If you plan on visiting Egypt, you might want to travel with Baba Ashra Kwesi. The word Baba is used to refer to an elder or someone whom you respect. Baba Kwesi is a renowned scholar, master griot, lecturer, and legendary historian, who focuses his studies on the ancient African Nile Valley which he refers to as the fallopian tubes — the gestation of civilization.
For over four decades, Baba Kwesi has conducted tours to Egypt to awaken brothers and sisters throughout the African diaspora to the fact that Kemet (ancient Egypt) was the light of civilization and the origin of Christianity – thousands of years before the Bible was written. According to Baba Kwesi, we are the heirs of a royal people. Our Egyptian ancestors, Kemites, created a great cultural foundation to support us. Baba Kwesi teaches us that all religions stem from ancient Egypt or meaning Black Land. The Greeks called the land Aegyptos which later became Egypt.
Baba Kwesi challenges us to study our history because he believes the dominant race has imposed their religion on us. A religion that was stolen from Kemetic people and then altered to fit their image and claim as their own. Baba Kwesi says that Europeans don’t want us to connect with who we are and that there would be much trepidation if the real truth is revealed. He explains how we have been living with lies and how the truth neutralizes the lies. And it is this truth – knowledge of self – that will re-awaken and resurrect our people.
Baba Kwesi and his wife Merira are the proprietors of Kemet Nu Productions which translates into know thyself. A major part of their organization consists of annual trips to Egypt. The couple’s Kemet summer tours have become so popular that they now offer two per summer.
Baba Kwesi, whom some have accused of holding radical beliefs, gives an impactful interview. Some might find his responses offensive but Baba Kwesi points out, how we have been brainwashed. The scholar contends that Europeans have corrupted the original belief system; they have us believing that they were the originators of Christianity. Baba Kwesi speaks truth to power based on fact which he demonstrates in his lectures and tours.
The master griot discusses, how the writings on the Ancient Kemetic walls in the temples and on reliefs or books in stone created thousands of years ago by the ancient Egyptians have been plagiarized by the Greeks and Romans, and then formulated into their own European version of Christianity.
Baba Kwesi’s mentor and teacher was the late master scholar Kemetologist Dr. Yosef Ben-Jochannan. Baba Kwesi began a 14-year apprenticeship with Dr. Ben-Jochannan, beginning 1981 when he took his first trip to Kemet with him.
Baba Kwesi has dedicated his life’s journey to educating Black people about their majestic ancestral past as the actual creators of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. He has lectured globally–Kemet, Ethiopia, Uganda, Sudan, Ghana, Great Britain, the Caribbean, and Japan.
50BOLDers, Baba Ashra Kwesi will impart wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.
50BOLD: Baba Kwesi, I’m going to deep dive right into the historical waters. One of the books I read many years ago really made a phenomenal impact on my life; it completely changed my whole way of thinking. And I understand that your mentor, the late master scholar and Egyptologist Dr. Yosef Ben-Jochannan was a student of the author of this book, Stolen Legacy by George G.M. James. He talked about how the Greeks stole the philosophies of the Kemetic people and claimed it as their own. So, basically you are claiming this same belief that Greek religious and philosophical ideas were stolen from ancient Egypt, correct?
Kwesi: I’m not only saying it, the temples are there to reveal it. Anyone who goes there can see where the Kemetic civilization predates the Greek civilization by thousands of years. And yes, Dr. Ben discussed George G.M. James. The story is that James was actually murdered for writing the book, Stolen Legacy. Both Dr. Ben and Dr. John Henrik Clarke, peace be upon these Grandmasters/Warriors/ Scholars/Teachers, have equally said yes, James was murdered for writing that book. Because keep in mind, we were taught to deify the Western world. The deification of the Western world is where we got into white idolatry. White idolatry is the worship of European images.
Kemet was the world’s best kept secret. They only dug these temples out at the turn of the 20th century. The temples were covered up for over thousands of years when the Byzantine Romans came in around the 4th, 5th, 6th centuries AD. They only dug them up at the turn of the century to make tourist dollars, but not to tell the truth. That’s our job today, bringing brothers and sisters back. And peace be upon Dr. Ben, who I had actually started working with back in 1981. I spent 14 years working as an apprentice under him.
50BOLD: Where did you meet Dr. Ben?
Kwesi: I met him at Long Beach University. He gave a very powerful lecture on African history and spirituality. I did not know this information at the time.
I asked Dr. Ben, ‘Can you prove this?’
He said, “Young man, I can take you back to Africa and show you.”
That started my dream to return back to Africa, I made that trip in 1981. And it’s been now over 42 years nonstop.
50BOLD: Wow, 42 years!
