Just in case you thought we were done with Official 2010 World Cup songs here at Africa is a Country, I’m here to remind you that we aren’t. Today, we bring you R. Kelly (Kells!) and the Soweto Spiritual Singers with “Sign of a Victory,” which is apparently the Official 2010 World Cup Anthem, not to be confused with the Official 2010 World Cup Song. I like to think of it as “I Believe I Can Fly,” the Africa remix. In Kelly’s own words:
Rapper Nas narrates a short insert on ESPN’s “E:60″ on the Liberian national amputee team made up of men, often former enemies, who lost the use of their legs or arms in Liberia’s very recent civil war. (Above is a kind of mash up from the in-studio introduction that usually precedes an insert as well as an excerpt from Nas’ narration. I am a regular viewer of the show.) You can watch the 10 minute insert here. It includes some incredible goals and celebrations. It is also about the politics of rebuilding societies after wars. Not bad for ESPN.
* That’s a line from the show.
Your parents’ Congolese music–like it needs the jolt–gets the dance music treatment from the kids, Paris-based b-boys, LogobiGT.
– Sean Jacobs
Add one more to yesterday’s list. Also screening at Cannes this year, as part of the prestigious Director’s Fortnight is ZedCrew, a Canadian production set in Zambia about Zambian rappers trying to make it big in the States. The short film, which is also meant to be an exploration of the African view of U.S. culture, was directed by 27-year-old newcomer Noah Pink and stars local Zambian actors, including rapper Alvin Fungo, aka Hong the Lyricist. Fungo is the one responsible for what sounds like a really dope soundtrack.
h/t @USofAfrica
I have been threatening to post the video of a panel discussion about the 2010 World Cup I hosted at The New School earlier this month. Now I hope it lives up to the hype. The reason for the delay: Youtube disabled the sound for a few days because of a copyright claim on music used in a commercial for Puma that formed part of the discussion. Well, here is the panel discussion now.
It’s almost 2 hours of beautiful football without anyone actually kicking a ball.
– Sean Jacobs
Al Jazeera English reports. (Apart from the Nigerian media and a BBC story this has not had much traction. It is a scandal.)
Senator Sani Ahmed Yerima is hiding behind religion. Apparently he divorced another of his 4 wives (his ex-wife was 15 year old when he married her in 2006) to marry his current bride–a 13 year old Egyptian girl. I hope this guy goes to prison for breaking the law. And so do those who officiated the marriage as well as the Egyptian girl’s family who agreed to it.
– Sean Jacobs
h/t: Naijablog.
The South African-born academic dr Andrew van der Vlies has been teaching JM Coetzee’s novel Disgrace to British students for years, and found that they often lacked the necessary background knowledge to engage properly with the text. This was one of the reasons why he wrote a book dealing with of the novel’s setting and references, such issues as the representation of race, gender, the land, and animals, and its concern with language, power, music, confession, and allegory. He spoke to Africa is a Country about his analysis of Coetzee’s popular novel:
How do we make sense of the current direction of the ANC, described yesterday by Archbishop Desmond Tutu as purveyors of “gutter politics.” There’s a lot of sound and fury and nonsense passing as analysis. Much of it is focused on Julius Malema, now sent to ANC “political school” for rehabilitation run by a convicted felon. But let’s not get distracted. What does Malema mean? What can we expect from ANC quarters for the foreseeable future. The best take–forwarded to me in an email exchange a few days ago–come from Hein Marais, who, for me at least, still remains one of the trenchant critics of South Africa’s transition*:
… The ANC’s ethical moorings are pretty rickety, and there’s a case to be made that it is also politically unhinged. Rather than a coherent, cohesive organization it now functions as a field, a zone in which motley interests and ambitions can be pursued — which puts a premium on retaining power not for any single, ‘progressive’ objective but in order to facilitate the pursuit of disparate objectives. The ANC can no longer credibly claim to be the custodian of a coherent ‘liberation project’.
Which is exactly why it has to broadcast that claim ever louder and in new ways.
Africa has come to Cannes. First up is the documentary, Benda Bilili!, screening as part of the Director’s Fortnight. This French documentary, which was shot over several years and cut from over 600 hours of film, focuses on a group of Congolese street musicians, some of whom are paraplegic. The film is getting rave reviews—it got a standing ovation during the screening—and the band, Staff Benda Bilili, is deservedly blowing up (see their feature on U.S. public radio, NPR, here). They’ve been on tour throughout Europe, and will next be at Glastonbury. Those of us that can’t make it there can at least enjoy their MySpace page.
The other two films of note both come from African directors. Of the two, none is getting more buzz than renown Chadian filmmaker Mahamet-Saleh Haroun’s Un Homme Qui Crie. Why?
