The video for Dutch hip hop group Zwart Licht‘s single “Vanaf Nu.”
Via @Mustafa Maluka: “This track is my anthem for the moment. Ghanaian diaspora in Amsterdam doing it well.”
* I am providing a literal translation. I think “vanaf nu” also means “now.”
Remember “The African Game” the book of striking football images published by powerHouse Books (sponsored by Puma) in 2006? Photographer Andrew Dosunmu and writer Knox Robinson traveled to Cameroon, Senegal, Togo, Cote D’Ivoire, Angola, Ghana, Tunisia, and Egypt (which hosted the 2006 African Nations Cup). It seems a few weeks ago Dosunmu posted a short video documentary online that mixes video footage and photographic images from that project. (It’s unsure if its trailer for a longer documentary. I’ve been unable to contact Andrew to confirm that.) The short video is important for one reason: It gives a vivid sense of how fanatical Africans are about football. Watch it in Full Screen. It is worth it.
h/t TheOffsideRules
Beautifully shot short film about the fate of 10,000 residents displaced after a thriving market in Ajelogo, a neighborhood in Lagos, Nigeria, was destroyed by local authorities. The film is told through the perspective of one of the residents. The director is Charles “Stretch” Ledford, a University of Miami communications student and working photographer. (Be sure to also check out his work on Overtown, a black working class neighborhood of Miami.)
Via Jeremy Weate.
We also aim to educate. Over the next few months, Allison Swank will commence a new weekly series on popular (and not-so-popular) films in the United States ‘about’ Africa. The focus will be on the idea of representations and how they contribute to the broader idea of Africa in the West. Let’s get the academic-speak out of the way with her introduction to the series and come back next week:
The starting point is to consider the framework with which we view films about Africa. When we acknowledge the historical underpinnings, then we begin to understand why we interpret images of Africa how we do.
Historically, images of Africa and Africans in Hollywood and other films have been tightly interwoven with racist colonial ideologies. The very first filmmakers on the continent (and many that never stepped foot in Africa) built an unequal race representation structure to which many films still subscribe. The racial hierarchy employed by these films is informed by the notion of racist human evolutionism introduced by the European Enlightenment and proliferated throughout Africa during colonialism.
Apparently not content with her (failed) attempt at igniting controversy last year with her questionable spread in Italian Vogue, Rihanna has decided to try her hand yet again at the latest epidemic sweeping the globe. This time through her new and, let’s be honest, particularly boring video for “Rockstar 101.” In it, she doesn’t wear much, she writhes around, she impersonates Guns N’ Roses drummer Slash, as well as someone who may or may not be Vogue editor Anna Wintour. Oh, and in some scenes (perhaps as an ode to the pioneering work of Tyra Banks?), her entire body is covered in what looks to be black body paint or makeup…while she is wearing chains (see picture below). Good girl gone real bad or “fierceness out of control”? You decide. But maybe she should have a look at the Blackface user guide before she proceeds next time.
Driving in Soweto, film maker Dumisani Phakathi reflects on next month’s World Cup:
[The World Cup] is like a wedding … You organize the wedding between you and your partner. The event is amazing, the photographs get taken. Everybody remembers the day. But the trick is about what happens after. What do you carry with from that day of the wedding into your life with your partner? Because if you don’t, that was just for show, the wedding just a spectacle. We can’t afford for this World Cup to be a spectacle.
Phakathi also talks about the connections between the 1970s American professional soccer league and professional football in South Africa:
I’m a bit late with this, but I’ll post it anyway. (Look out for lots of posts about World Cup commercials on this site over the next few days.) Another one of the myriad of commercials made to order for Coco Cola to dominate soft drink consumption during next month’s World Cup. This time it is animation backed by a voice-over and yet another remix of K’Naan’s “Waving Flag” single again. It is was made with Youtube in mind. The commercial is titled “Quest.” It is the third in a series: After the original ad with K’Naan and the ridiculous “celebration” ad with Roger Milla. The “Quest” commercial has been out since the last week of April.
Against a rainbow-colored map, a hand traces a route by ship from Tunis, Tunisia to Lampedusa, Italy. As the marker glides across the sea, the narrator recounts his journey and search for work, which eventually takes him to France.
For anyone visiting or residing in New York City this month, don’t miss VideoStudio’s New Work From France at The Studio Museum in Harlem. The three month installation currently features Moroccan artist Bouchra Khalili’s short video works exploring migration.
Different videos feature stories from a Tunisian, a Palestinian, an Iraqi. The faces of the storytellers are not revealed in the videos, and the viewer instead absorbs each story while considering the squiggly border lines carving up the world. One man speaks of evading the roadblocks between his home of Ramallah to his fiancée’s home in East Jerusalem, a journey which should take 15 minutes but instead takes over an hour. In another video, a young woman describes leaving Iraq for Turkey, and the long years between settling in Istanbul and obtaining refugee status from the United Nations to relocate to Australia.
Encyclopedia of South Africa
Krista Johnson and Sean Jacobs, editors
This authoritative, comprehensive reference work covers South Africa’s history, government and politics, law, society and culture, economy and infrastructure, demography, environment, and more, from the era of human origins to the present.
Nearly 300 alphabetically arranged entries provide information in a concise yet thorough way. In addition, a series of appendixes present a wealth of data, including: a chronology of key events, key racial and apartheid legislation since 1856, heads of state (with party affiliation) since 1910, provinces and major cities, current government structures, and current political parties and representation in parliament. Photographs enhance the text.
On May 25th, 1963, the Organization of African Unity (now the African Union), composed of 32 newly independent African states, came into existence in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
* The clip is from the documentary film, “I Bring What I Love,” about the making of Youssouh N’Dour’s album of Sufi devotional songs, “Egypt.”
