Uploading Revolution in Senegal
A new film makes the case that a combination of hip-hop, new media technology, globalization and youth energy inspired Y’en a Marre.
Culture
Who gets the last laugh, again?
There is something out there that we can identify as “really” European or “really” African, is essentially what the ancestry testing industry is selling.
‘Tribal’ Reality Television
A Dutch TV channel created a fictive African 'tribe' for a reality TV show about 'Africa.' It employed an actual Namibian ethnic group to do the job. When will this end?
If This Is Banter
The Newcastle United defender, Steven Taylor, is another no-nonsense (racist) English centre-half.
Weekend Music Break 61
Your weekly collection of new tunes and videos — this week from Zambia, Ghana, Jamaica, Mali, South Africa and the Netherlands, but first: Congo. This year’s Salaam Kivu International Film Festival (SKIFF), which took place in Goma in July, had as its theme “Agizo ya Lumumba — Justice”. The festival’s program included film screenings and dance/media/music workshops around the Justice theme and the following video by the same title, featuring Doris, Dak2, Black Man, DMD, BIN-G, Babu, Wanny S-king, Dj Couleur, M-Chris, Nathan, Jobson Madibo, Darsana, Fal-G, Gaius Kowene and Willy Ston, is a great product of that.
Trailers are mini movies
Netta Kornberg watches movie trailers, so you don't have to. This edition: 'Mr. Pip,' 'Captain Phillips' and '12 Years A Slave.'
Hollywood Pelé
The news that a major studio is bankrolling a film about the Brazilian Pele, contender for greatest player of all time.
P-Square are Investigative Journalists
For a while now we’ve been toying with the idea of starting a Tumblr called “Shit The Nigerian Elite Wastes Nigeria’s Money On.” Since the country’s vast piles of cash are certainly not being spent on decent public health or education, improving the woeful national power supply or preventing planes from falling out of the sky, the super-rich in Nigeria have got to spend it on something.
Weekend Music Break 60
Wherever the sun is in the sky, it’s the right time for new music. Here’s this week’s collection. French producer Débruit’s entrancing beats act as a surprisingly strong compliment to Sudanese singer Alsarah’s mesmerizing vocals. Gorgeous otherworldly visuals in the video for “Jibal Alnuba” off the two artists’ new collaboration album aljawal الجوال (The Traveler), blend […]
Reimagining Ghana’s Cinemaspace
Ghanaian-American filmmaker Akosua Adoma Owusu wants to foster a new wave of Ghanaian experimental filmmakers.
Weekend Music Break 59
Oddisee (real name: Amir Mohamed El Khalifa; he has a Sudanese dad) is on tour in Europe this month, so go check him out if you’re anywhere close. Details and dates here. He also has a new video out: Zimbabwe-born, South London-raised Eska Mtungwazi gives us these visuals for her new work: Uganda-born Jaqee (real […]
Boogie Down Nima in the Bronx
Recognition of the contributions to the New York cultural landscape by African immigrants remains strangely absent from the average New Yorker’s frame of reference.
Three Signs of Ghana’s Art Times
Ghana is currently experiencing a surge of contemporary performing and visual arts. Here are some notes on goings on about Accra-town. I. Song of the Pharaoh A new play, Song of the Pharaoh by leading playwright Mohammed Ben Abdallah has been in the works for over a year, being rehearsed, work-shopped, and performed at Ghana’s […]
Who will make the great Sankara biopic?
We don't want to see a film about what might have been, however seductive that aspect of Burkina Faso's history is. But what was achieved.
The Story of Cameroon’s First Metal Band
The mistake of directing the hardline scorn we reserve for say Madonna and Fox News at small independent filmmakers or young volunteers at NGO's in Africa.
What is wrong with this headline?
Europe's new provincialism exacts a human toll that can only be accepted with a mind-set that subscribes to nothing more than a new barbarism.
Not Nollywood
An Interview with Nigerian Filmmaker Tunde Kelani.
Black Violin
Kevin Sylvester and Wilner Baptiste are the classically trained violin and viola playing duo that anchor Black Violin.
The new South African family film
The idea that a post-racial South Africa can only be achieved through the adoption of white ideals, culture, and norms by black South Africans.
Weekend Music Break 58
Your weekly dose of 10 new music videos. First up, from Kenya, Muthoni The Drummer Queen’s ode to Nairobi: M.anifest, “Ghana man since 19 kojo-hoho”: Indocile is a hip-hop crew from Liège, Belgium: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNza4M4CC6k South of Belgium, representing the Congolese diaspora in France, new work by Black Bazar: Ol’Kainry (representing Benin) and Youssoupha bring their […]