Singer Mzuri Moyo brings her story Uptown
Written by Clem Richardson
“I wanted to change the world through singing,” Mzuri Moyo-Mzuri said. “I always saw myself doing something extraordinary through singing.”
Mzuri’s dramatic soprano voice took her from her Paterson, N.J. birthplace to nightclub gigs in Paris, France, and Rome Italy.
But it was when she saw a tape of civil rights icon Fannie Lou Hamer on Gil Noble’s “Like It Is” television show that Mzuri found the model for the role that has since shaped her acting, writing and singing career.
“After she (Hamer) told how she was beaten, I still did not see one ounce of hate in the woman,” Mzuri recalled. “That blew my mind. I could not get how she could not hate the people who treated her that way. I had so much rage in me, racial rage, and I had not gone through anything like she had gone through. That rage was part of the reason I went to Europe.”
Mzuri instead channeled her anger into writing a one-woman show about Hamer. You can see the fruits of her labor Friday and Saturday when Mzuri performed “The Fannie Lou Hamer Story (The Woman, The Legend and Her Songs) at Riverside Church.
Mzuri Moyo
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Born in Paterson, New Jersey, destined to sing and bring love and peace to the world, Mzuri, has performed all over the united states and abroad. She lived briefly in Paris and Italy, where she trained as a singer. She trained as an actress at HB Studio, New York City. Upon her return from Europe, she was cast as Lucy for the cultural film "SANKOFA".