Entertainment

Flyest Fables Offer Kaleidoscope of Stories

THE AFRO — When you tune into “Flyest Fables” you are transported to a fantastical world of young people on big quests and journeys.

Published

7 years ago

March 3, 2019

Oakland Post

By George Kevin Jordan

When you tune into “Flyest Fables” you are transported to a fantastical world of young people on big quests and journeys. But the product that audiences hear is a result of the creator and producer going on his own path to empowerment.

“Podcasting for me is a way for me to tell the stories I didn’t get when I was growing up,”

Morgan Givens, creator of “Flyest Fables” said. “I really wanted Black and Brown character’s in fantasy settings. That was like my bread and butter as a kid.”

“I loved to read and books were like a safe haven for me, but they also influenced my outlook for the world. So when my nephew was about to turn three and we live in the Trump era. I was like, ‘the world is pretty dark,’ and so much of the entertainment geared towards young adults was reminding them of that darkness.”

“I wanted to create something that is joyful and show young people the world as it should exist not as it currently exists.”

And I think there could be something awesome in embedding in the mind of kids, and even adults, that the world we live in isn’t the world we have to live in.”

When looking for an outlet to tell their stories, Givens said podcasting offered some distinct advantages to other forms of media.

“You don’t have to worry about that filter of someone changing your ideas,” Givens said.

“And no one putting words in your mouth. I said it in the podcast. You can’t tell me I said something I didn’t say.”

“Also it could reach young people in places I could not get to them.”

As a novelist working on books, Givens said he thought about barriers- from costs of purchasing literature, to the risks of even having certain things in your possession in the first place.

“Depending on who you are as a young person, maybe certain pieces of entertainment or media are not safe for you to be seen holding where you live,” Givens said.

“If I write a book about a young Trans kid in high school and I want all young kids to read it, especially young Trans people who are spread across places where it is not safe to own who they are, I have to find a way to reach them and give them that joy without putting them in danger.”

“Nobody knows what your listening to most likely,” Givens added. “People walk around with headphones on their ears all day.”

Givens, 32, understands the power of owning your own narrative.

“As a Black person, as a Trans person, so often we move through the world and society tells us what our story is,” Givens said. “It says if you’re Black this is what’s going to happen to you.

If you’re Trans, the story this is the path of your life to take. And for me it was sort of reclaiming some of that. And saying ‘hold on what gives you the right to tell me what my story is?’”

The road to podcaster and creator was not a traditional one. Even though he always knew he wanted to write a book someday, media was not on Givens’ list of career choices. In fact, Givens first career was as a police officer for D.C. Metropolitan Police Department.

‘My grandma was a cop for like 30 years,” Givens said. ‘It was the job that got my mom and her out of the projects.”

Graduating from school at the tail-end of a recession and possessing a curiosity as to how and why people become police officers and what happens to them afterwards, Givens gave it a go.

He served for a few years but admitted that “I didn’t like it,” and pushed to find a job that helped people in a different way. But Givens was a storyteller at heart and started doing storytelling on stage.

In an effort to try to figure out how to be a storytelling Givens got accepted into an internship for WAMU’s 1A – at 31-years old. Givens stayed on and is now a producer for the show.

Flyest Fables is getting buzz locally and internationally. Season two is coming this summer. But to listen to season one here.

This article originally appeared in The Afro.

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Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

Published

3 days ago

July 5, 2026

Oakland Post

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Arts and Culture

Prescott Circus Theatre Presents Free Summer Performance Series

Now in its 41st year, the Prescott Circus Theatre is a nationally recognized performing arts education program for Oakland youth. The circus offers safe environments that challenge Oakland youth, through circus arts training, to develop the skills and confidence to thrive on stage, in school, and in life.

Published

2 weeks ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

Prescott Circus showcase pathways pyramid. Photo courtesy of Prescott Circus.

By Post Staff

The Prescott Circus, Oakland’s longest-running youth circus, is returning this summer with its free shows. Join the Prescott Circus’s young stars as they share their joys and talents through stilt-dancing, tumbling, juggling, and more.

