Africa Is a Country

tom-devriendt

343 Articles by:

Tom Devriendt

Tom Devriendt was an editorial board member of Africa is a Country before there was an editorial board.

Website

R.I.P. Cesária Évora

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yffEiWHIoZI&w=600&h=349] This morning, Cape Verdean singer Cesária Évora passed away in Mandelo, São Vicente, the island were she was born. One of the many meanings of "Sodade" -- that most difficult to translate Creole word -- is a feeling of loss.

Music Break. Friday Bonus Edition

Ploughing through the blog's archives to come up with a fair selection of ten videos for next week's year-end lists, I wondered why we haven't written about the Congolese Salaam Kivu All Stars. Things went well in Goma, Kivu during the elections last week. A year ago, youth and media organization Yole! Africa staged the SKIFF festival in Goma (where they also shot the first video below), and they were planning to do so again this year. 'Saisir l'Avenir' means as much as 'to seize the Future.' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K6QIZp2a6U Get ready for a work out. Angolans The Shine and Portugal's Throes do "kuduru rock": http://youtu.be/B49G8KLsH1Q Okay, after that workout, we can slow down. Nice 10 minute live set by James Farm, the American "acoustic jazz quartet" consisting of saxophonist Joshua Redman, pianist Aaron Parks, bassist Matt Penman, and drummer Eric Harland. Recorded at The Jazz Standard. http://youtu.be/9dG6MvsTqiE And 18 minutes (also recorded live at The Jazz Standard) of Ambrose Akinmusire and his Orchestra: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNRqk5WygpM Finally, we had this one on our Facebook page earlier this week. Tamikrest backstage at a music festival in Switzerland: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHS2Uo4-laQ&feature=share

Kenya Independence Day

Three Kenyan videos to remember today's Independence Day. Three popular tunes for our Independence meme. A 'celebration' of sorts turned out to be a useful lead for the first two. Madtraxx's 'Ida Waiter' (with a nod to South African kwaito and that Prodigy video): http://youtu.be/-fAy5emjN98 Camp Mulla's making a buzz lately. What with 'Party Don't Stop': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awrbsMeL3F8 And Mejja's going where few other popular Kenyan artists dare to go in 'Landlord' -- talking politics ("usiniharibie siku bana landlord"): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPWuXmvIaIo

Helping Themba

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJHGTYOUg3Q

The Dutch 'Stop Aids Now!' campaigns have a long tradition of appealing to potential donors in Holland's streets. November and December are the months the posters and TV ads pop up (around World Aids Day on December 1, coinciding with the arrival of Saint Nicholas and his Black Petes, and the ensuing spending spree) -- staple NGO tactics this time of year. With governments slashing their international aid budgets, the street is where NGOs will need to scrape their money together. So you tell the Dutch that African kids "Mary and Neema don't know how to prevent AIDS, but you do." Or you show them (as in the video above) that while Dutch Alex wants a video game and Esther and Kim want a skippy ball, Themba wants to know "whether kissing will make you HIV positive," and that "Ayanna wants a long and healthy life." A reader suggested it was a rather patronizing and regressive campaign. She's being too kind.

Car Commercials and Primitive Peoples

http://vimeo.com/33161098 It could have been just another dull TV ad featuring an Inca boy, Maori warriors, or Maasai dancers--heck, why not throw them all in there--and filed as such in the archives of car-plows-through-exotic-river-bed commercials. But then we find out through this making-of clip "no Indian was hurt during the shoot" (around the 3:00 mark: "...nenhum índio foi ferido na filmagem"). So, now this commercial becomes something else. It becomes a reminder of Brazil's past and present fraught with racial discrimination and we forget what the ad was trying to sell.

GAL draws Africa

71-year-old GAL draws a weekly cartoon for the Belgian magazine Knack.* More of his 2011 work related to Africa below. All speak for themselves, except maybe for the last one in which Belgian politician Bart De Wever (leader of the country's biggest party) tells the man at his feet to "take his own responsibility" (a favorite line of his). *We've featured some of GAL's cartoons before.

Massalia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRwz-flV2dE French IAM member Akhenaton and Faf Larage (brother to other IAM rapper Shurik'n) clearly had fun producing their We Luv New York album this year. They make videos too. We'll give you a full translation of the lyrics another day; let's say they puncture the glary images of the French Riviera nicely.