M'bwebwe is a community of artists and creative people who crossed paths in the lower east side of Manhatten.

M'bwebwe doorway 23 2nd ave. N.Y.C.

The M'bwebwe painters and poets originally met while attending Kent State University in the U.S. state of Ohio in the mid-1970s. They include painters David Wayne Cole, Thomas David Little (1955-2006), and James F. Quinlan, sculptor Christopher Cosma, computer artist Jeff Brice, and multi-media artists Peter Brill and Mark Bloch. The group soon grew to include others including Douglas Ferguson, Sylvia Sherry, Susan Cole, Lauren Silver, Nan Truitt and John Fletcher, among others.
The word M'bwebwe does not in itself mean anything. It was uttered at random one day, although who uttered it is now forgotten, when it was time to select a name for a particular event and it stuck. It has since come to represent a place, and more notably a group of artists.
In 1978, M'bwebwe began as an art space at 23 Second Avenue on Manhattan's Lower East Side. The living quarters and studios, located above a Jewish monument store in a former B'nai B'rith meeting hall, soon became a defacto exhibition space, dance club and neighborhood hangout that garnered attention by hipsters and cognoscenti around the rapidly changing area soon to be known as the East Village. ( Mark Bloch) See wikipedia entry..wikipedia.org/wiki/M%27bwebwe

Jim Quinlan and Tom Little M'bwebwe rooftop 1981

Tom Little Mbweha graphics t-shirt