A reader: ‎$1 billion for an election and you’d think ballots would be delivered, on time, and at the right places. Now it’s April 9 for parliamentary polls, April 16 for presidential elections and April 26 for governorship and state assembly polls, if [election commissioner] Attahiru Jega is to be believed. To keep up with […]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK_u-AAIYUM Today is Senegal’s independence day. Carlou D transformed himself from the rapper he was in Didier Awadi’s band Positive Black Soul to the singer-songwriter (supporting for Youssou N’Dour) he is these days, and did so in style. Although we’re still waiting for his new album ‘Audiovisa’ to come out, this song, ‘Ligueye’, should be […]

Lawrence Lemaoana is one of 13 South African artists selected by curator Daniella Géo for the exhibition “Reconstruções: arte contemporânea da África do Sul” [Reconstructions: Contemporary Art from South Africa] running until 15 May at the Brazilian Niterói Contemporary Art Museum (yes, that Oscar Niemeyer building). One day they’ll organize an exhibition on contemporary South African […]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLmUf9MgXcI The political scientist, Siba Grovogui, based at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, interviewed about two months ago.

Writer Mike Pflanz and photographer Brendan Bannon’s new site Daily Dispatches: Nairobi “… is an innovative exploration through photojournalism of a fast-evolving 21st-century African city, unfolding day by day in real time.” Pflanz, a Brit, and Bannon, an American, “will spend each day of April searching out stories from all corners of Kenya’s capital, stories […]

Seven plus minutes of your life you’ll never get back. Stella Mwangi with “Haba Haba,”Norway’s entry in this year’s Eurovision Contest coming in May. Then there’s Costa Theodorou aka Stony Boy, “a Swazi hip hop artist who moved to Cyprus where he is signed under Badness records … currently performing underground all over London.”

There’s a labor dispute between the NFL, which runs American football, and players (the fight is really about about greedy owners trying to make lots more money at the players’ expense). This means players have time on their hands. Chad Ochochinco (friend of Kaka and Ronaldo) briefly tried his hand at a career in professional […]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcnxMgGhcOo I love the retro-feel and easy flow of this hiplife tune, “Faithful,” by Okyeame Kwame featuring Bertha. Here’s a rough transcript of the lyrics. Via Afroklectic

On Monday a new book on Malcolm X by the American intellectual and historian Manning Marable will come out. On Friday night Marable passed away. Though Marable, based until his passing at Columbia University, is less well-known outside the US, he started his career with a PhD dissertation on the South African political leader, John […]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKOwDQcPwbs Selling desperate people false hope, especially AIDS patients, are common on the African continent–well documented in my native country, South Africa–now there’s this “faith healer” in Tanzania who has people in East Africa traveling thousands of miles for a homebrewed drink that he claims can cure AIDS, cancer, diabetes, and other “incurable diseases.” There’s […]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yGkJsR7-HY] The Guardian’s John Vidal reports from Ethiopia’s remote Gambella region where in the last 10 years “1.1 million hectares, nearly a quarter of its best farmland” have been sold or leased to foreign companies by the Ethiopian government. The Ethiopian government says 36 countries including India, China, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have leased farm […]