Today we’d like to introduce you to Amani Sawari.
Amani, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
After graduating with my BA in Law, Economics and Public Policy, I launched SawariMedia and began covering issues around the prison industrial slave complex. Incarcerated people took notice and asked via Twitter if I would coordinate the 2018 National Prison strike for them, I accepted and everything took off from there.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
I’ll share what I wrote in the latest issue of my current prisoner newsletter, the Right2Vote Report which circulates in hundreds of prisons across 33 states:
The New Year newsletter almost didn’t make it out, I emptied out my account paying for printing and had to dip into other sources to get those copies printed and mailed before the end of February. This month I could only afford to print 500, a fraction of my subscribers but I’ve ensured that every facility where I mail is covered because my hope is that you all will be able to better support the cost of this newsletter. I’m eager to share an exciting and hopefully career-altering accomplishment, Amani Finding Fuel, is released on over a hundred platforms including Spotify, Pandora, Amazon and most significantly at your facility kiosk! I promised in my last newsletter that I would let folks know where to find my music in the next update, so now it’s your time to take it all in.
I’m grateful to everyone who helped with increasing subscriptions over the past years so that SawariMedia can have access to more facilities. I’ve been able to reach over two hundred facilities with the Right2Vote because of your persistence. I’ve seen how Right2Vote readers will take action to come through and it’s a privilege to advocate for a community that consistently has my back. I’m calling on all of those who are committed to my work to support Amani Finding Fuel by purchasing the album and letting as many others know on both sides of the wall to do the same. Music sales will go directly toward SawariMedia’s production of the Right2Vote Report for the rest of the year. There are four more issues left for 2023, but as I type SawariMedia doesn’t have the funds to continue beyond this issue that you’re currently reading.
Amani Finding Fuel is our attempt to change that by combining artistic gifts with my advocacy work. Each track is self-composed, all of the lyrics are self-written; embodying my evolution towards restoring peace within myself in the midst of a chaotic worldly struggle. Amani Finding Fuel represents the journey towards self-sustenance along the path of my deepest desires and I’m eager to share that with those who embrace it. Album sales represent a direct reflection of the support that we have for this movement advocating for the human rights of people in prison and the policy changes that protect those rights. I aspire to use my art as a tool to support the movement, so I’ll be happy to produce an album every year if that’s proven a sustainable method for the ongoing production of this newsletter.
Imagine if music, the thing I’ve been making with my guitar since grade school but have been too hesitant to share, was actually the most reliable path toward funding future advocacy work? It’s a revolutionary concept. However, now that the lyrics have been written, the chords are clear and the music is released to be received by the masses; the concept is ready for testing.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
My artwork is motivated by my relationships with dozens of organizers incarcerated throughout the United States, particularly from those experiences shared within hundreds of letters mailed to me over the past five years. Prisoner experiences of delayed medical treatment, time spent in solitary confinement, staff neglect and stories of dilapidated facility conditions infuriate me. Inside artists that inspire my work include Arthur Campbell (MDOC) whose logo drawing adorns the cover of the Right2Vote Report. Today my work is guided by the understanding that mass exposure to “criminal justice woes” is required in order to achieve desperately needed mass “criminal justice reforms”, this must be accomplished in more ways than one.
While my long-term goal embodies a call for the abolition of the prison industrial slave complex entirely, my artwork aims to guide indirectly impacted audiences along this spectrum of a prison spectator towards reformist, and ultimately -hopefully- abolitionist. I do this by centering prisoner narratives in multiple formats: in print, podcast and even on painted canvas. My favorite artistic formats include print media and expressionism-style painting. I’ve used audio editing, written storytelling and painting; particularly in watercolor and acrylic incorporating paper collage on canvas, over the past two years. The goal of my artwork is to strengthen incarcerated communities’ sense of self-worth and interest in civic engagement.
Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
My guitar is my therapy. Every morning I read a devotional and write a tune, check it out: https://www.youtube.com/@AmaniStudio/shorts
Pricing:
- Amani Finding Fuel – 25 (each copy also supports an incarcerated reader of the Right2Vote Report)
- Freelance Book layout – depending on project size
- https://sawarimi.org/shop
- https://www.patreon.com/sawari
Contact Info:
- Website: https://sawarimi.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sawarimi/
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/RepealTISMyth/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amani-sawari-09420180/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/SawariMi
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCcrN87DyoMgRKV9no69w_A
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/sawarimi
- Other: https://amani.hearnow.com/
Image Credits
Image credits 1. Subscriber, Chanton Miles (MDOC) holding up his collection of my newsletters from NoShackles to Motivate Michigan and the current R2V Report 2. Me (left) and a friend Antonia Giles (legal worker and activist) hosting a protest outside of Michigan’s Lakeland Correctional Facility which holds the most amount of lifers in MDOC 3. Photos of SawariMedia subscribers that have been sent to me over the years 4. A canvas painting I did incorporating watercolor and acrylic paints along with clippings from prison mail sent to me, find more of my paintings here: https://sawarimi.org/product-category/paintings
