Africa is a Radio episode 6 opens up with a transnational blend, combining remixes of Dotorado Pro’s “African Scream” with its sample source: DJ Sbu & Zahara’s “Lengoma.” From there we travel around the world -from Ferguson to Havana to Monrovia- touching on the sonic imprints of the contemporary news cycle. We end on a […]
Today the American network NBC announced publicly that friend (and contributor) of Africa is a Country, Ashoka Mukpo, is the freelance journalist who has been diagnosed with Ebola and is being flown to the United States for treatment (read Ashoka’s thoughts on the root causes of the crisis here on Africa is a Country on September 23rd). As a […]
The idea that this has been a crisis only of the country’s health care systems is wrong. This has also been a crisis of governance.
Most films about Liberia are feature films or gritty documentaries focus almost perversely on the horrors of the civil war. Not "Out of my hand."
The Liberian president mostly gets away with soft pedal press in the West at odds with how Liberians view her or her legacy.
Liberian journalists are measured against the ideals of Albert Porte, a muckraking mid-20th century reporter. These days they're doing him proud.
This past Spring I wrote an article for the Red Bull Music Academy about the music and nightlife communities clustered around African neighborhoods in New York. A key motivation behind writing that article was to bring some visibility to the many diverse communities of African immigrants within the city that aren’t always visible to the average New […]
What can the photographs of American anthropologist Danny Hoffman tell us about Sierra Leone and Liberian mineworkers or about mining in West Africa?
The business of journalism as we know is in trouble and there’s a scramble for a “new journalism model,” with VICE.com held up as the latest prototype (see here, here and here). I am not so sure VICE is the new journalism–it’s partnership with “old media” (CNN, HBO) is old fashioned, it mostly produces sponsored content (nothing new there), owns an advertising agency and makes nice with Rupert Murdoch. Of course, VICE’s style represents something fresh. With its diversity of topics and irreverence, it is a vast improvement on the talking heads of cable news. But, there is also much to dislike about Vice.
My grandmother had a pub where wayfarers, fishermen, their wives, officers and anybody who had trouble or was looking for a little happiness would come, buy tots of the local gin, “akpeteshie” and start pouring their souls out. I would crawl under tables, eaves dropping and soaking it all in. When I got bored listening […]
Leo Goldsmith and Rachael Rakes, film editors at Brooklyn Rail, write about the documentary film “Imagining Emanuel” (trailer above), which recently played at the Museum of Modern Art’s Documentary Fortnight in New York City:
Recent revelations, which have always been suspected, have strengthened the United States’ role in the Liberian civil war, adding fuel to claims of American intervention in Liberia since its founding as a Western style nation-state.
The latest entrant to our series where we ask photographers to talk to us about their five favorite images, is Glenna Gordon.
The regime of Ellen Sirleaf Johnson, Liberia's first post-conflict president, is increasingly guilty of lack of accountability and abetting corruption.
There’s been a lot of rumors and propaganda flying around related to the Liberian run-off election, so it’s hard to get a sense of what’s really happening on the ground. But international and local news show that the police have killed three people, radio stations are being closed, and burnt down, and votes are being counted invalid. […]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKJ-DCMBKKI It seems that the election atmosphere remains tense, but word from Liberia is people are taking it all in stride. Beyond mainstream politics, it’s time for celebration.
Gbowee, an activist, is one of three Liberian women to jointly be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011. Most Western media, though, didn't do right by her.
To get a taste of how unpopular Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and the political class in general in Liberia are, just turn to the country's artists, especially its musicians.
Takun J, the leading proponent of the Liberian music genre, breaks down its essence for a group of visiting journalism students from Syracuse University.
Tupac Shakur's intensity did not just appeal to just young people in the United States, but also on the continent.