Welcome to the Calabash Experience: The Art of African Diaspora Storytelling

LaShaunda Craddock (aka Kemi) is a mother, a wife, an educator, an artist, a traditionalist, an arts/culture/education ambassador, and a visionary.  To develop her craft, she has spent the last 20 years traveling, studying, and sitting at the “foot of elders” so that she could be immersed in the wisdom of tradition, culture, and the beauty of life's lessons.
 
Through her story telling, Kemi shares the greatness she sees in our culture and community and uses that energy to encourage, inspire, and invoke positive energy on all levels. Believing in the healing power of culture, she emphasizes that we possess the tools for our development, resistance, sustenance, and progress. Those tools are in our words, our stories, our families, and in our personal medicines.
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Kemi calls her  story-telling  "story-try"--an infusion of  life, love, culture, tradition, rhythm and song. With her, stories become a powerful means of connecting people, exploring the vast resources of our internal power, and developing positive  self narratives.