Guest Post by Benjamin Lebrave This morning I started my week reading the following on the New York Times’ website: “Digital music, responsible for the improvement in the industry’s brighter overall outlook, has failed to catch on across much of Africa.” To be more accurate, the first words I read were “Serraval, France”, the location of […]
Nigerian D’Banj–a combination of outsized showman, confidence, flash, little politics and affecting personality–could be Africa’s first global pop star of the 21st century.
Two recent features in the mainstream British media turned out to be enough to spur some debate about the so-called “Rise of the Afrobeats” in the U.K. The Guardian interviewed DJ Abrantee (quoting Abrantee as him having coined the term “Afrobeats” — or so the journalist said, which Abrantee later denied.
Nigeria’s political leaders probably did not expect this kind of response from the populace –mass protests, a national strike starting today that shut down major cities–when they decided, on January 1, 2012, to scrap fuel subsidies (as part of “reforms” to deregulate the oil sector). The rationale was that by freeing money spent on the […]
The Ghanaian-American fashion bloggers Street Etiquette are featured in this week’s episode of Radio Netherlands vlog What’s Up Africa!. So is Snoop Dogg’s very convincing Nigerian accent (at the 0;30 mark).
The music video for a new song by Nigerian rapper/R&B singer D’Banj featuring Snoop Dogg that went online yesterday. The usual quota of hired cars, half-dressed models and money rolls follow the two showmen. The song title is a form of high poetry: “So Endowed.” Is this male fantasy, “The New Black Atlantic“? Commenters on […]
