Remember when famed DJ and tastemaker, Diplo, got mad at Africa is a Country’s Boima for a post Boima did about global dance music and cultural appropriation? (Click here for the post and scroll down for Diplo’s outbursts). Anyway, Okayplayer’s Eddie ‘Stats’ Houghton (check out his Large Up blog btw) got the two to sit […]
In Durban, South Africa, “shackdwellers are taking their municipality to court. The government evicted poor residents from their homes … [in order to allow the construction of a road] … and threw them into transit camps, where they live ‘like a fish in a tin’, waiting for more permanent housing that never comes. [One of […]
The debates about the misrepresentation of Africa in the international art community as well as privileging diaspora artists over those working in the continent, rages on.
Not only is it Human Rights Day in South Africa today (read up on its meaning by searching our archive for ‘Sharpeville’), this day 22 years ago also saw Namibia wrestle itself officially free from the same Apartheid claws that were responsible for the massacre in Sharpeville. Which makes it a day both to remember […]
It's a shame that a player had to suffer from a heart attack to provoke feelings of belonging about him as a refugee and immigrant. It says something about Britain.
Youngsta built a reputation on doing “straight up Cape Town hip hop,” but his recent output suggests he is now appealing to mainstream audiences.
Vanessa Branson stands, hands on hips, her loosely hanging skirt tails give her the figure of a Western women making modest concessions to the predictable inquisitive gaze of an Arabic polis. Her trainers are burnished gold — a playful note — and what you wouldn’t be forgiven for calling “ethnic jewellery” is slung around her […]
My latest list of new African films or films with African topics. From now on I’ll start numbering them. So this is N°1. This list include “The Ambassador,” a Western set in Namibia, a sort of sequal to “eLollipop” and a documentary about Kenya’s version of “America’s Best Dance Crew.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd6W5jjOgRA Mokobe commentates on the actions of Rihannon, Naomi Campboule, Rachida Beckham and friends over a Coupé-Decalé riddim. The music production is pretty standard, but the video is at least funny. Update (3/19): Following heated reactions from fans, Mokobe took down the music video. In vague terms, he explains why he decided to do so […]
Between them Wayne Marshall and Martin Murray pointed me to these 2 panels at the recent the American Geographical Association, which took place recently here in New York City.
Another tune off the Tony Allen—Damon Albarn—Flea conglomerate project Rocket Juice & The Moon. “Follow-Fashion” plays like a horn-flanked afrobeat progression, featuring heavy slap bass from Flea, Damon on the vertical piano, sensuous croons from Mali’s Fatoumata Diawara and verses from Accra MC M.anifest.
Young Philippe Ndour is the nephew of Senegalese pop star Youssou Ndour. And just like his uncle and his mother he wants to be a pop singer (see his Justin Bieber impression here). And like his uncle, Philippe dabbles in politics, though Philippe is starting young. The second round of presidential elections between President Abdoulaye Wade (he […]
We want to step off #Kony2012 (we promise to lay off them by this weekend), but we could not let this one pass. We know that Jason wants a career in musical theater. The writers of British broadcaster and satirist Charlie Brooker’s nightlyweekly commentary on Channel 4’s weekly satire show ’10 O’Clock Live’ spent some […]
Zachary Rosen, a former Peace Corps official, describes his favorite photographs to us.
Oprah, like Kristof, turns a personal desire to help sufferers of abuse into a more than acceptable African development program.
Kefee (from Nigeria) and Becca (from Ghana) bring their version of ‘Dan Maliyo’. Pop and play as we like it.
A number of comedy videos lampooning Kony 2012 are making the rounds on social media. Some are funny, some are asinine.
It has come to this. Musicians, especially rappers, had to wade in on the American social media campaign to "Make Kony Famous."
In this video, about a week old, American R&B singer Ne-Yo (if you don’t know who he is) tells VLAD-TV (definition: “the TMZ of hip hop”) that his wife is a “bleeding heart.”
Actor Djimon Hounsou doesn't take his own advice about the media he makes about Africa.