Africa Is a Country

'Welcome to South Africa'

'Welcome to South Africa'

By
Sean Jacobs

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYrSn3pL8Ws&w=500&h=307&rel=0]

It’s hard to describe the vibe here. Yes, there’s the unreasonable expectations around the team (captured well by my man Tony Karon on Time magazine’s World Cup blog) and the vuvuzelas may be annoying. But yes you can feel it. It is the World Cup. And away from the big stadiums and the tourist districts and downtowns–I spent some time today in central Cape Town with my 4 year old and shouting out Chilean and Algerian fans–there is a lot of spirit (gees, the Afrikaans word for spirit, is the preferred term here) as this short video by The Fader show. The magazine has some deal with Nike to produce an online documentary series on “… the music, art and culture of South Africa in 2010.” Blk Jks and some local groups are thrown in for good effect.

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— Sean Jacobs

Further Reading

Writing while black

The film adaptation of Percival Everett’s novel ‘Erasure’ leaves little room to explore Black middle-class complicity in commodifying the traumas of Black working-class lives.

The Mogadishu analogy

In Gaza and Haiti, the specter of another Mogadishu is being raised to alert on-lookers and policymakers of unfolding tragedies. But we have to be careful when making comparisons.

Kwame Nkrumah today

New documents looking at British and American involvement in overthrowing Kwame Nkrumah give us pause to reflect on his legacy, and its resonances today.