Kwesi: The only year I missed going to Africa was in 2020 because of Covid. Because many tourists go over there, they don’t show many of these spiritual ideas that were incorporated into Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and other various religions that were literally plagiarized from these books in stone. And the dogma that came out of the religions is due to religion-for-control by the European Western powers.
One of the last temple shutdowns in Kemet was the Temple of Auset referred to as the Temple of Isis today. The question is why was the temple shut down? Because there you saw the earliest idea of a holy birth of an immaculate conception – Madonna and child. There you see Auset holding her child Heru. And she’s lactating with her holy child.
Is this where Catholicism developed out of which became the Mary and Jesus idea
which was taken from Auset and Heru? Is this why they developed these ecumenical councils? And through these ecumenical councils like the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD is where they de-Africanize Auset in the making of this European Mary and Jesus.
When you go there you can see Auset and her holy child Heru on the temple, it is clearly chiseled out. But the print is still there. This was thousands of years before the Western version of Christianity.
50BOLD: Do you think that today as far as Christianity and how so many Black people as a group have adopted this belief system – is this a means of keeping us in the dark about our true selves? And do you think this is a means of control?
Kwesi: Well, of course! The enemy became the deity of the spiritual subconscious of our mind. In ancient Kemet, it was called the Ka, meaning spirit. We all have spirit in us. We’re not robots. We are not AIs walking around here.
One of the things I do is show a comparative analysis of Western Christian art to the books in stone in Kemet. When you get down to the details of the reliefs with the comparative analysis, you can see where they came in and copied these ideas one after the other.
When they created the doctrines of discovery, the Papal Bull, that gave the conquerors and church the authority to convert Africans over to Christianity and to seize the land. But they had to convert Africans over to Christianity before they seized the land.
Christianity was used as a weapon. We’ve been brainwashed into this whole process of Christianity. They took concepts out of ancient African spirituality in making ideas and some of these ideas ended up in biblical writings.
Let me tell you right off the top that African people created the earliest spiritual writings on the temples. And the books in stone are in temples like Teti that was written over 4,000 years ago. Here you have the earliest spiritual writings in the earliest language: Sesh Medu Netcher (hieroglyphs). Here are the writings on the temple for salvation and resurrection. This is the concept of the Bible and where was the first Bible written? In Kemet, ancient Egypt.
The Greeks and the Romans got their civilizations and many of their spiritual ideas from Kemet. Circling back to James, it’s been a fear. There is a fear when you start to bring these ideas into the classrooms or theological schools. After all, as Dr. Ben always said, “Where are our Black seminaries?”
50BOLD: Exactly. I never thought of that: Where are our Black Seminaries? You are correct, and great question!
Kwesi: Right! Dr. Ben wrote a powerful book, Our Black Seminarians and Black Clergy Without a Black Theology. Anytime we see any church that still has a white Jesus on the wall, they are creating spiritual enslavement.
The Romans were corrupt. They were using Christianity for the spiritual enslavement of humanity, not for the spiritual salvation of humanity. They were using it as a weapon. It is still being used as a weapon today. They control the masses through a dogmatic belief that this is real.
50BOLD: So, there are these councils that create all of the religious ideologies that were actually plagiarized from the ancient Kemetic people?
Kwesi: Yes. In fact, with the ecumenical councils — they don’t like to talk about them because the believers wouldn’t believe anymore. The dogma that they got the people into – these were religious gangsters.
50BOLD: Religious gangsters! Love it, please continue!
Kwesi: These were religious gangsters who got together to formulate this whole thing; to get people to believe in all these ideologies. But in ancient Kemet, they carved everywhere. You go into temples, everywhere they carved the stories. That’s why they had to shut these temples down. There was such a fear.
50BOLD: Were they afraid that people would acquire this knowledge and then what?
Kwesi: They were afraid of the truth! They created a religion at these ecumenical councils from stories that were plagiarized from the books of stones in ancient Egypt. How can you have people believe it, if you have these books in stone? This is where they got it from. I take the people over there because I have the pictures. I take Western art and put it right up to the relief and brothers and sisters just gasp at seeing how clear it is.
That’s one of the things I loved about Dr. Ben. He went for the jugular vein of white supremacy.
50BOLD: Yes, he did!
Kwesi: Dr. Ben did not compromise; he was our warrior scholar. He did not tiptoe through the tulips! The temples will blow your mind, but it is the reliefs that are so powerful. This is where ideas came from, one after the other. So, when people say they went to Egypt and then say, “I didn’t see that.” Don’t expect tour guides to show you the reliefs. You have to go with someone who knows where these things are.
50BOLD: Are the tour guides in Egypt in the dark about this knowledge?
Kwesi: They’re in the dark because they are taught white supremacy Egyptology. If they do know, they don’t like to talk about it because they think it will offend the white tourists.
