AfricaIs aCountry

T.I.A.* (Jersey Shore Edition)

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

T.I.A.* (Jersey Shore Edition)

By
Sean Jacobs

You’d never thought you’d see Ronnie and Pauli D from the MTV reality TV show “Jersey Shore” on This is Africa.*

One of my students, Thenera Bailey, (she blogs at New School Thoughts on Africa) forwarded me this picture she took of two of the characters from “Jersey Shore” fresh from watching the musical “The Lion King” on Broadway.   Thenera and two other students (Youssef Benlamlih and Hillary Lawton) were shooting a short video profile of a group of African immigrant artists making careers on Broadway when they spotted the ‘Shore characters .The wide eyed ‘Shore fans are Nomsa Mazwai, a singer and younger sister of Thandisa Mazwai (of South African-Zimbabwean group Bongo Maffin), and another South African, Ron Kunene, dialogue coach for The Lion King. Mazwai and Kunene are both subjects of the short video profile.  You can watch their short video here.

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.