Okwui Enwezor described the ephemera of Africa that arrived in European docks as “strange cargo”: as it was unloaded from ship to warehouse by longshoremen, as it was bid on, sold, and displayed in wealthy homes, lost and rediscovered, each object shaped European visions of Africa. ‘Africa’ as we imagine it now, was shaped by […]
The first time I met Chinua Achebe I had just started teaching at Bard College, where I had been hired as Director of Africana Studies. I saw Chinua one evening at a campus event and nervously approached to introduce myself. I did not expect his humor or his humility. Instead of exchanging a quick word […]
It’s quite a weekend for New York’s prodigal child. Hip-Hop, that burst of youthful energy that was put out into the universe 30 plus years ago is coming back home from several places at once. It’s arriving at a time when Rap music, in its birthplace, confusingly straddles the realms of hyper-capitalism, political activism, youth expression, marginalized’s […]
By Braden Ruddy, Owen Dodd, and Rob Navarro 10 February 2013, 1:30 pm. The Burkinabe and Nigerian expatriate communities were out in force for the Africa Cup of Nations final on Sunday afternoon in Harlem at the Burkinabe-owned music venue, The Shrine.
Rachid Khimoune grew up in a small mining town in Northern France where his Algerian parents had settled. It was there that he saw first hand the end of industrialisation: his father lost his job at the local mine and the family moved to the suburbs of Paris. The waves of urban immigration to the cities […]
We at AIAC are rarely known for gushing reviews. So when we heard about “The Reincarnation of Rockland Palace” as “a night of dance, style and a re-occupation of queer history, at the grounds of an old event hall in Harlem” AND a documentary film project being made in collaboration with a Swedish born visual […]
Thinking about ways that Africa is represented by NGO’s and other international organizations (reference: various posts at Africa is a Country), it was nice to run into this project put together by UNICEF that seeks to find new ways of representing crises in Africa.
If you’re unfamiliar with my musical work, OkayAfrica.com recently did a profile on me for their web TV series.
The photographer Stan Douglas’s new project “Disco Angola,” a work in progress, is on display at the David Zwirner Gallery in New York until April 28, 2012. The New Yorker announced the show in Goings on About Town with the image above. What’s amazing is that Douglas has not been to Angola, though from what […]
For over two decades, West African Muslims from the Murid Sufi Brotherhood come together at the annual Cheikh Amadou Bamba Day march in Harlem, New York. Scholar Zain Abdullah calls it “a major site where they redefine the boundaries of their African identities, cope with the stigma of blackness, and counteract an anti-Muslim backlash”. Mamadou […]
