Thanks for checking out my profile and those of other folks 'within' the AFRISPORA.com webspace. 

AFRISPORA.com is the private property of Afrispora Worldwide, LLC.

I am Kwame Tumi aka Don Dada, the founder and creator of Afrispora™ (the brand); CEO of Afrispora Worldwide, main webmaster of AFRISPORA.com, other URLs as well as organizer of a widerange of socio-cultural, and politico-economic endeavors.   

When I am not uploading/editing the AFRISPORA.com webspace along with MPRVS, I am a Los Angeles-based African, World, African-American and U.S. History professor at a local community college, an Urban Planning doctoral candidate a local university, hip hop head for life and several other 'positive' things I like to believe, lol. [Graduation date 2011, then I can update my profile again :-)!]. 

Known for my commitment to the general upliftment of others...my 'networks' extend from community organizers and artists to athletes and academics along with folks from all 'walks of life'...which I am connecting via this webspace and elsewhere online for the sake of the 'global public good' offline in the 'real' world.

"Taking the Local->Global~Bringing the Global<->Local"^TM

I was born in 'South Central' LA, near 54th Street and Central Avenue .  Much of my family have lived in this area dating from 1942 until the present.  As a youth, I attended eight elementary schools from 'South Central' LA to Watts to Inglewood and elsewhere, then in Orange County and San Diego counties before return to 'South Central' L.A. to finish junior high...this was the time of 'latchkeydom'...I would play sports afterschool, get on bus with my brother, get home watch cartoons then MTV to see the new Michael Jackson, the Eurythmics, the Pet Shop Boys, Kurtis Blow, Culture Club videos along with my favorite sitcoms Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, Three's Company, and any and all music shows like Soul Train, Solid Gold , American Band Stand and the rest...

...and it was also back when folks in school did not believe that the Beastie Boys were not African-American until they finally saw one of their videos, this was an interesting period when crack-dealers ruled the L.A. neighbors and youth started fist fights because they lost basketball games...

...less than a year later, Fall 1987, moved to the Inland Empire to be with other family like Brother Dvooa...

During my time in high school, first the Jungle Brothers and De la Soul, then A Tribe Called Quest changed how I looked at music and popular culture, in general (though I also listened to Bobbie Brown and Father MC).  I like to say De La and Tribe changed my life as an L.A. youth who did not follow the ways of NWA.  Finally, I was able to tap into a cultural network that fit my worldviews. 

I am proud of my second place finish in a high school essay contest, I wrote about the life and accomplishments of W.E.B. Du Bois.  This essay contest experience, along with my awareness of my family history to an extent, sparked my quest for KNOWLEDGE OF SELF.  Du Bois would become one of the main catalysts for my intellectual development as a teenager and after.  

Upon graduation from high school, I went on to obtain a double major B.A. in Third World Studies and History at a University of California campus.  Fortunately, I have been influenced by my 8-month study abroad experience at the University of Ghana, Legon in West Africa at age 19 during my junior year of undergraduate studies.  In college, I listened to A LOT OF MUSIC, ranging from the Artifacts, Boogiemonsters, the Roots, Freestyle Fellowship, Gin Blossoms, Alice and Chains, Porno for Pyros ("We make great pets..."), Craig Mack, Cypress Hill, the Nonce, Anita Baker, etc., etc., etc. I sought to feel the musical voids in my 'spirit'. 

Since high school and college, my personal and academic life have been shaped and inspired by the literary likes of Mariama Ba, Oscar Wilde, Albert Camus, W.E.B. Du Bois and musical likes of the KRS-One, Fela Kuti, Souls of Mischief, Incognito, Miles Davis, Max Roach, Omar Lye Fook, J Davey, Dibiase, J. Bizness, N/A, GB, Phonte, Open Mike Eagle and his folks and Dr. Who Dat up to today.

After a year of failed job hunting in San Diego with a B.A. and following a Summer of service as an AFL-CIO Union Summer activist, I moved to Washington, DC to attend graduate school at a historic university. 

Once in the nation's capitol, I worked a plethora of odd jobs ranging from a youth hostel (where I stayed as an emergency just 3 days after arriving in DC, it's a long, humorous story) to web development and database management.

I arrived at the basic concepts of what would later become Afrispora™ around 1998 (but I did not have the name for it yet).  I envisioned using online tools to make real world cultural events more widely known.  This was a time when I was the 'Norm' of his favorite hangout spot for happy hour or anytime during my 'mid-atlantic' years, the now closed State of the Union near the corner of Fourteenth and U Streets in Northwest DC (Republic Gardens is still next door last time I visited in 2008) .

By 1998, I obtained a Masters of Arts degree in History (major field: African history-minor field: Public history).  While on the East Coast for over four years, I also had the good fortune to visit New York several times, Atlanta and a few places between the two.  I was even able to live in Baltimore where I began my academic career teaching World history and African history in 1999. 

A year later I brought myself back home to Los Angeles with a wealth of life experiences and years of priceless human and spiritual connections within the vibrancy of the eastern United States.

Upon my return to L.A. in the summer of 2000, I unsuccessfully sought out meaningful entertainment activities and events for leisure and dancing until a few choice parties.

 In 2002, I began attending another University of California in order to obtain a Ph.D. in Urban Planning.  During this time period , I have also connected with 'good' folks initially in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles at small gatherings and large parties like Juju. 

Finally in 2005, the concept of Afrispora™ became fixated in my mind. 
Beginning in late 2006, I began conceptualizing and re-conceptualizing, designing and re-designing how the concept would be brought into the business format and networking model of the company, Afrispora Worldwide, LLC, parent company of Afrispora.com...and the rest is history up to now!

My lifetime enthusiasm for knowledge lead to my later academic interest in the lives, ideas and instructions of Nnamdi Azikiwe, Kwame Nkrumah, Samora Machel, Steve Biko, Walter Rodney, Albert Camus, Ngugi wa Thoing'o, Arthur Ashe, Kwame Ture, Thomas Sankara, Carter G. Woodson, Angela Davis, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, Ali Mazrui, Martin Luther King, Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells, Basil Davidson, Frantz Fanon, Joseph E. Harris, Jeanne Maddox Toungara, George Orwell, Mahatma Gandhi, Vinit Mukhija, Edward Soja, Lois Takahashi, Aziz Batran, Paul Robeson among many others.

~ Remember I am in 'academia' as well as an entrepreneur, so it is difficult not to be long-winded when describing my life :-) ~

FYI: I did not give myself the nickname Don Dada...some of my friends from college said that when I left for Ghana in August 1993, I was Don...but when I came back I was 'Doooonnnnn Dadaaaaa' which I shortened to Don Dada!

Since 2008, I have gradually come to be known as Kwame Tumi.  This nickname means born on Saturday because Kwame is an Akan ethnic group day name, while Tumi means to be able, capable.