Pan-African Youth Empowerment Conference & Benefit Concert

CAMBRIDGE, MA (SMT) - This April 7-9 the Sweet Mother Tour (SMT), a global youth movement with a mission to use the tools of popular culture to present empowering images of Africa & the African Diaspora, will host its first annual Conference & Benefit Concert at Harvard University entitled "Youth and the New Pan-African Renaissance: Rebuilding Africa for the 21st Century," in partnership with the Cultural Agents Initiative at Harvard and student leaders from Harvard, UMass, Simmons and BU.

On Saturday April 8th the SMT will host a Benefit Concert featuring the Diaspora Funk Movement (DFM) a project spearheaded by critically-acclaimed Boston-based groups Soulfège (www.soulfege.com) and The Foundation Movement (www.foundationhiphop.net). The founders of DFM have collaborated with such renowned artists as Dead Prez, Bounty Killer and Bobby McFerrin and been featured in such major outlets as the Boston Herald, Boston Globe, BBC Worldservice Radio, BBC 1Xtra, S. Africa's Channel O and more. The DFM aims to "reflect a positive vision of the world" and "to make music that moves heart, body and soul and uplifts the spirit of people who hear it" [November 29, 2005, Boston Herald].

Joining the DFM will be slam-poet Iyeoka (www.iyeoka.com), featured on HBO's Def Poetry Jam, and closing out the night from NY, DJs Fabian Alsultany and Derek Beres of Globesonic Sound System (www.globesonic.com) - a DJ triumvirate that has spun worldwide alongside such respected artists as Yerba Buena, Antibalas, The Gypsy Kings and Jamiroquai.

All proceeds from the SMT Benefit Concert will go to the Selula Sandla AME Village, a home for HIV orphans in Swaziland; and Liberty Hall, the former offices of Marcus Garvey, today a youth center teaching cultural literacy and computer skills to children in the toughest ghettoes of Kingston Jamaica.
The SMT Benefit Concert will be broadcast live to a global audience at www.sweetmother.org courtesy of Technology Sponsors: Heart In Action, Asita Informatica Inc. and MidNet Inc.