http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTa28a8QKo4 I haven’t heard Michael Kiwanuka‘s debut EP yet, but this song is promising, to say the least.

If you’re tired of the nonsense published in The New York Times or on the BBC website about yesterday’s local elections in South Africa or can’t bear the spin that will come from ANC (this points to widespread approval of its current leadership) or Democratic Alliance spin doctors (tripling your vote from 2% to 6% […]

Not only is Edgar Pieterse (from the African Centre for Cities) a prolific writer (read his recent City Futures, the African Cities Reader and Counter-Currents — these last two as an editor), he’s also a good speaker. This talk at L.S.E. dates from earlier this year. “Pieterse argues for a new way of thinking about […]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqgZEklDuF8 Some catchy, and barely tolerable, pop from JR–remember him from the kwaiti/dance hit ‘Make the Circle Bigger‘–featuring the anti-Waddy and very unserious rapper, Jack Parow, as well as a hook from a singer of the Afrikaans pop group, Die Heuwels Fantasies.

South Africans vote for new local councillors today. Once the spin and the electioneering clear, we’ll try and make sense of it as well as of the media coverage around here.

Benedicte Kurzen’s often graphic images of the recent (April 16) presidential elections in Nigeria and its aftermath–the elections were won by Goodluck Jonathan. At last count, more than 200 people were dead and nearly 40,000 people displaced in post-election violence. The full series here

New video for South African Tumi and The Volume’s ‘Asinamali’. You know what ‘Asinamali’ stands for, right?

Voltz‘s reading of Johannesburg. A first track and video from his upcoming album ‘Revolt’.

Finally a teaser for the film “Skoonheid,” by Cape Town director, Oliver Hermanus, is now online. Billed as the first Afrikaans film to compete at the Cannes Film Festival, the film also finally screened earlier today at Cannes. That means the first mainstream reviews are in. They’re mixed. Here are some excerpts from the reviews […]