AfricaIs aCountry

As-Salāmu Alaykum

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

As-Salāmu Alaykum

By
Sean Jacobs

[vimeo=http://vimeo.com/13045384 w=600&h=368]

This short clip of Brooklyn’s Mos Def, offering greetings while performing at the most recent edition of a Muslim-led arts festival held annually (in mid-July) on the southside of Chicago, is an appropriate choice to end our break of about 3 odd weeks. We’ll be getting slowly back into the swing of things.

* The footage, by the way, is from the soon-to-be released documentary film, “Takin it to the Streets Live, which focuses on the festival.

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.