AfricaIs aCountry

Friday Links

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

Friday Links

By
Sean Jacobs

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNWagG9U5Vg&w=500&h=300&rel=o]

“Who is the President of the United States of America?”  Side-splitting Nigerian comedy skit.

* The French clothing label, Africa is the Future. Including old man Melvin Van Peebles representing.

* Damon Galgut’s new novel, “In A Strange Land,” reviewed in The Guardian.  (Galgut’s made The Booker shortlist).

* There’s money to be made from gay weddings in South Africa. No surprises that is all about who can get married. It’s all about class and color. [The New York Times]

* If you’re in Cape Town, South Africa, next month diarize the annual Pan African Space Station music festival (September 12-October 12). Detroit dj Theo Parrish is scheduled to make an appearance. Good move.

* An excerpt from Andie Miller’s new book about walking in South Africa. In Hillbrow in inner city Johannesburg. Of course there’s nothing special about walking for the majority of South Africans (working class, mainly black, people), but everyone should be doing it. [EDIT: From Andie Miller: “A small correction–though I’ve just launched my collection of 34 ‘stories about walking,’ the Hillbrow piece isn’t an extract from the book … it’s just a review of the Goethe Institute’s X Homes project which was on a few weeks ago during the World Cup.]

Further Reading

No one should be surprised we exist

The documentary film, ‘Rolé—Histórias dos Rolezinhos’ by Afro-Brazilian filmmaker Vladimir Seixas uses sharp commentary to expose social, political, and cultural inequalities within Brazilian society.

Reading List: Barbara Boswell

While editing a collection of the writings of South African feminist Lauretta Ngcobo, Barbara Boswell found inspiration in texts that reflected Ngcobo’s sense that writing is an exercise of freedom.

Kenya’s stalemate

A fundamental contest between two orders is taking place in Kenya. Will its progressives seize the moment to catalyze a vision for social, economic, and political change?

An annual awakening

In the 1980s, the South African arts collective Vakalisa Art Associates reclaimed time as a tool of social control through their subversive calendars.

More than a building

The film ‘No Place But Here’ uses VR or 360 media to immerse a viewer inside a housing occupation in Cape Town. In the process, it wants to challenge gentrification and the capitalist logic of home ownership.