K.ommando Toxik’s output has been prolific this year. See for example their Persona Non Grata or their appearance in the all-star videos Le Clip Kongolais and Bana Congo RD. “Afrika Star” is another single from their latest album. Shot in ‘les 2 Congos’ (Kinshasa and Brazzaville), it also features Mokobé and M’Passi.–Tom Devriendt.
T.I.A*
November 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment
What is either a gollywog or coon ornament in a Christmas display of an East 17th Street between 5th and Union Square West, Manhattan store, was spotted by my neighbor, Chinnaya Nwosu, last week. According to Chinnaya there were a variety of these kinds of items in the store, including what looked like Sambos with grass skirts, spears and headdress, etc. “The store owner palmed me off with, ‘They are just crafts made in Thailand.’ I tried reasoning that this kind of imagery was not conceived in Thailand, and that the ignorance of the [people in Thailand] making them cannot justify them being on shop shelves in New York City. The guy said that nobody else had complained- eying me as a trouble making reactionary.”
* This is hopefully the start of a regular series of posts of snapshots– we’ll call it T.I.A. This is Africa–that remind us from Africa or pretend to be of Africa that we encounter everyday.
‘Africa Uploaded’
November 30, 2010 By 5 Comments
These photographs (above and below) by South African Rushay Booysen (from Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape province) forms part of the ”Africa Uploaded: Experiences Through The Lens” (offline) exhibit next month–December 7 till 31, 2010–in the United Arab Emirates “… curated by Annabelle Nwankwo-Mu’azu and under the patronage of Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka.” The rationale for the exhibit: “… This exhibition focuses on the work of a groundbreaking generation of artists, capturing their experiences as ‘Afrophiles’ and cultural trailblazers. The experience is multi-sensory and employs photography, video projections and film.” Apart from Booysen, the featured artists–all photographers–are Angèle Etoundi Essamba (Cameroon), Uche James Iroha (Nigeria), Antony Kaminju (Kenya), Mandla Mbyakama (South Africa), Aida Muluneh (Ethiopia), Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine (Uganda/USA) and Lindeka Qampi (South Africa). Anybody passing through the UAE this month?
Mbembe & Fanon
November 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment
This year’s W.E.B. DuBois Lecture (organized by Colgate University) was given by Achille Mbembe. As mentioned elsewhere, Mbembe is revisiting Frantz Fanon in his latest work. So, too, here at Colgate.–Tom Devriendt.
Sunday Ephemera No.7
November 28, 2010 By 3 Comments
Rare clip of James Baldwin debating William Buckley on “The American Dream is at the Expense of the American Negro” at Cambridge University in 1965. (Among other things, Baldwin draws parallels between South Africa, Algeria and the United States.)
Black Spartacus
November 28, 2010 By 5 Comments
The people of the oldest independent African republic in the Caribbean are voting today to pick a new president. But the result are already predetermined. The most popular party and its leader has been illegally prevented from being on the ballot (“If this were the US, this would be like holding elections just between the Tea Party and the GOP – and excluding all others”), the candidates on display hardly inspire confidence (one candidate “has been known to wear diapers on stage”), and the powerful agencies and governments claiming to help them–most specifically the UN and the United States–have led them down from the start. (It turns out Haiti may serve as a training ground for Brazilian troops used to violent methods of maintaining “law and order”). It’s hard to see how 1.3 million displaced by an earthquake and now faced with a cholera epidemic–about 1,500 have died in recent days–can take this election serious.
To to keep up with reports from Haiti today (in English at least), I would not recommend CNN (they’ll care more about Barack Obama’s basketball injury and Sarah Palin’s fishing habits and anyway Anderson Cooper has saved all the children) or watching Wyclef Jean’s rap videos.
Music Break
November 27, 2010 By 1 Comment
The young Lagos, Nigeria-band Che and the Continuous Highlife Evolution’s striking “Civil War.” As the band puts it on their Facebook page, “… Some people in Africa have known only civil war all their lives; while for many other Africans the daily life is as difficult, as tough, as unpredictable and dangerous as if they were living in a daily civil war. Are we living in a civil war? Don’t wanna live no more in a civil war. Oh no no.” We can dance while we figure that out.
Music Break
November 26, 2010 By 1 Comment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkS-UCuHZCc
Last month, Mali’s trio SMOD (consisting of DJ Sam, Ousco and Donski) released a second single, Les Dirigeants Africains, taken from their new self-titled album. Sure, producer Manu Chao’s stamp is all over it, but SMOD’s lyrics and director Chris Macari* make up for that. And if you think DJ Sam looks a bit like Amadou or Mariam, you might very well be onto something…
* If you’ve never heard of Chris Macari, then his 2003 short movie The Letter is a good place to start.–Tom Devriendt.
James Barnor’s Ghana
November 26, 2010 By 1 Comment
Photographer James Barnor is to decolonizing Ghana (and later to 1960s black Britain) what Oumar Ly is to Senegal or Malick Sidibe and Seydou Keita were to Mali. Barnor took photographs of social life at his studio (named “Ever Young”) in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, from the mid-1950s and later as a fashion photographer in Britain after he had immigrated there to work as a photographer. Unlike Ly, Keita or Sidibe, Barnor–interviewed here–has been out of the limelight.. But that’s probably about to change once an exhibition of his work currently at London’s Rivington Place (presented by international photographic arts charity Autograph ABP) gets replicated. The pictures, posted here, were taken at his studio in Accra. The one above, of a policewomen, was taken in 1954.
Music Break
November 25, 2010 By Leave a Comment
South African artist Lesego Rampolokeng, who grew up in Soweto, performing his “Fela Sermon” live in Barcelona in 2003. (If you want to appreciate the full Rampolokeng, I can recommend his album “End Beginnings” with the Kalahari Surfers, released in 1993.)
Via Chimurenga Magazine.
