http://vimeo.com/18671156 Zimbabwean rapper/MC/poet UpMost aka My Brother’s Keeper shares his ‘Lost for Words’, recorded in Harare by Magee McIlvaine for Nomadic Wax. – Tom Devriendt

The writer Edouard Glissant has died. Glissant, a native of Martinique, citizen of France, was known for his work on African identity in the Caribbean and on French colonialism. He was also a poet. He died yesterday, aged 83, in Paris. The video, above, is an extract of a film, “Making History,” with Glissant and […]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvCjZ6gThyY&w=500&h=307&rel=0] The video for the Dominican merengue singer, Rita Indiana‘s “El Juidero,” the title track of her October 2010 release. The video for the song (a narrative about escaping to Puerto Rico), “… plays like a short film, a 1970s crime movie fantasy with heavy doses of “El Malo”-era Fania style, real-life Dominican political intrigue,” […]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKPeN3ZNCOE Google’s new Art Project makes use of the street-view technology to take us by the hand through some of the better known museums around the world. There’s the Tate Britain and The National Gallery in London, the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, the Uffizi in Florence. There’s Prague, Berlin, Washington […]

Dated, but still worth a look. Interview with the 2010 Caine Prize finalists.

Dutch website profiles Harlem-based singer Somi (of Rwandan and Ugadan descent, raised in downstate Illinois).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j7-T50Lr3A&w=500&h=307&rel=0] Salif Keita performs his standard “Folon” live on Dutch TV in March 2010.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FC_6PDuJRXs#!&w=500&h=307&rel=0] I am looking out for the documentary film, “An African Election” by the director Jarreth Merz. The film covers the dramatic events surrounding Ghana’s 2008 presidential elections. The election was only the second time–since Ghana ended military rule in 1992–that power would change hands through an election. Following a run-off, the two top candidates–the ruling party’s […]

Novelist (and New School professor) Siddhartha Deb in an interview with Jeffrey Errington for The Quarterly Conversation:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yl5LaocojO4&w=500&h=307&rel=0] The music video for “Die Heuwels Fantasies” by South African (Afrikaans) band, Noorderlig. I am more into the video than I’m into the music–Sean Jacobs.

Political economist Hein Marais’ 1998 book, “South Africa Limits to Change: The Political Economy of Transition,” is a classic of the late 1990s. I have described Marais before, on this blog, as “… one of the trenchant critics of South Africa’s [political and economic] transition,” and the book “a masterpiece.” This past week Marais’ follow-up […]

The writer Teju Cole (remember him from the Africa’s World Cup panel at The New School and his excellent, short novella about Lagos, “Every Day for the Thief“) was recently featured in The New York Times’ T Magazine in a short feature on new “first time novelists.” Teju Cole, 35 ‘‘Open City’’ (Random House, $25) […]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtQfB3V-vd4&feature=player_embedded&w=500&h=307&rel=0] Disney goes on safari on the “Dark Continent” in 1945. No comment. Via New School Thoughts on Africa.

If you haven’t seen this documentary (trailer above) on South African artist William Kentridge yet, take your time for it. William Kentridge: Anything is Possible is the first in a series of Art21-produced features focusing on contemporary art and artists. Kentridge, as always, captures the essence of recent and less recent times: “This extraordinary nonsense […]