50BOLD: So, Baba Kwesi, you are having two tours this summer, can you elaborate?
Kwesi: Yes, we do two tours every summer. Brothers and sisters know what kind of tour they are going to get. They are going to be well-equipped. We make sure they have educational materials. They get our book and historical outlines. We have a great time!
We have lectures before we get to the sites. You are going to learn about the temples and tombs before you get there. And then I lecture at the sites.
50BOLD: I saw a clip on your website, where you asked for a soulmate, then the next year she appeared.
Kwesi: I sure did.
50BOLD: How did that happen? That was just phenomenal!
Kwesi: The year was 1991. I was still working with Dr. Ben, and walked through the temple, called Amen, the spiritual deity that we say our prayers to every night.
I said, ‘I’ve given praise to thee, I’ve given homage to thee, and now my enemies are all around me. I need a Neter Hem (divine wife) to be on my side.’ That’s when Merira came the next year with her family. We met on the trip. We started dating, I lived in Los Angeles. She lived in Dallas. It was a year later we went back to Kemet. Dr. Ben performed our marriage ceremony in the very temple that I asked for her.
50BOLD: Wow, that’s full circle and so amazing!
Kwesi: And never knowing that we would travel the world together. We do the tours together. I called on the prayers, and my prayers were answered.
50BOLD: Wow, that’s beautiful and Dr. Ben married you which is awesome! Baba Kwesi, how do you feel about the state of the Black church and Christianity in America and the African Diaspora? I recently heard on the news that Christianity is growing on the continent of Africa. Black folks all over the globe believe in this dogma of Christianity. Many of us are unaware that it was created by us and plagiarized by Europeans and others to claim as their own. We are so brainwashed. We are unaware that our ancient ancestors wrote the religion in books of stone thousands of years ago. We are the originators of Christianity. However, Europeans stole the information off the temple walls and turned everything into their own image. How are we going to help awaken our people to these facts?
Kwesi: Well, it’s an unfortunate thing. When I conduct my lectures, I compare them to a farmer. We can sit on our porch and there’s no food. Not until you get out there and start to plow the land will there be food.
I look at it from what I do best and plant the little seeds where I’m at. And the seeds will start to grow. And there are many who are out here disseminating this information on many different levels.
Kwesi: That’s why I’ve got to come with the visual documentation. The visual documentation is for people to think. People can believe what they want to believe. You do a comparative analysis and you put that Western art up to those reliefs, the brain is going to do, what it is supposed to do, and that is to think.
50BOLD: Yes, this is the only way. You remember things more with visual documentation and it’s easier to mentally connect the dots.
Kwesi: You remember things more and you understand a lot more. You see, we are literally turning pages of thousands of years. This is not something that happened yesterday. King Tut looked at the pyramids, just like you and I do today.
50BOLD: Really? Wait a minute, say this again!
Kwesi: King Tut looked at the pyramids just like we do. They were already over a thousand years old. Just to give us a reference of time.
50BOLD: Wow, I never heard it put quite that way.
Kwesi: One of the things we have lost is the chronology of time. The chronology of time itself. We have been trapped within a European time. They have circumscribed our circumference to think within a 2000-year time period.
This whole thing now that they just came up with – Happy New Year! Happy New Year!
But 2024? That is Augustus Caesar’s time when he defeated Mark Antony and Cleopatra. This is why they count time down – literally cut out the Kemetic time and start their time.
50BOLD: Yes, they cut it out. Exactly!
Kwesi: When you say 2024, you’re adhering to their time. When you look at the Kemetic time, we should be writing 6263. Going back to King Tutankhamun, he looked at the pyramids just like we do the Valley of the Kings. King Tut, he is a thousand years after those pyramids.
50BOLD: Wow, I did not know that. This is blowing my mind!
Kwesi: That’s pretty much how they have created the whole deification of themselves and Western Civilization. This is all we have ever known. And that’s what it is all about. We can’t know ourselves from what our oppressors tell us – we’ll never be free.
50BOLD: Baba Kwesi, how do you want to be remembered?
Kwesi: Well, I want to be remembered for what I do. As Dr. Clarke said, ‘Take what you do best and do it for your people.’ And this is all that I tried to do with my journeys with Dr. Ben, and over the years conducting the lectures and revealing this information.
I’d rather for people to remember the ancestral knowledge. I’m just one person. The knowledge is eternal. I just look at myself as the mouthpiece of the ancestors.
For more information about the Kemet Nu Tours to Egypt this summer: July 13 – 27 and July 29 – August 12; visit Kemet Nu Productions at https://www.kemetnu.com/, email [email protected] or call 214.371.0206.
