[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHxFJgqicZw&w=560&h=349] Charlie Ahearn’s new documentary of Brooklyn photographer Jamal Shabazz screening on June 26 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

I don’t know much about South African musician Fifi the Rai Blaster but I like this song, and the video. Watch out for more music put out by the Johannesburg label Iapetus Records.

I recently missed out on seeing a special screening (at BAM in Brooklyn) of “Restless City,” the new film by Andrew Dosunmu, “… the story of Djibril, an Africa immigrant surviving on the fringes of New York City where music is his passion, life is a hustle, and falling in love is his greatest risk.” […]

Georgr Steinmetz’s Africa. Watch it here. More on Steinmetz here.

Riveting piece of journalism in this weekend’s New York Times Magazine as well as an accompanying video piece (narrated by correspondent Barry Bearak) on the ordinary murder of a Zimbabwean migrant and widespread mob “justice” in Diepsloot, a squatter camp to the north of Johannesburg. The piece is generally good.  As one friend remarked: “To […]

Vanity Fair’s June issue has a profile. of Hillary Clinton. It contains tons of information about her working relationship with President Barack Obama, how she made up with Samantha Power, the Obama ally and Harvard professor, who referred to Mrs Clinton as “a monster,” speculates on Clinton running for President in 2016 (she still wants […]

Mayer Hawthorne featuring guitarist Dennis Coffey.

I reread that infamous 2010 New Yorker profile. of Gil Scott Heron earlier today. I was struck by the conclusion where Scott Heron tells reporter Alec Wilkinson about a novel he wants to write: I have a novel that I can write … It’s about three soldiers from Somalia. Some babies have been disappearing up […]

One of the highlights of a recent trip to Istanbul–dominated by run-ins with operatives of a secretive Turkish political group–was a quick stop at the Istanbul Modern. What I remember most were a set of photographs taken in the 1960s in East and West Africa by the legendary photographer, Goksin Sipahioglu. This link takes you […]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozL1rmcI-eY&w=560&h=349] Linton Kwesi Johnson exhorting us to slow down a bit.

The Very Best–a collaboration of Esau Mwamwaya and Radioclit–has a new mixtape. It came out a few weeks ago. It is still good for Africa Day. Download it here.