Monday, February 18th, 2013
I was just over a thousand miles away from the action in Freetown, watching my Twitter timeline cascade with commentary as the evening unfolded. Tweets purred with pleasure at the acrobatics segment, and at the godly qualities of Waje’s voice. There was a sense that in production values and packaging, Lagos had outblinged itself. And
Friday, October 19th, 2012
Uploaded in mid-August on YouTube, this 1968 clip may be the earliest known clip of Abdullah Ibrahim. In the video, a wiry (all arms and legs) Ibrahim is performing with his band at the time — consisting of...
Tuesday, September 18th, 2012
R&B singer-songwriter Wynter Gordon is taking a considerable step outside her comfortable mid-commercial range with her new single ‘Stimela’ and its self-directed video, but it’s hard to argue that it isn’t reeking of the worst type of structural World...
Thursday, September 13th, 2012
‘Grand comme le Baobab’ (“Tall as the baobab tree”) is a film told through the voice of Coumba (in Pular language), who tries to avoid her 11-year-old sister from being sold into marriage to settle a family debt in rural...
Wednesday, March 28th, 2012
German singer-songwriter Joy Denalane (born to a South African father who’s a cousin of Hugh Masekela) recorded her song ‘Im Ghetto von Soweto’ twice. I prefer the original, less explanatory, German version (a tentative translation of which...
Sunday, January 22nd, 2012
2011 was the 25th anniversary of Paul Simon’s “Graceland.” I don’t have to remind you of the album’s significance. It is hard to imagine now the impact of that album, but it did a lot of things:...
A Spaza Shop Job
27 Feb 2012 at 9:06 am
Africans Prefer English Soccer
2 Feb 2010 at 1:00 pm
British TV news airs footage refuti...
28 Jan 2013 at 2:30 pm
Father figure
16 Sep 2011 at 10:53 am
Shameless Self Promotion
12 Dec 2011 at 3:30 pm
The Vershtunkende Toronto Zoo
6 Sep 2012 at 6:00 am
In search of ‘African redemption’
21 Jan 2013 at 9:00 am
Makoko: This sea shall be uprooted
5 Sep 2012 at 6:00 am
‘Africa’s First World Cup’ Revisite...
11 Mar 2011 at 7:00 am
