My knowledge of European club football doesn’t stretch much further beyond what gets posted here on Football is a Country and the odd link I come across on our Twitter feed (blame my wary interest on the historical underperformance of Belgian teams* and a time-consuming preference for all things music) so I was surprised to […]
Zambia’s victory in last year’s Africa Cup of Nations was a great story, and one that even the crustiest of cynics could get behind. A team returned to the site of the national tragedy in which their fathers’ wonderfully talented generation of footballers were killed, and won the trophy against overwhelming odds. They sung in unison as the emotional penalty shootout unfolded, and when the celebrations began, the coach picked up an injured player and carried him across the pitch to his jubilant teammates. What wasn’t to like?
New York is an amazing city, especially from a hip-hop perspective. It’s one of the few places on earth where you can see that hip-hop is part of the culture, not just something that you watch on TV. But for me – doing music that is mostly in French and not in some Congolese language that sounds exotic for Western people – it’s a difficult market. I take everything that happens here like a plus one. I’m not supposed to be here.
Jogchum Vrielink, in this guest post, writes about the attempt by a Congolese student to obtain a ban on the comic book ‘Tintin in the Congo.’ A Brussels court rejected their claims. Despite this outcome, the reasoning of the court jeopardizes free speech, argues Vrielink, a postdoctoral researcher on discrimination law at Belgium’s University of Leuven. As regards the applicants: ‘offensive as the comic may be, their recourse to the law is both misdirected and counterproductive.’
Guest post by David Styan In recent weeks media coverage of African criminals and their victims have been dominated by capture (Kony) and conviction (Lubanga), largely overshadowing the latest twist in the most comprehensive and longest-running African legal case, that of Chad’s Hissène Habré. His crimes — the torture and extra-judicial killing of tens of […]
New video for single from Brooklyn-based Rwandan singer Iyadede‘s new album, “The Demo.” (Remember her recent cover of Theophilus London’s “Flying Overseas”?) The video is directed by Sam Kessie.
It may be tempting to read Congolese-Belgian rapper Baloji’s music as a relatively straightforward exercise in “indigenizing” or localizing hip-hop, but the story of his transnational musical moorings — especially his ambivalence toward Congolese pop — complicates such an interpretation.
A Belgian organization (backed by a smart advertising agency) “is calling on unborn babies in Belgium, to do something about the thousands of unborn babies in Africa that do not survive their own birth.”
As a child, I never believed in Santa Claus. I believed in Saint Nicholas and Zwarte Piet (Black Pete). I remember waking up as a child on December 6, 1983, three hours before daybreak. I also remember waking up early on December 6 for years afterwards. Always early, always too excited to go back to […]
