New Culture Hub: Books, Stories & the African Diaspora with Melody Capote

The Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI) has opened a brand-new Culture Hub in New York City — a space where books, stories, performance, and history come together to celebrate the African Diaspora.

In this episode of The Color Between the Lines, Executive Director Melody Capote shares how the Hub will connect authors, artists, and community voices. We explore how storytelling, literature, and cultural performance can preserve history and inspire future generations.

✨ What you’ll hear in this episode:

• Why CCCADI created this new Hub for books, history, and performance
• How the African Diaspora’s stories are being preserved and celebrated
• The role of authors and artists in building community and cultural memory
• Melody Capote’s vision for the future of cultural storytelling

If you’re passionate about books, history, and Black voices in the Diaspora, this conversation is for you.

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Transcript

0:08

In this edition of the Color between the Lines, I'm speaking with the director of the Caribbean Culture Center, African Diaspora Institute. Her name is Melody Capote, and she's talking with me about the opening of a brand new hub at the center which brings together artists in a brand new way. Here's some of our conversation. I know that the CCCADI is Call. I know that the CCCADI is celebrating its 50th anniversary and just launched its new cultural hub. But for those who may not know what your organization is all about, can you kind of synopsize for them what This is the beat of our ancestors, the beat that connects our global African diaspora. Absolutely. Well, we are, as you said, marking our 50th 50th anniversary next year, 2026. The center was founded on the premise that we as, people of African descent, share a common thread that wherever in the diaspora, the dispersal of Africans. Because many people don't know what the term diaspora means, it's Dispersal wherever we were dispersed, wherever we landed, wherever the ship stopped, wherever we are present today. The common thread we share is our root culture in Africa. And so through art, or I should say through culture, we have been able to use tools like art, sacred traditions, music, dance, food, language as a way of educating our audiences, educating general audiences about the common thread we share, the similarities we share, and also some of the differences. Right? A, common one language, the language of the colonizer islands that speak French versus those of us who speak Spanish versus those that speak English. But again, rooted in African traditions that while our culture was intentionally ripped away and taken away, the work of the center seeks to reclaim much of what, what was lost in the slave trade and through the business of enslavement in this country. Can you talk a little bit about this launch of this new hub and what that entails? Well, we have a location, a renovated firehouse on East 125th street which is our main headquartered building. It houses our offices. We also have gallery space and public space that we use to gather communities for conversations, workshops, storytelling, children's programming. And it's the space that everyone, everyone recognizes that we're at. This decommissioned, renovated firehouse is now the main site. We've been fortunate that during COVID we were able to secure an additional space and annex about three blocks away from us on 126th street and 3rd Avenue that we are calling Ile Oyin. The words Illeoying are Yoruba for the house of honey. And as part of our sacred practice, particularly through the Yoruba tradition, this particular space honors the deity named Oshun, who is the mother of us all. She is the, one recognized for her sweetness, for her honey, for, her bringing together a family and community. And so we chose the words illegal for this space as the beehive or network or center where artists, culture bearers, community members can gather and literally work, create, cowork, rehearse, present in a space that is either affordable or free, depending on the situation, but primarily free for artists to come and do what it is they do as creatives and also receive training from us and technical assistance in building that art, building, that discipline into a business should they choose to want to move in the entrepreneurial route. So the space has, we house a resident dance company called kr3ts, which means keep rising to the top 30, five year old dance company based in East Harlem that was in need of a home. So they're now using, the space and we've installed a professional Dance floor. And the space itself, it's just. It's still rather raw, but the artists themselves just find it as a beautiful place to be able to come and really be in community, build, create, and pass on, the traditions that we're trying so desperately to retrieve and hang on to. Sounds really wonderful. Yeah. I see there's a significant online presence with a great And virtual performances, exhibitions, discussions and more, connecting over 20,000 people globally to the traditions that bind us as Africa. And a lot. Racial and social justice and cultural equity for African descendants everywhere as systemic racism. Yeah, we have a program that we call We lit lit for Literature and because we're lit people. But the. The program itself celebrates authors, writers, poets, speakers who all are, rooted in African culture, whose work speaks and attests to the black genius that comes out of our communities. It's an opportunity to meet authors, to meet writers. All of our programs allow for intergenerational and interactive opportunities for audiences to meet with and speak to artists, writers and so on. Historically, our institution has been seen as a storytelling place. And, you know, like everything, now the notion of storytelling is on everybody's tongue. It's become kind of the next thing, the next fad, if you will. But as an organization again, with 50 years under our belt, we have been the place to tell our stories and to capture our stories audience members, scholars, traditional leaders, community leaders have been able to come together and have exchanges, learn, offer, teach. And so, in the spirit of oral traditions that come from Africa, in the spirit of oral traditions and storytelling that come from indigenous people, this is not something we do as a program. It is just part of the, the. The blood that runs through the organization. It's just part of what we have always done and will continue to do. So where can people find more information about cccadi in the future? our website is just, as you called it, CCC. That's three Cs followed by the letters A as an apple, D as in David. I as in ice is our website. You can find us also on Instagram and on Facebook, also under people say Kadi or the cccadi. So you can search Caribbean Cultural Center, African Diaspora Institute to learn more about the work that we're doing. Well, I hope that I can interview some of those interesting authors. And if you are an author that has a book that you believe might be of interest to our audience or you'd like to hear from an author that we have not yet interviewed, please feel free to reach out to the Color between the lines podcast on iHeartRadio, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Esther. I'm Esther Dillard.