AfricaIs aCountry

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

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.