At the heart of this one-hour show, which demonstrates teamwork, pride, and joy, are Oakland Unified School District students ages 8 – 17 from more than 10 different schools

This is accomplished through no-cost school and community programs for more than 300 Oakland youth each year. Performing company members from Prescott, where the program began, perform and make appearances at as many as 40 Bay Area events each year.

The summer program is funded in part by Oakland Fund for Children and Youth, California Arts Council, Port of Oakland, and the West Davis & Bergard Foundation.

Performances will be held Tuesday, July 14, 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. (ASL interpreted) and Wednesday, July 15, 11 a.m., at the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, 1428 Alice St., Oakland. For free reservations go to

https://PrescottCircusSummerShows.eventbrite.com

For group reservations for camps, childcare centers, senior centers, go to www.prescottcircus.org

A community show will be held Saturday, July 18, 2 p.m. to 3 p.m., at DeFremery Park,1651 Adeline St., Oakland.

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50 Years Later, ‘Wake Up Everybody!’ Still Resonates During Black Music

The words of the song, “Wake Up Everybody,” debuted by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes in 1975, still resonate today as those words are just as relevant more than a half century later.

Published

2 weeks ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

iStockphoto.

By Hazel Trice Edney, Special to The Post

Hazel Trice Edney

“Wake up, everybody, No more sleepin’ in bed

No more backward thinkin’. Time for thinkin’ ahead

The world has changed so very much from what it used to be.

There is so much hatred, war, and poverty.

“The world won’t get no better If we just let it be.

Naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw.

The world won’t get no better. We gotta change it, yeah– just you and me.”

The words of the song, “Wake Up Everybody,” debuted by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes in 1975, still resonate today as those words are just as relevant more than a half century later.

In a rare, nearly somber moment, the group’s celebrated lead singer, Teddy Pendergrass, introduced the song on Soul Train, the weekly dance and live performance TV show that aired roughly between 1971 and 2006. Pendergrass told the attentive live audience and thousands watching by television that Wake Up Everybody, the title tune of their most recent album, was intended to inspire people to take action with a goal to change America for the better.

“I’m sure that you will all agree that there are things that need to be done in this country today,” he said. “So, what I’d like for you to do is listen very carefully to see what you can do to lend a hand.”

The song’s appeal worked.

“I played that song over and over and over again because it was a constant warning to keep ourselves prepared for the society that we were living in,” says A. Peter Bailey, then a 37-year-old former aide to Malcolm X.

When “Wake Up Everybody” hit the airwaves, Bailey was working as an associate editor of Ebony Magazine. “It was a call to be aware of what we were dealing with in the country that we lived in, the world we lived in, the neighborhood we lived in, the cities that we lived in,” Bailey said in an interview with the Trice Edney News Wire.

He concluded that during Black Music Month 2026, such songs should be recalled and celebrated as a key to changes for the good across America; especially because such songs successfully encouraged people to deal with the issues that might otherwise denigrate the promises of America, including the promise that “All men are created equal,”as stated in the Declaration of Independence.

“The rhythms and blues expressed our joys, our sorrows and our fears,” Bailey recalls. “It was those songs and the singing of those songs by our people that attracted us to the campaigns for justice.”

With his life inspired by that song and others, Bailey, now 88, went on to establish and teach a Black Press class at Virginia Commonwealth University. Also, he has since written three books, including a memoir, “Witnessing Brother Malcolm X, the Master Teacher,” in which he expounded upon successful principles of social justice, some of which are reflected in “Wake Up Everybody.”

Long before the term “woke” became associated with campaigns for justice, Pendergrass led the song that reverberated across America and still holds deep meaning.

The ‘wake up’ call exhorts teachers to ‘teach a new way,’ doctors to heal elders, and builders to ‘build a new land… we can do it if we all lend a hand.”

The song concludes:

“The world won’t get no better if we just let it be. Naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw. The world won’t get no better. We gotta change it, yeah – just you and me.”

Hazel Trice Edney wrote this story as part of a four-part series powered by AARP in commemoration of Black Music Month, June 2026.