FreeQuency: "The Gospel of Colonization"

When Mwende "FreeQuency" Katwiwa started speaking this piece, I thought, "Oh, good! This is going to be about immigration. We need that so much right now."

And then she dropped the words "Jesus Christ" into a sentence and I thought, "Oh, dear. I didn't know she was into that."

See, the thing is, FreeQuency is located in New Orleans (about 45 miles from where I live) so we've been in contact about her coming to my campus in the spring. But while there's nothing wrong with being a Christian, of course, in Louisiana, it's often connected to a particularly conservative -- and even oppressive -- worldview. So I was startled and momentarily disappointed, but she quickly moved on.

Only a matter of seconds later, she was channeling Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart and I was, again, a FreeQuency fangirl.

FreeQuency is the current Women of the World Poetry Slam Champion. If you haven't been exposed to her before, you're about to find out why.