[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNWagG9U5Vg&w=500&h=300&rel=o]

“Who is the President of the United States of America?”  Side-splitting Nigerian comedy skit.

* The French clothing label, Africa is the Future. Including old man Melvin Van Peebles representing.

* Damon Galgut’s new novel, “In A Strange Land,” reviewed in The Guardian.  (Galgut’s made The Booker shortlist).

* There’s money to be made from gay weddings in South Africa. No surprises that is all about who can get married. It’s all about class and color. [The New York Times]

* If you’re in Cape Town, South Africa, next month diarize the annual Pan African Space Station music festival (September 12-October 12). Detroit dj Theo Parrish is scheduled to make an appearance. Good move.

* An excerpt from Andie Miller’s new book about walking in South Africa. In Hillbrow in inner city Johannesburg. Of course there’s nothing special about walking for the majority of South Africans (working class, mainly black, people), but everyone should be doing it. [EDIT: From Andie Miller: “A small correction–though I’ve just launched my collection of 34 ‘stories about walking,’ the Hillbrow piece isn’t an extract from the book … it’s just a review of the Goethe Institute’s X Homes project which was on a few weeks ago during the World Cup.]

Further Reading

Slow death by food

Illegal gold mining is poisoning Ghana’s soil and rivers, seeping into its crops and seafood, and turning the national food system into a long-term public health crisis.

A sick health system

The suspension of three doctors following the death of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s son has renewed scrutiny of a health-care system plagued by impunity, underfunding, and a mass exodus of medical professionals.

Afrobeats after Fela

Wizkid’s dispute with Seun Kuti and the release of his latest EP with Asake highlight the widening gap between Afrobeats’ commercial triumph and Fela Kuti’s political inheritance

Progress is exhausting

Pedro Pinho’s latest film follows a Portuguese engineer in Guinea-Bissau, exposing how empire survives through bureaucracy, intimacy, and the language of “development.”

The rubble of empire

Built by Italian Fascists in 1928, Mogadishu Cathedral was meant to symbolize “peaceful conquest.” Today its ruins force Somalis to confront the uneasy afterlife of colonial power and religious authority.

Atayese

Honored in Yorubaland as “one who repairs the world,” Jesse Jackson’s life bridged civil rights, pan-Africanism, empire, and contradiction—leaving behind a legacy as expansive as it was imperfect.

Bread or Messi?

Angola’s golden jubilee culminated in a multimillion-dollar match against Argentina. The price tag—and the secrecy around it—divided a nation already grappling with inequality.