The photos below (click to enlarge), offering a glimpse into the joy and optimism of the immediate post-Independence period in Accra, are from Samuel Kobian Pobee’s Modern Photo laboratory. They were acquired by Samy Ben Redjeb of the Analog Africa record label while he was during research for the liner notes for his latest release […]
Why is Toto's 'Africa," a song with ridiculous lyrics, so popular with everyone? It has to be the melody and the hook.
Three South African videos to start with. Cape Town rapper Youngsta moves between the city’s neigbourhoods of Wynberg and the CBD: …while fellow Cape artist HemelBesem went for a stroll in Utrecht, Netherlands earlier this year. EJ von LYRIK who was on tour with him gets a cameo:
Conceiving of the relationship between public space and positions of power as a hall of mirrors.
The film "Winnie Mandela" is what happens when you combine bad history and bad filmmaking.
Alas! a snake has bitten me My right arm is broken, And the tree on which I lean is fallen. (from Songs of Sorrow, by Kofi Awoonor) When Kofi Awoonor started out as a writer, after his first book of poems, Rediscovery, had been published, he went to sit at the feet of traditional Ewe […]
When the author heard Astatke's music, it was like listening to hip-hop for the first time.
The U.S. premiere of Alain Gomis' new film "Tey (Aujourd'hui)," starring Saul Williams.
An interview with the artist Lalla Essaydi who seeks to challenge Orientalist mythology in her work.
In their documentary installation piece “Empire: The unintended consequences of colonialism,” filmmaker team Eline Jongsma and Kel O’Neill seek out the residue of centuries of Dutch imperialist projects, highlighting what they have referred to as the “humanity” in colonization.
For those whose hatred of Bono is as deep as mine or who are merely looking for concrete reasons to despise this particular celebrity do-gooder.
On prime time television in South Africa, the country is often a place without a past.
The UK is jokingly referred to as Harare North for its sizable Zimbabwean diaspora, second only to South Africa. This photo essay captures that world.
J M Coetzee, South Africa's most decorated and celebrated writer, gets the country's literary scholars and biographers, all worked up.
Why is the great director Charles Burnett (Killer of Sheep) making a state-sponsored biopic?
Ato Quayson remembers the celebrated Ghanaian poet and intellectual, Kofi Awoonor (1935-2013), who died this week.
When Tendai Maraire broke down his Chimurenga Renaissance mixtape for us last year, he said about “It’s Time For You To Go”, a song inspired by a family visit to Zimbabwe (“driving down the street bumping Biggie’s ‘Juicy’”): “Young Maraire Boys being crazy at home.” Toronto, Canada-based Zambian artist Chansa recently released his debut single, […]
Ken Norton, the champion professional boxer who died this week, also had a long, though not equally distinctive, career as an actor. He will, however, be remembered for one role: that of a slave prize fighter, Mede, in the 1975 film, “Mandingo,” described variously by critics as a compelling slice of American Gothic and “a poor man’s […]
Shortly before the release of Ghana-born emcee Blitz the Ambassador’s “The Warm Up” EP, we reached out to him to discuss his career and the aspects involved in the making of the album. He described the EP as a a teaser for what is to come on “Afropolitan Dreams”, his third offering since 2009’s “Stereotype” […]
The negative effects of tourism, globalization, and commercialization in Zanzibar.