Demba Ba has a habit of falling to his knees post-goal and praying.

New Zealand is often sold to prospective (mostly white) South African immigrants as “South Africa 30 years ago” (wink, wink). That version of an Edenic idyll is not entirely what a young South African found New Zealand to be recently in a local version of Occupy Wall Street in Dunedin. In a scene captured by […]

No, this is not about the anxieties of Niall Ferguson. Anthropologist John Comaroff spoke at The Graduate Institute in Geneva about the themes that lie at the heart of (the introduction to) the latest book he co-wrote with Jean Comaroff, and which carries the same title as the lecture: ‘Theory from the South: Or, How […]

Senegal-born, Kuwait-raised musician and artist Fatima Al Qadiri just premiered her new EP, “Genre-Specific Xperience,” in New York. The project consists of 5 songs each with corresponding video. Above is “Vatican Vibes” which features “Gregorian trance.” As Jody Graf writes in Clustermag, Al Qadiri’s introduction to Gregorian trance “… came in the passenger seat of […]

Remember the Mapping Stereotypes Project and the Afrographique project? (The former maps popular national stereotypes from around the world, while the latter turns any set of data about the continent into a graphic, including a series of maps.) A reader of this blog points us towards this “map” of stereotypes that’s been circulating online among […]

By Abdourahman Waberi Released only a week ago, ‘Intouchables’ the film (by Eric Toledano & Olivier Nakache, France, length: 1h52min) is having the most amazing success in France since Harry Potter hit. Supported by a duo of fantastic actors: François Cluzet playing Philippe (a while billionnaire paralyzed in a wheelchair) and Omar Sy as Driss […]

By Basia Lewandowska Cummings We British are very good at honoring the dead. Last Friday Prime Minister David Cameron, his deputy Nick Clegg et al attended the annual Remembrance Day ceremony; our political elite competed to appear most sombre, respectful. Central London was peppered with war memorials–heavy sculptures in dark metals, the lists of names […]

Girl Power is big among female West African pop singers.  Or so recent music videos suggest. We’ve featured Goldie Harvey and Lousika (Ghana) here before. Now here’s two more. First up is Ghanaian Efya with “Sexy Sassy Wahala,” from the soundtrack of 10-part Ghanaian movie “Adams Apple“: Next up is Nigerian singer Zara Gretti: