June 19th, 2013
Even after the Mau Mau case the British will never stop kidding themselves about the crimes of empire

Torture comes cheap for the old imperial powers. Just £2,670 was paid out this month to each of the 5,228 elderly Kenyans judged eligible for compensation as the British government finally settled a case it has attempted to block every step of the way (between 2005 and 2011 it insisted that officials had “misplaced” or [...]

June 18th, 2013
The flag-bearers of dub in South Africa

Cape Town, South Africa, has been undergoing somewhat of an electronic music revival over the past five years. The initial boom happened in the early 2000s when, aided by the pioneering African Dope record label, artists such as Felix Laband and The Constructus Corporation (an earlier incarnation of Die Antwoord) suddenly found themselves at the [...]

June 17th, 2013
Black History in Amsterdam

Recently on a sunny afternoon, fellow AIAC-er Serginho Roosblad and I ventured out to learn more about the history of black people in Amsterdam and the contribution they made to the city since its early days. Surely there must be more to people of color in our hometown than the yearly Sinterklaas parade with his black [...]

June 17th, 2013
The District on Cape Town’s “Fringe”

Cape Town is changing. One recent Sunday morning I took a walk through Walmer Estate, a suburb bordering on District Six, on the edge of the City Bowl, and stopped at one of the corner stores to inquire about buying some koeksisters. Sunday mornings, in the Cape Town of my childhood, are speckled with sweet [...]

June 14th, 2013
South Africa has a “Pro” Twerk Team

Welcome to AIAC’s (first?) NSFW post. South Africa has a “pro” twerk team. In what could have been an amazing Pan-African exchange, they came up short and better called themselves professionals. Full stop as I reluctantly throw them a dark haze of shade. I guess everyone outside the southern United States just discovered what twerking/freak [...]