Two months after the recent elections, Italy has a new government. And Cécile Kyenge, 48 years old, an eye surgeon and Congo-born Italian citizen, is the new Minister for Integration in the cabinet of Prime Minister Enrico Letta. As spokesperson of the network “Primo marzo”, an advocacy movement for immigrants rights, Ms. Kyenge has led […]
“Content is king,” say the marketers, and even racist bloggers are aware of the main principle driving traffic to a new website. That’s why a group of rightwing bloggers and activists behind the Facebook page Resistenza Nazionale and the blog Identità.com have launched a very special news aggregator: Tutti i crimini degli immigrati (“All the immigrants’ […]
Before it closed, Bar Etiopia had been running for ten years by the graceful Abeba. It was located on Via Tadino, P.ta Venezia, a neighborhood close to downtown Milan, where many different communities found their home and have been running activities in the last few decades: Indians, Filipinos and, above all, immigrants from former Italian […]
What would you do with old politicians who just won’t give up their seats in the Italian Parliament after too many years of service? Tell them to go to Africa. That’s what people on Twitter and Facebook suggested after Walter Veltroni, the first leader of the center-left Italian Democratic Party, confirmed that he won’t present himself […]
Theatrical release is the holy grail of filmmaking. Well, it was until relatively recently. But, since the internet, dvds, digital files and all the other ethereal modes of sharing and circulating became available to the masses, alternative modes of film production and distribution began to challenge the studio system, the distribution system, and perhaps even […]
Chief Boima was invited to OPEN ARTI in Milan recently to talk about art and politics and to DJ. In the video of the event (above), Boima is joined by fellow DJ, Venus X (profiled here in The New York Times). AIAC gets some shout-outs. A lot of things get referenced: music and race, how we listen to music, Shakira, cumbia, hard style, LMFAO, David Guerra, Rihanna, etcetera. But the elephant in the room is Diplo, the famous DJ and tastemaker.
Italy based, UK Funky influenced, electronic music purveyors Pepe Soup recently released the above song and video, a proud recollection of Liberian childhood punishment survival. The Italian-Liberian duo have been busy this year, releasing a string of EPs on their own label, and contributing to the soundtrack for Al Jazeera and Dutch Public Television’s […]
Rare footage of Miriam Makeba performing her standard “Malaika” (a Kenyan love song in Swahili) on Italian television in 1969. Meanwhile, the song has been covered by a lot of people–like Angelique Kidjo, Boney M(yes Boney M) and old school Kenyan musicians like Fadhili Williams–but film director Nerina Penzhorn swears by another South African singer […]
