Africa Is a Country

T.I.A.* (Jersey Shore Edition)

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

T.I.A.* (Jersey Shore Edition)

By
Sean Jacobs

You’d never thought you’d see Ronnie and Pauli D from the MTV reality TV show “Jersey Shore” on This is Africa.*

One of my students, Thenera Bailey, (she blogs at New School Thoughts on Africa) forwarded me this picture she took of two of the characters from “Jersey Shore” fresh from watching the musical “The Lion King” on Broadway.   Thenera and two other students (Youssef Benlamlih and Hillary Lawton) were shooting a short video profile of a group of African immigrant artists making careers on Broadway when they spotted the ‘Shore characters .The wide eyed ‘Shore fans are Nomsa Mazwai, a singer and younger sister of Thandisa Mazwai (of South African-Zimbabwean group Bongo Maffin), and another South African, Ron Kunene, dialogue coach for The Lion King. Mazwai and Kunene are both subjects of the short video profile.  You can watch their short video here.

Further Reading

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Colonize then, deport now

Trump’s deportation regime revives a colonial blueprint first drafted by the American Colonization Society, when Black lives were exiled to Africa to safeguard a white republic.

On Safari

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Fictions of freedom

K. Sello Duiker’s ‘The Quiet Violence of Dreams’ still haunts Cape Town, a city whose beauty masks its brutal exclusions. Two decades later, in the shadow of Amazon’s new development, its truths are more urgent than ever.

When things fall apart

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The General sleeps

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