Today marks 50 years of independence for Mali. We’ll leave it to Mokobé to properly mark the occasion. Be warned, it does involve some auto-tune.
Yesterday and Tomorrow
September 22, 2010 By 6 Comments
Tom DeVriendt
“Lobi” is a Lingala word meaning both ‘yesterday’ and ‘tomorrow’. Nine young film makers/artists* looked into this yesterday and tomorrow. Drowned in much noise Congo’s Cinquantenaire celebrations passed as fast as they came. In Lobi (hier/demain) the film makers also look at these celebrations – sideways. Convinced that a “direct dialogue” is long-overdue and time has come to find a common language allowing them to both tackle a shared past and create a new imaginary of the future, the nine film makers produced a poetic and enigmatic movie. The result of an intensive collaboration during the months of February-March 2010, the movie’s coarse images slowly but surely pull you in.
‘Someday We’ll All Be Free’
September 22, 2010 By Leave a Comment
I first saw this video this summer when it was posted online. I love the swing treatment given to Donny Hathaway’s 1973 song by The Miguel Atwood-Ferguson Ensemble and singer Bilal, Recorded live in Los Angeles, June 2010.
Cédric Gerbehaye’s Congo
September 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Tom Devriendt
You probably know Belgian photographer Cedric Gerbehaye from his portrait of Laurent Nkunda. That 2007 picture was part of a broader story on Eastern Congo. Gerbehaye is a frequent visitor to the Congo. Many of the resulting pictures were collected and published in Congo in Limbo, including his most recent story on the Katanga mines. You’ll find the full Katanga copperbelt series here.
Here and above are some highlights
Mugabe’s a Chicken
September 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment
I don’t care much for Cape Town group Freshlyground’s muzak. But you can’t deny the cleverness of the video for their new single, “Chicken to Change.” They recruited the puppets–especially Robert Mugabe–from the intermittently funny, online South African satirical news show ZANews. And they called Mugabe a chicken. Then Zimbabwe’s humorless immigration authorities banned Freshlyground from visiting that country. And now the Internets is taking care of the rest.
Vogue Africa
September 20, 2010 By 2 Comments
Video of legendary 1960s model Bethann Hardison interviewing Togolese-American model David Agbodji for Vogue Italia. (Hardison is a longtime critic of the modeling industry’s favoring of white models; the video is from Vogue Italia’s Vogue Black site.)
Music Break
September 20, 2010 By 3 Comments
Longtime readers of AIAC know that we love The Very Best, whose music, at least according to the MySpace, apparently falls under the categories “Melodramatic Popular Song / Showtunes / Tropical.” Right. Whatever you want to call it, we’ll keep it bringing it to you. Last time, it was the Malawi Lake of Stars remix to their wildly popular, “Julia.” Now comes the official video for that song, featuring the group’s brand-new member, South African DJ and MC, Mo-Laudi.
Perfect music break for your Monday.
‘The Black Venus’
September 20, 2010 By 3 Comments
The 30-second trailer, above, for “Venus Noire” (Black Venus), the long-awaited film about the life of Sara Baartman, the 18th century young Khoi woman publicly exhibited as a circus freak in Europe and whose sexual organs were prodded and examined by racist French scientists to prove the Khoi’s close relation to animals. The film is directed by French-Tunisian film director Abdellatif Kechiche. The lead role is played by Cuban-born actress Yahima Torres. The South African actor, Andre Jacobs, plays the role of Hendrick Caezer, the white farmer who abducted Baartman and took her to Europe. The film will play the New York Film Festival on October 7 and 9. This is its North American premiere. Word is tickets are selling out fast. I won’t make it. I would love to hear reviews of the film from those in New York City who get to see it. (Though Kechiche is winning prizes for the film, the advance word from mainstream critics are mixed.)
Friday Links
September 17, 2010 By 4 Comments
I, like a few others here at AIAC, update my Twitter feed regularly, but occasionally I have to put some of these things in blog post form at the end of the week.
* First up, performer Gonjasufi (above) is ‘super-hybrid.’ What’s that?
