Written by Guest Blogger Keguro Macharia
I grew up listening to Whitney Houston. Not simply in the sense that she was famous as I entered adolescence, but that the affect-world she created saturated and colored my sense of what it meant to live in the world. Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” was fun, Prince was nice to like, New Edition appealing, but Whitney’s “Greatest Love of All” felt transformative. Along with my best friend then—I claimed him as a best friend while he tolerated me—I memorized and sang the song, performing it, if memory serves, for a school assembly. I might be misremembering this. I do remember how affirming it was to believe, as a child, that children were “the future,” and how, as I entered my non-rebellious adolescence as a very religious person, I embraced the possibilities of living “as I believed,” determined not to “walk in anyone’s shadow.” [Read more...]
The Whitney Soundtrack
50 Cent goes to Somalia
So rapper 50 Cent (accompanied by American journalists) was in Somalia and Kenya this week to visit people living in refugee camps displaced by the civil war with Islamic militants. Expect lots of ’50 in Somalia’ reports on US television. 50 Cent, who joins a long line of celebrities helping Africans (he is being touted as the 21st century celebrity humanitarian already) handed out food and danced with the children. He also had enough time to pose for what looks like a movie poster shot with children (above) and a soldier (below), and to promote his energy drink Street King. If his Facebook page receives 1 million “likes” by Sunday, 50 will donate an additional one million meals. And he’ll sell more Street King in the process. We’ve also learned something about Somalia in the process.
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Trouble at the Global Fund
As Brett pointed out at the end of 2011, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB & Malaria (GFATM) recently had to cancel a new round of grants because funding has severely declined, and commitments made by donor countries have yet to materialize. As a result of the lack of funding, progress in many countries against the three diseases will be crippled until GFATM has the resources it needs. According to Medecins Sans Frontieres, 500 people marched in Nairobi on January 30th to protest the lack of funding for GFATM, which will directly impact people in Kenya. The Executive Director of the Global Fund, Michel Kazatchkine (in the picture above), also resigned last week.
2011: The Year of the Woman
It was a great year, maybe one of the best ever, for direct action in-the-streets in-your-face pro-democracy movements, and they were largely pushed and pulled by women. Starting with Tunisia, food uprisings spread quickly to Egypt, Algeria, and elsewhere across the continent. Sometimes, big men were pushed out.
The health news that made the headlines
In November came the news that the Global Fund to fight Aids, TB and Malaria was in a financial crisis, because of declining donor commitments and failure by donors to honor existing commitments. The Fund’s board cancelled Round 11 of its funding applications, which was supposed to provide money for 2011 to 2013.
How to write about elections in Africa
With a few elections coming up next year, journalist Jina Moore already has the template down for covering them: [Read more...]
Dances with Samburu
The Samburu of northern Kenya are pastoralists, and they are under attack. According to Survival International, two US-based charities — the Nature Conservancy and the Africa Wildlife Foundation — bought lots of land, from Daniel arap Moi. How did he get the land? Good question.
Kenya Independence Day
Three Kenyan videos to remember today’s Independence Day. Three popular tunes for our Independence meme. A ‘celebration’ of sorts turned out to be a useful lead for the first two. Madtraxx’s ‘Ida Waiter’ (with a nod to South African kwaito and that Prodigy video):
Music Break. Friday Bonus Edition
You won’t see or hear a more exciting song by a South African rapper this year than Kanyi’s ‘Ingoma’. Produced by Mananz, with Teboho Semela (sister of Ben Sharpa) on violin. From Gugulethu, Cape Town:
TV Heads
‘Kichwateli’ (‘TV head’ < Swahili) is one of the many chapters in the BLNRB project. Contributors are Just A Band (read Siddharta Mitter’s profile of the Kenyan trio here), street collective Maasai Mbili and the German electronic artists Modeselektor. The video was created by Bobb Muchiri (around the 5:00 mark neatly juxtaposing Nobel peace prize winner Obama’s statement on the killing of bin Laden with the image of the late Kenyan Wangari Maathai — you connect the dots). No, TV Head’s Kibera doesn’t quite have the air of More’s Utopia yet, referenced in the introduction, nor does Nairobi’s CCTV monitored city center.
