To our Beloved Global Family ~ From Accra to Atlanta, Kingston to Kinshasa, Dakar to Detroit, Lusaka to London, Port of Spain to Port-au-Prince ~ We greet you, in an array of our native tongues: • Akan (Ghana): Me ma wo akye • Amharic (Ethiopia): Selam • Chewa (Malawi): Moni • Ewe (Ghana/Togo): Woezɔ • Fang (Gabon): Mbolo • Garifuna (Central America): Buiti binafi • Gullah (U.S.): How you duh? • Haitian Kreyòl: Sak pase? • Hausa (North/West Africa): Sannu • Igbo (Nigeria): Kedu? • Jamaican Patois: Wah gwaan? • Kikongo (Congo/Angola): Mbote na nge • Lingala (Congo): Mbote • Palenquero (Colombia): Kumá? • Shona (Zimbabwe): Mhoro • Somali: Is ka warran? • Swahili (East Africa): Habari yako? • Wolof (Senegal): Naka nga def? • Xhosa (South Africa): Molo • Yorùbá (Nigeria): Báwo ni? • Zulu (South Africa): Sawubona We see you. We love you. We are you. This is a love letter ~ plain and sacred. A balm. A signal. A reminder that you are worthy ~ not because of what you endure, but because of who you are. You are worthy of rest. Of rejuvenation. Of laughter so deep it lifts the weight of generations. You are worthy of breath, of space, of soft moments ~ even as we labor together toward liberation. Our struggles are real, but so is our joy. And we are done carrying burdens alone. We can no longer afford to be separated by global borders that were not made for us—borders that steal from one side of our global village only to cage the spoils in militarized enclaves built like national prisons. These borders constrict our hopes, dim our dreams, and blur our view of each other. But we remember. We always remember. We are not scattered ~ we are interwoven. We are not divided ~ we are diasporic. We are not defeated ~ we are becoming. At De’ Calabash, we are gathering the voices, visions, and victories of African people all over the world. Not as a performance, but as a promise. A promise that we will no longer allow others to decide our future in rooms where we are absent. A promise that we will no longer shrink ourselves to fit into systems that were never meant to sustain us. We will no longer beg for seats at tables built to exclude us ~ we will build new boardrooms. Crafted in our languages, styled in our aesthetics, governed by our values, and rooted in our ancestral wisdom. We are creating a space where we can question deeply, critique with love, propose boldly, and laugh freely. A space to be our whole selves ~ intellectual, emotional, spiritual, political, and joyful ~ without apology. We cannot leave our work in colonizers’ hands. We cannot leave our dead in their museums. We cannot leave our crowns in the palaces we built but were never allowed to rule. We cannot seize a future we don’t believe we deserve. We cannot achieve dreams we are too afraid to dream. We cannot overcome challenges we are too afraid to name. And we cannot reclaim that which we don’t know is ours. So let us begin again. Together. Let us discard the imperial and colonial curricula that gaslight our genius and glorify our erasure. Let us build new systems that empower, sustain, and unite. Let us be honest about where we are ~ and bold about where we are going. We are rich in knowledge. We are vast in number. Our collective intellectual capacity is unmatched. Our global purchasing power is immense. Our time is now. This love letter is your invitation ~ To rest. To rise. To return to yourself. To question, to challenge, to create, to laugh. To remember that we have everything we need. To know that De’ Calabash is a home you can return to, and a fire you can carry forward. With open arms and ancestral pride, ~ De’ Calabash African Voices, Global Frequencies