Paulo Flores’s Ex-Combatentes
The Angolan singer's new album deals with war in the widest sense: war with the self, war with family, neighbors, friends.
Culture
This sea shall be uprooted
Makoko, in Lagos, with over 100, 000 residents, is viewed as a shantytown. There’s more to it. This is the destruction of a community.
The most interesting bits
Kaleidoscope magazine has done an "Africa" issue; it wants to walk a fine line between identity politics and universalism.
The Decade of Film
I participated in Sight & Sound's once-a-decade poll of the greatest films of all time. I included at least two African films: "Borom Sarrett" and "Mapantsula." Hopefully, they make the cut.
Take The A Train
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHRbEhLj540 I’ve recently taken on a new daily commute from Bed-Stuy to Harlem via the A Train. This route, once celebrated in song by Duke Ellington, was and remains famous for connecting New York’s two largest and most historical Black Communities. Today, both communities retain their importance as cultural nodes for the descendents of Black migrants from […]
Winter List: Festivals in Southern Africa
While some in the virtual AIAC office have been putting together their summer lists, I thought I’d keep it real and put up a winter list. (Yes, it’s winter here in South Africa.) If you ever get tired of summer in the Northern hemisphere, this list is for you. While this is by no means […]
Reading List: Lily Saint
The author, a regular contributor, summarizes four new books she's been reading.
Cargoland
Romuald Hazoumé reminds us that like the perishing oil reserves being plumbed in Africa and around the world, water may soon also be fiercely fought over.
Wet Hot African Summer
We’ve scoured the web to bring you the best and worst romance, adventure, intrigue, and kinky fantasies Africa has to offer.
Credit Credit Art
The London Olympics, the Africa Utopia symosium and London's "Festival of the World with Mastercard."
Summer in Paris
In what may be the last in a while of my posts highlighting the latest in French music culture, here's a list of tunes for the northern summer.
The Summer List
For our traveling readers , here are a list of Africa-related exhibitions and readings this summer taking place in a wide range of cities around the world.
Summer in the City
The pick of summer 2012's shows and parties in New York City.
Family Matters
Does it matter whether the hip-hop artist Ismael Sankara is related to the great Burkinabe leader, Thomas Sankara?
Silent Elections
http://vimeo.com/26876381 This is a bit older, but still worth watching. Above is a short clip from ‘Silent Elections’, a 40 min. documentary film Belgian video artist Sarah Vanagt produced in 2009. In the opening scene, she explains how “[in] 2005, I met Tonton (15), Dodo (14), and Daniel (12), three street children living on the […]
Chop Cassava
Five filmmaking collectives from the African continent that are reinterpreting and reinvigorating notions of collaboration and distribution.
Madala Kunene for all seasons
Kunene’s compositions don’t necessarily have a benchmark to conform to, but instead reveal the continuous state of transcendence his music takes.
Friday Bonus Music Break, N°16
Above is how people keep warm in Johannesburg winters. And below is what you hope to bounce to during long summer nights.
The abundance of black fashion
Senegalese designer, Adama Paris, organizer of Dakar Fashion Week, gives her opinion on the representation of African designs and designers in the fashion industry.
Utopia Unstuck
Africa-focused sci-fi films redirects science fiction so that it becomes a fissure in which new subjects can be seen and heard. One question, however, is who makes these films.