ABOUT US
Welcome to the Abode
At Alkebulan’s Abode, our mission is to provide a sacred and supportive haven for melanated individuals seeking spiritual growth, cultural reconnection, and purposeful community. We are committed to facilitating access to ancestral knowledge, healing practices, and empowering experiences that help our people remember who they are and rise into their full potential. Through shared learning, creative expression, and collective care, we honor the legacy of our ancestors while building a liberated and spiritually grounded future.
BEKI KALUME - Founder & Executive Curator, Alkebulan’s Abode
Our Structure & Resource Philosophy
Alkebulan's Abode is intentionally not structured as a non-profit. We design initiatives, products, and experiences to generate sustainable income—not for extraction, but for co-creation. Rooted in the conviction that Africa's resources must be created, circulated, and sustained within Africa, we champion an Ubuntu economy where value flows back to communities.
To operationalize shared responsibility, 5% of all proceeds are allocated to our Community Support Responsibility (CSR) commitment. These funds are deployed transparently, with impact updates and evidence documented annually to ensure accountability, integrity, and measurable contribution to the ecosystems we serve.
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Resource Sovereignty: Income generation designed to retain and reinvest value within African contexts.
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Co-Creation Over Extraction: Programs built to empower, not exploit—centering African agency and ownership.
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Ubuntu Economy in Practice: 5% CSR allocation reflecting our commitment to collective well-being and reciprocal growth.
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Radical Transparency: Annual public reporting on CSR allocations, implementation, and documented impact.
MEET THE TEAM
Guided by Purpose, United in Spirit
Long before notation or recording, the Shona people of Zimbabwe held conversations with the unseen through sound. At the heart of this dialogue was the Mbira, a vessel of remembrance.
Crafted from a wooden soundboard fitted with carefully tuned metal tines, the mbira is played with the thumbs and sometimes the forefingers, its shimmering tones rising like breath from the earth. Often paired with the rhythmic shake of the Hosho (gourd rattles), its music flows through ceremonies, rites of passage, and sacred gatherings as invocation.
To play the mbira is to open a channel. In Shona cosmology, its melodies call upon ancestral spirits (vadzimu), inviting their guidance, healing, and presence. Each composition carries lineage, some songs unchanged for centuries, passed hand to hand, ear to ear, heart to heart.
Musicologists may label it a lamellaphone or plucked idiophone, but to those who know its voice, the mbira is something deeper: a sonic archive, a spirit bridge, a living thread between past, present, and future.
Across Eastern and Southern Africa, many variations exist, each community shaping its own voice from wood, metal, and memory. Yet all share one truth: sound, when rooted in reverence, becomes remembrance.
The hosho are Zimbabwean musical instruments consisting of a pair of maranka (mapudzi) gourds with seeds
The hosho are Zimbabwean musical instruments consisting of a pair of maranka (mapudzi) gourds with seeds
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ABOUT US
Our Journey
Alkebulan’s Abode was born from a shared vision to create a sacred space where people of African descent could reconnect with their roots, rise in spiritual consciousness, and rediscover the power of community. The seed was planted on July 18, 2024, by our founder Beki Kalume - when along with a circle of pioneers - envisioned a home for melanated individuals on a path of awakening.
What began as a conversation blossomed into a movement—a vibrant, community-driven association grounded in African spirituality, ancestral wisdom, and cultural celebration. From the formation of our WhatsApp group to the development of powerful gatherings like Melanated Then, Now & Tomorrow (MTNT), our journey has been one of reflection, connection, and bold reimagination.
Each department of the Abode—from Heritage and Learning, to Healing and Creativity, to Youth Empowerment—marks a chapter in our collective story. And with every new member, workshop, and gathering, Alkebulan’s Abode continues to grow as a living sanctuary—uplifting, healing, and guiding our community into alignment with our past, present, and future.
PUNISHING THE TONGUE
THE BONE
THE BONE
LESSONS WE WERE TAUGHT NOT TO SPEAK
In many Afrikan schools, children were punished for speaking their own languages. The method was simple and devastating. A token, sometimes a carved disk, sometimes a piece of wood, sometimes a bone, was placed around the neck of the child caught speaking Kiswahili or mother tongue.
The object had to be passed to the next “offender.” Whoever held it at the end of the day was punished publicly. This was not merely discipline. It was a system.
By forcing children to police one another, language itself became dangerous. Fear traveled faster than authority. Shame became communal. Survival meant silence. The bone moved from neck to neck, not as correction, but as conditioning—teaching us that our tongues were liabilities, our words punishable, our inheritance something to escape.
Yet even then, language survived. It whispered in dormitories, laughed in playfields, lived in songs, jokes, and coded speech. What could not be spoken openly learned how to move underground.
This bone is a memory of violence—but also of resistance. It reminds us that what was forced into silence was never truly erased. We are still here. We still speak. We still remember.
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Alkebulan's Abode In The Press
