seven Principles), reminding us that the work of liberation is as musical as it is political.
 
  • Funga Alafia, Traditional West African
    A song of welcome and blessing, anchoring the playlist in the deep African roots that Kwanzaa reclaims and reaffirms.
  • Drums of Passion, Babatunde Olatunji
    Olatunji’s powerful percussion evokes ancestral memory, community energy, and the rhythmic foundations of Umoja.
  • Wade in the Water, Fisk Jubilee Singers
    A spiritual of resistance and guidance, embodying faith and the ancestral technologies of survival.
  • Lift Every Voice and Sing, James Weldon Johnson (various recordings)
    Often called the Black National Anthem, this song embodies unity, purpose, and collective dignity.
  • To Be Young, Gifted and Black, Nina Simone
    A soaring declaration of Black potential and self-determination that aligns with Kujichagulia.
  • Redemption Song, Bob Marley & The Wailers
    Marley’s acoustic meditation on liberation and healing connects African diasporic struggle to global movements.
  • Africa, Miriam Makeba
    Makeba’s voice offers a sonic homecoming, invoking pan-African connection and cultural reclamation.
  • Say It Loud - I’m Black and I’m Proud, James Brown
    A funk anthem of Black affirmation, political confidence, and community empowerment.
  • I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free, Nina Simone
    Simone’s vision of liberation reflects Nia and the perpetual quest for a freer world.
  • We’re a Winner, The Impressions
    Curtis Mayfield’s gospel-inflected optimism speaks to collective uplift and forward motion.
  • People Get Ready, The Impressions
    A spiritual-political hymn about faith and readiness for transformation.
  • Someday We’ll All Be Free, Donny Hathaway
    Hathaway’s gentle testimony of resilience becomes a sonic expression of Imani.
  • Family Reunion, The O’Jays
    A celebration of intergenerational unity that resonates powerfully with Umoja’s spirit.
  • Optimistic, Sounds of Blackness
    An anthem of community perseverance, perfect for the holiday’s focus on hope and shared purpose.
  • Keep Your Head to the Sky, Earth, Wind & Fire
    A soul-jazz prayer that encourages faith, creativity, and vision.
  • Wake Up Everybody, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes
    A call to collective responsibility, echoing the principle of Ujima.
  • Everything Is Everything, Lauryn Hill
    Hill’s reflections on interconnectedness and purpose evoke both Nia and unity.
  • Umi Says, Mos Def (Yasiin Bey)
    A meditative track about transformation and interior freedom, rooted in deep spiritual reflection.
  • Blessed, Jill Scott
    A gratitude-filled celebration of everyday joy, honoring Kuumba and Imani.
  • Alright, Kendrick Lamar
    A contemporary freedom song that channels resilience, community faith, and collective defiance.
  • Glory, Common & John Legend
    A modern civil rights anthem that connects historical struggle to present activism.
  • We Are, Jon Batiste
    A vibrant, celebratory affirmation of Black creativity, unity, and communal power.
  • Brown Skin Girl, Beyoncé, SAINt JHN, Wizkid, Blue Ivy Carter
    A diasporic homage to beauty, cultural pride, and creative joy.
  • Freedom, Beyoncé featuring Kendrick Lamar
    A powerful call for liberation that merges ancestral struggle with contemporary resistance.
  • Higher Ground, Stevie Wonder
    Wonder’s funk-gospel meditation on transformation resonates with the work of personal and communal uplift.
  • As, Stevie Wonder
    A love-soaked affirmation of connection, symbolizing unity and enduring belief in each other.
  • Unity, Queen Latifah
    A hip hop declaration of respect, community, and self-determination in the face of violence and misrepresentation.
  • One Love/People Get Ready, Bob Marley & The Wailers
    A global celebration of unity and communal hope.
  • Follow the Drinking Gourd, Traditional
    A survival song guiding enslaved people toward freedom, reminding us that Imani often takes the form of action.
  • Circle of Life, Lebo M. & Carmen Twillie (from The Lion King)
    A diasporic affirmation of ancestral continuity, community purpose, and the cyclical nature of rebirth celebrated throughout Kwanzaa.

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