I haven’t done this type of music break (i.e. all jazz) in a while. But before counting down some good music (basically stuff I’ve been listening to lately), first let me promote an event: Later this month, April 20th, the University of York in the UK, hosts a one-day “discussion” on “South African Jazz Cultures.” […]
A short South African Press Association bulletin on Monday announced the death of one Happy Sindane. If you don’t remember him (and South Africans are notorious for their short memories), he “made headlines in late May 2003 when he alleged that he was a white boy who had been kidnapped by black people.” Sindane had […]
By Mukoma Wa Ngugi “Sir, I am very happy to finally meet you in person – I have read all your books,” a man gushed to my father, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o at the Jomo Kenyatta Airport, Nairobi. My father loves talking with people, but he also does not mind a compliment or two and so […]
The New York Times, in its infinite wisdom (it comes with being The New York Times), decided that one of the paper’s reporters, one Brooks Barnes, should write what amounts to a fluff piece (it’s not actual reporting) splintered with quotes in the “Fashion & Style” section about actor Ben Affleck’s supposed maturity and all-round […]
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the New York African Film Festival. The Festival–from April 3rd to the 9th at Lincoln Center–is still the longest running, and probably most significant, African film festival in North America. (I’ve helped out on the festival in the past, so I’m biased.) It is worth remembering what the […]
Post by Percy Zvomuya As Pope Francis supports San Lorenzo (nickname Los Santos), a team in Argentina’s Primera Division, what better way to dissect his ascension to the papacy than by way of football.
Guest Post by Abdourahman Waberi, Ali Deberkale and Dimitri Verdonck On the eve of the legislative election of February 22, 2013, in the Republic of Djibouti, Hafez Mohamed Hassan, a 14-year-old schoolboy, was shot dead by the secret service of President Ismaël Omar Guelleh’s regime while he was taking part in a demonstration organized by a […]
On a recent trip to South Africa, I managed to fit in a visit to the Voortrekker Monument, the enormous mausoleum on a hilltop just outside the capital Pretoria. The monument, which celebrates Afrikaner nationalism, was begun in 1938 on the centenary of the Great Trek, and inaugurated by the recently installed National Party eleven years later on December 16, 1949 (the anniversary of the Boers’ triumph over the Zulu at Blood River).
Guest Post by Mukoma Wa Ngugi In 1982, as the air force-led coup attempt in Kenya unfolded, we sat glued to our transistor radio listening to the BBC and Voice of America (VOA). In fact, the more the oppressive the Moi regime censored Kenyan media, the more Western media became the lifeline through which we learned […]
Apart from seeing our logo superimposed on a building in downtown Johannesburg, this is a good way to celebrate AIAC TV’s return to Youtube. We (well Dylan Valley) attended STR.CRD in Johannesburg last year. STR.CRD is South Africa’s leading (and maybe only) street culture festival and expo. Dylan sat down with Kenyan “geek afro pop” […]
