When Tendai Maraire broke down his Chimurenga Renaissance mixtape for us last year, he said about “It’s Time For You To Go”, a song inspired by a family visit to Zimbabwe (“driving down the street bumping Biggie’s ‘Juicy’”): “Young Maraire Boys being crazy at home.” Toronto, Canada-based Zambian artist Chansa recently released his debut single, […]

Ken Norton, the champion professional boxer who died this week, also had a long, though not equally distinctive, career as an actor. He will, however, be remembered for one role: that of a slave prize fighter, Mede, in the 1975 film, “Mandingo,” described variously by critics as a compelling slice of American Gothic and “a poor man’s […]

Shortly before the release of Ghana-born emcee Blitz the Ambassador’s “The Warm Up” EP, we reached out to him to discuss his career and the aspects involved in the making of the album. He described the EP as a a teaser for what is to come on “Afropolitan Dreams”, his third offering since 2009’s “Stereotype” […]

Zimbabwe makes a good story for western writers and readers. The staggering racism of the Rhodesian whites, the heroic liberation uprising, and Mugabe; a freedom fighter not unlike Nelson Mandela, who having spent more than a decade in prison, won the first democratic election and immediately called for racial reconciliation. Then, from the late ‘90s, […]