Occasionally we have to promote our day jobs. Here are some excerpts from an op-ed that occasional AIAC blogger Herman Wasserman and I wrote last week for a South African publication on the latest manufactured scandal by the opposition Democratic Party (not to say that the ANC can’t avoid scandals)
Talking about running: some ad people can make any city look good.
Brakpan is a declining mining town east of Johannesburg in South Africa. Photographer Marc Shoul‘s images of life there–mostly among the town’s white inhabitants–has just won him first place in the Italian Winephoto 2011 photo competition. Here’s some samples from his winning series:
We presume you’ve had Tumi and the Volume’s latest album, Pick A Dream, as much on repeat as we had this year. This the video for its opening track. Directed by filmmaker Khalid Shamis and 340ml member Tiago Correia-Paulo. Graphics are by French artist Hippolyte.
Long after midnight, once the tourists and the party-goers have left Cape Town’s Long Street, the city’s darling hub looks pretty vacant, apart from the accidental taxi-driver — it forms the backdrop for South African rapper Rattex’s new video ‘Ewe Nje’. With an album and a mixtape under the belt, but hard to find in […]
New Zealand is often sold to prospective (mostly white) South African immigrants as “South Africa 30 years ago” (wink, wink). That version of an Edenic idyll is not entirely what a young South African found New Zealand to be recently in a local version of Occupy Wall Street in Dunedin. In a scene captured by […]
How long will be tolerate South African rappers, Die Antwoord's racist and homophobic antics?
South African elites and their political parties and trade unions cannot claim to represent the masses anymore. This has created space for Julius Malema's brand of populist politics.
Number 17 in our 'Found Objects': The short documentary, 'Mr. Mkhize,' by photographers Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin.
The trailer for the new Denzel Washington-Ryan Reynolds feature “Safe House,” just got released officially on the interwebs yesterday. The film centers around rogue CIA agent Tobin Frost (Washington in Training Day mode again) on the run from a generic group of bad guys. Reynolds’ character, the CIA safe house’s caretaker in Cape Town, has […]
How do Africans–ground zero for resource extraction by the world’s 1%–feel about the now global ‘Occupy’ movement? Thus far it’s mostly restricted to South Africa (according to OWS’s own data collection) and to small once-off protests by mostly white, middle class South Africans.* But now they’re joined by Senegalese musician Baaba Maal. That’s Maal above–in the video sound bite–talking […]
In case you were too young to attend William Kentridge’s original version of the early nineties puppet play ‘Woyzeck on the Highveld’ (as I was), the South African Handspring Puppet Company gives us a new chance to see it. They’re on tour in the UK these days. Future dates elsewhere will follow (I hope).
Coldplay’s “Paradise” music video is set in South Africa. The video is mostly is an antiquated perception of the country held by many in the West.
Muammar Gaddafi relied extensively on mercenaries from elsewhere in Africa to secure his rule. It is usually assumed they're black Africans. It turns out a lot of them come from South Africa. And they're white.
What is it with Dutch cultural elites and South Africa? The last time I travelled two hours to watch an opera, it was in South Africa, on horseback. A self-declared pig farmer I was staying with was invited to attend a private opera function at his neighbor’s place, and decided I’d come along. The ride […]
Tonight, the Afrikaaps crew, the South African musical about the history of the Afrikaans language, dedicated their last show in Holland to slain rapper Mr Devious; Michael Miranda, Shaun Magmoed and Jonathan Claasen, the three youngsters who died this day 26 years ago during the Trojan Horse Massacre; and to rapper Contro’Versy, who passed away yesterday. […]
Land reform and Zimbabwe; say those words in any order and you get a reaction. It obviously was a failed and atrocious attempt of a corrupt leader who bribes people to vote for him and then still lies about the result just to be popular amongst his people. Obviously. Well, obviously at least if you […]
Spotted on Youtube yesterday before it went viral: A South African professional mountain biker is taken out by a buck at a game reserve in South Africa.
