The children are happy and dancing. They're on the stage of the beautifully restored grand performance room of the 1855 Hudson Hall, formerly known as the Hudson Opera House. Diata Diata Folkloric Theater director Pamela Badila is leading the kids, who range in age from elementary school to teenagers, through traditional West and Central African dances. They spin around, bend up and down, and throw their arms out and heads back, smiling all the while, as her son Ngounga feeds their frenzied movement with his hypnotic beats a djembe drum. The rehearsal is for "Spirit of the River," a production by Diata Diata (Kikongo for "step step"; a reference to the troupe's dance performances, as well as its founders' philosophy of taking life step by step).
"This is a West African play that I learned about years ago," says Pamela, the charismatic matriarch of the Badila family, about the parabolic performance, whose story is set in a riverside village called Nabisso. "[The play] is very old, but it's still relevant, because it deals with water, how water gives life but can also take it away. The disparity with the access to clean water in Africa and India has been a problem for a long, long time. And now we're seeing what's been going on America, with Flint and Standing Rock. Water is life, everybody needs water. Fela Kuti sang, 'Water no get enemy.'"
If you're part of the arts scene in Hudson, the odds are good that you know the Badilas. The highly creative family has been a deep and vibrant cultural pillar of the city since relocating there from France, by way of Long Island, in the late 1990s. Pamela's late husband, Elombe Badila, hailed from the Congo and was one of the founding members of the National Ballet of Congo, which toured Asia and Europe in the 1960s and '70s. The company was especially popular among the many Congolese expatriates in Paris, which is where Elombe met Pamela, a visiting, New York-born dancer. The couple married and began to have children, adding to the two kids Elombe brought from a previous relationship. Eventually the family settled in Hudson, drawn there after visiting Pamela's sister, a long-time resident, and its household swelled to include 10 siblings.
All of the Badila children are decidedly artistic across multiple disciplines—dance, music, fashion, visual art—and their work is always informed by the rich, colorful foundation of the family's African roots. Through their frequent, dazzling, drums-and-dance-heavy performances at local public events, the community came to recognize and embrace the Badilas; a parade in honor of Elombe after his passing in 2011 filled Warren Street with hundreds of marchers and mourners. But when the family was still new in town, the vibe wasn't always so welcoming.
"Somebody put a sign on our porch that said, 'Fuck you, Africans!' or something like that, but we didn't let it bother us," the matron recalls. "My kids said, 'Mom, why don't they like us?' and I said, 'Well, it's because they don't know us. We have to show them who we are.' Ignorance and false information are what fuels hate, you know? So we started dancing and drumming and performing around Hudson, and people liked it and were curious and we just kept meeting and getting to know more and more people. The same thing happened when I was putting together a multicultural event in Hudson a few years ago: I asked some of the people from the Bangladeshi community if they would have their kids dance in it, and, at first, they weren't so sure. But then I explained how showing others who you are can be a helpful thing. So the parents brought their kids to the rehearsals and the little girls wore their beautiful bhindis and native clothes and danced for the audience. It was wonderful. So many of the problems and misunderstandings between people are just because of the ignorance, people being afraid of the people from other cultures they don't know."
The most visible of the Badilas is Milandou, a rap artist, model, and entrepreneur who performs under the name Young Paris, a reference to the city of his birth. "The girlfriend I had when I was 18 couldn't pronounce my real name, so she called me 'Paris' and after a while I just went with it," recalls the rapper, via WhatsApp, during a pre-show visit to the home of the Rwandan president while on tour in Africa last month. ("Touring Africa is crazy, you meet all kinds of people you'd never think you'd meet.") After a two-year detour to Montreal, the 30-year-old MC now lives in Brooklyn and in 2016 signed to Jay Z's Roc Nation label for the expanded reissue of his third independent release, African Vogue. In addition to touring Africa with his music (and as a dancer with his father's company when he was younger), he's cultivated a rabid following in Europe, especially in France.
With his distinctive white maquillage—traditional face paint; his is worn in homage to his departed dad—Paris is a striking figure in the rap world, and his art is a pulsating melting pot of hip-hop, EDM, and Afrobeat styles. Growing up in the Hudson Valley and living in, touring, and experiencing the cultures of hugely varied locales has informed his outlook as well his music. "It's definitely a privilege, to be able to have so many lenses to view world through," says Paris, who in 2017 launched Melanin, a company with the goal of lifting the self-esteem of people of color. "Right now, Melanin is a web platform, but the idea is to build it into having public conferences, panels, and other events," he explains.
Those who of us who spent time around this focused force of nature when he lived in Hudson and had yet to make the exodus to Brooklyn that's a rite of passage for so many aspiring young artists always knew Paris was going to make it. He simply worked too hard—recording, making videos, promoting his music, and performing wherever he could—for there to be no way he wouldn't make it. And it's inspiring to see him doing it, at last.
"That's the thing about the Badilas," says Replacements bassist Tommy Stinson, a Hudson resident of several years himself. "That family is one of the hardest-working groups of people I've ever met; everything they do, they do to the fullest. I gotta give it to Elombe and Pamela for raising such a beautiful bunch of kids. Paris was actually the first best bud I had when I came to Hudson after living in New York. He really gave me the lay of the land up here, as far as the divide there is between the people in the poorer community and the businesses that come to town and bring their own workers rather than hiring more local people. So he made me aware of that and want to do these benefit concerts I've been putting together to help the people around here [Stinson has sponsored area fund-raising events for the Hudson Little League Association, local youth agriculture organization FarmOn!, and other causes]. I think I've worked with all of the Badilas at this point, between playing with them at benefits or at little local shows, or on recording projects."
One of those projects has been a series of recordings by Lady Moon aka Ngonda Badila, now based in Brooklyn as well. The music of her band, Lady Moon and the Eclipse, as heard on their 2016 debut EP, Believe, shimmers with ethereal funk soul that pairs deep contemporary artists like Erykah Badu and Meshell Ndegeocello (the latter a sometime Hudsonian) with the classic American and African sounds she was raised with. "Growing up, I heard people like Aretha Franklin, the Pointer Sisters, and Diana Ross through my mom, and through my dad I heard Salif Keita and other Afropop artists," says Moon. "Then I discovered Billie Holiday, Bessie Smith, and Ella Fitzgerald. I could see the whole journey."
Speaking of journeys, the singer is currently working on her group's debut full-length, the aptly named Journey to the Cosmic Soul, which is set for release next year. As someone from a home that included a modest two sisters, it's hard not to wonder: Being reared among so many other siblings, did Moon or her brothers or sisters ever feel competitive toward one another?
"Not really," she says. "There was never really any alpha energy in our family. No matter what we're going through, we're always inseparable. Love holds us together. Love always defeats all the bad things."
This month, Hudson Hall pays tribute to Hudson's "first family of creativity" with three special days of music, dance, and theater performed by the Badilas and their collaborative friends from the community. The series will feature the folk musical "Spirit of the River" and concerts by Young Paris and Lady Moon and the Eclipse. For the prodigal son Young Paris, who hasn't played live in his hometown in eons, the occasion represents a triumphant homecoming that's been long in the making.
"It's definitely going to be a celebration," he says. "I just want everyone to see what we do together as a family. And to be part of our tribe."
Hudson Hall will present "The Badila Family" from July 20-22: Diata Diata Folkloric Theater will perform "The Spirit of the River" on July 20 at 7pm, July 21 at 3pm, and July 22 at 5pm; Young Paris will perform on July 20 at 9pm; and Lady Moon and the Eclipse will perform on July 21 at 7pm.
