[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1jFThFnGTY&w=600&h=373] Last week in Bolinas, CA, my friend, Kora McNaughton (she lives in Santiago), got me onto the music of Chilean rapper Ana Tijoux. (Interview–in English–from 2010 here.) I have her new album (a gift) to prove it. Too bad I won’t be in the city Monday night when Ana Tijoux performs at SOB’s.
Journalists in South Africa are picking up on how the film, "The Bang Bang Club," treats some of the Bang Bang Club's black colleagues. And other Weekend Specials.
The oldest republic in Africa, Liberia–formed in 1847–celebrates its independence today. Chances are Dumyarea, the song we wrote about earlier will pump from stereos and in cars, but there’s more. Right now you have two major styles Gbema and Hipco (the co is for Colloquial), and sometimes they mix. All of the songs on youtube are […]
Cape Town-based Driemanskap’s ‘I will make it’ is not new, but the video for the track is. We threw 5 questions to Damian Stephens, founding partner of Pioneer Unit Records, the independent hip hop label to which Driemanskap is signed. He is also a music producer (as Dplanet) and one half of an audiovisual ‘band’ […]
Music video for the Cape Town band, The Plastics. They worked with Gordon Raphael, who also produces for The Strokes. The story goes that they just emailed him and told him they loved his work, as a long shot. Raphael had seen another South African band, BLK JKS, perform in New York City and liked them enough […]
Journalist/photographer Chris Parkinson, who lives in Johannesburg, has shot this short film about car spinning in the city. Invited by a fellow photographer, who is also a spinner, he headed out to Nasrec, a racing track on the edge of Soweto. “What I loved about the event is that it seemed to be completely mixed, […]
The documentary “Dear Mandela,” about three young leaders of a shack dwellers movement in Durban, South Africa, is finally here. The film will premiere at Durban International Film Festival–the first screening is on the 26th July. According to filmmakers, Dara Kell and Christopher Nizza, the film will also embark on a national tour in South […]
Photographer Lizane Louw chronicles the people of Blikkiesdorp, a temporary relocation camp on Cape Town's Cape Flats.
South Africa’s first democratic president is 93 years old today. The artwork is a collaboration between the two Dutch artists Anton Corbijn and Berend Strik. (Via: ZAM Magazine) * It would be appropriate to click through to our February 11, 2010 post “Songs for Nelson Mandela” (on the 10th anniversary of Mandela’s release of Mandela). […]
Some rural flavor from Hambale, Zambia. Filmed by David Tree. H/T: Adrian Bischoff.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yD2ZHiGmws8&w=600&h=373] The program of selected films and documentaries for this year’s Rwanda Film Festival going down this weekend and next week at the KWETU Film Institute in Kigali is an eclectic bunch (amongst many others, there is Na Wewe, Le Mec Idéal and Afrique en Marche). One of the documentaries I hope to see sometime […]
Kwa Heri Mandima (Goodbye Mandima) is a short film by the French-Dutch director Robert-Jan Lacombe doing multiple film festival rounds over the last year. Born in 1986 in Mandima, Robert-Jan — and his family — left Mandima, the village in northeast Congo (then still Zaire) ten years later. A short interview with the director (in […]
Baloji is back in North America, and while we’re a little late on the draw, you can still catch him in a few cities this summer. Two dates in Quebec (tonight and tomorrow night) and the final show in Los Angeles on July 16th. Here.
A film about former Liberian child soldier, Joshua Milton Blahyi, adds to his celebrity and his reputation as a skilled manipulator.
In hoods in 1980s South Africa, 20-cent pieces were used to play the old bootleg arcade games at corner stores. It also inspired a clothing label.
Young people in Monrovia create a new music genre. Junior Freeman is at the heart of this musical revolution.
Goldie’s allusions to madness typify a common theme present in the music of many of today’s successful female artists.
Pop culture is often at its best when it accurately reflects reality, so it’s no surprise that our music, like our history, is repeating itself.
One in ten young people on Cape Town's Cape Flats finish high school. The highlight of their school career - and sometime their lives - is prom, known as the matric ball.
The leftist and poet Jeremy Cronin speaks on identity politics and race in South Africa's second city, Cape Town.