I recently had the chance to sit down with Congolese-Belgian MC, Baloji during his visit to New York City. Here’s what transpired.
Interview: Baloji
May 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The 19th New York African Film Festival: ‘Restless City’*
April 9, 2012 By 1 Comment
Towards the final scenes of Restless City, Jessye Norman’s solo soprano voice scales the great buildings and the conveyor belts of vehicles, between all of which a small red scooter navigates, carrying the slim bodies of Djibril and Trina. They are here, in this city, with all their desires clenched in their mouths. It is Norman’s voice, following the music composed by Richard Strauss to the poetry of Herman Hesse, that lifts our two immigrants’ desires up on the currents of her song, skylarks freed into the night sky.
Sathima Bea Benjamin’s Windsong
March 16, 2012 By 3 Comments
Last year, Sean and I happened to be at a conference in Toronto where Dan Yon was showing his film on Sathima “Bea” Benjamin, the Cape Town-born jazz singer. Although she is one of the formative figures of South African jazz music, it is her estranged husband, jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim, who is far better known. The film, “Sathima’s Windsong” (2010) moves back and forth between New York City, where Benjamin was a long-term resident, and Cape Town, where she began singing as a young girl during the forced removals instituted by the Group Areas Acts. The narration bridging the two cities, and Benjamin’s multitude of losses (and gains) is interspersed with the melodic imaginative leaps that only a voice such as hers can bridge. Only her voice lies between two cities, and immeasurable, oceanic longing: her song making tentative vocal incursion and excursions, in and out with the tide and forces beyond her control.
“Grandma’s going, so I am going too”
October 6, 2011 By 1 Comment
Short video piece on Jelani Gibson, a 16-year-old protester who traveled with his grandmother from Pontiac, Michigan to New York to join the protests Wall Street. He also has a 4.0 GPA. He had never slept on the street before. Tell that to US media.
Merkato
September 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Merkato is a documentary (view the trailer here) about the largest open-air market in Ethiopia. The filmmakers are trying to raise funds to finish the project through kickstarter.
“Once”
September 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment
A former The New School student, Pablo Mediavilla Costa, shot this meditative short documentary film around Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan the evening of September 11, 2011.
‘Days of Fire’
September 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment
“Too much politics and the clang of commerce” is staining 9/11 commemorations here in New York City today. So it also makes sense that we look somewhere else for music that articulates how some of us feel. Thanks to Neelika for suggesting the song “Days of Fire” by Nitin Sawhney, featuring singer Natty, as an appropriate music break today. I agree. Performed in 2008 with the London Undersound Orchestra the song is based on Natty’s experiences of the July 2007 train bombings in London and its aftermath.
We also remember the other September 11.
More to Staten Island than ‘Mob Wives’
August 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Photographer Glenna Gordon, no stranger to AIAC, is working on a new project in Staten Island, home to the largest population of Liberians outside of Liberia. I asked her if I could publish some of the work here. You can view the full set here. She also sent this note:
Most New Yorkers still think of Staten Island as working class Italian, but mainly due to the huge influx of West Africans from Liberia, Guinea, Ivory Coast and elsewhere, the black population of Staten Island has grown by 12 percent in the last decade. It’s hard to say how many Liberians and others live in Staten Island since many people haven’t sorted their immigration status. But there are plenty-o. I’m now splitting my time between New York and West Africa, and I’ve started a new photo project on Staten Island. I first went out there for a visit in mid-April. I attended a meeting of the Staten Island Liberian Community Association, which was a mix of formalities, community news, and a very loud argument between two old ma conducted in rapid fire Liberian English. I was invited to come back and photograph a special mother’s day program a couple of weeks later. And that’s how I found myself riding a white stretch limo around Staten Island on a Saturday night with a group of old Liberian ladies dressed in their fanciest lapa. I’m excited about working in New York for a change, and where this project might go.
