http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvdU5R7ywQ4

It must be the weather. Something (“Everlasting Gobstopper,” released in 2008) from the brothers, Daniel and Danny Chavis, better known as Apollo Heights. * That’s the name of their 2007 LP on which Mos Def, among others, was a guest.

Hosni Mubarak is gone. The hard questions–that Omar Suleiman and the military stand aside for an interim government and democratic elections; the hard work of dismantling a repressive, bloated, corrupt, state machinery; will Egyptians be left alone, and be supported, as they now set about constructing their own future(s) without regard to the West’s “strategic […]

The 1985 Arnold Schwarzenegger action flick “Commando” is narrated–“shot for shot”–by a 9-year old Tanzanian boy. (The video is is part of a campaign by a US-based NGO; forget the politics, just indulge in the joy of children). Via Boing Boing

The Chicago-born jazz musician Matana Roberts, performing live in London late last year. If you don’t take our word, here, here and here are some mainstream endorsements. In the video she is accompanied by Robert Mitchell (piano), Tom Mason (bass) and Seb Rochford (drums). H/T Greg Tate

The trailer for “Black Butterflies,” the new Dutch film about the 1960s Afrikaans writer, Ingrid Jonker, is out. Jonker came to prominence when Nelson Mandela at his inauguration as South Africa’s first democratic president, quoted her poem, “Die Kind” [The Child]. She committed suicide in 1965. The film which covers Jonker’s affairs with publisher Jack […]

This is from a minute ago, but I had to post it as it features part of my neighborhood. Wright, actor and unassuming Fort Greene, Brooklyn, resident (that’s also my neighborhood) reads his favorite Walt Whitman poem (from his blackberry) in front of the Walt Whitman Houses on Myrtle Avenue in the neighborhood. The reading […]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwrpX3wMD2o The music video for a new song by Nigerian rapper/R&B singer D’Banj featuring Snoop Dogg that went online yesterday. The usual quota of hired cars, half-dressed models and money rolls follow the two showmen. The song title is a form of high poetry: “So Endowed.”  Is this male fantasy, “The New Black Atlantic“?  Commenters […]

http://vimeo.com/19132287 Video of the Burnt Sugar Arkestra performing live January 21, 2011, in New York City. Source.

[vodpod id=Video.5523753&w=500&h=411&fv=file%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Ffr.player-feed.previewnetworks.com%2Fv3.1%2Fcinema%2F5444%2F331100125-1%2F] Director Pascale Lamche’s got some help from Peter Mukurube (that’s him putting Sepp Blatter on the spot in the video), Anas Aremeyaw Anas and ‘Basile’ for her new documentary Black Diamond: Fool’s Gold. From the press release: It’s an old story: in the past, it was known as the slave trade, now it’s […]

Cape Town/Atlanta singer Lindiwe Suttle and Abbot Network, performing “Sweet like Butta,” for the online Taxijam series. (BTW, we’ve featured Suttle on AIAC before.)

Gasper Nali is one of the musicians featured in the 2009 Deep Roots Malawi documentary. I haven’t seen the documentary yet (and I’m sure it could do without the dubious ‘heart of Africa’, ‘undiscovered’ and ‘lost heritage’) but Nkhata Bay sure sounds attractive. Especially on a Sunday afternoon. H/T: Bart Deweer

“Running Cola is Africa!” (1968), a black and white plotter drawing by Masao Kohmura, Koji Fujino, Makoto Ohtake. “A computer algorithm converts a running man into a bottle of cola, which in turn is converted into the map of Africa.” The owners are the Sprengel Museum in Hannover, Germany. Via compArt daDA. * This is […]

A graphic novel probably doesn’t come more timely than Dutch comic artist Milan Hulsing’s City of Clay (“Stad van Klei”): The book follows the misadventures of civil servant Salem and his descent into madness when he starts labouring on an elaborate scheme that involves the creation of an entire imaginary town and its police force. While personally collecting the […]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs2Uw6nIZVs&w=500&h=307&rel=0] Late last year, jazz saxophonist James Moody passed away. Here’s Moody in 1989–live with Dizzy Gillespie’s United Nations Orchestra–doing the tune mostly associated with his career, “Moody Mood for Love.” And if you want to know how the song came about, watch and listen here.

[vodpod id=Video.5478025&w=500&h=411&fv=] Letta Mbulu performing “Music Man” on the American TV show, Soul Train, in 1977. (You can hear her husband, and main collaborator, Caiphas Semenya, on the backing track.)

Everyone wants in on the revolution in Egypt. Video for American rappers Jasiri X and M-1 of Dead Prez’s just released ode to the protesters in Tahrir Square.

NEWSWEEK [magazine]’s Christopher Dickey chats with [Nawal El-Saadawi]the octogenarian author and activist who refused to go home when protests in Cairo turned violent [when Mubarak’s thugs attacked protesters].

Following the release of “Love and Death”, Ebo Taylor is touring in Europe these days. Although the album was recorded with the Berlin-based Afrobeat Academy, during this tour he is backed by Bonze Konkoma. Don’t miss it. The above video was shot in January 2010 during a string of performances with the Afrobeat Academy in […]