On Safari

The year that Prince Akeem, Queen Aoleon, King Jaffe Joffer and the "African" Kingdom of Zamunda made a spectacular comeback.

Twitter.

For all the serious stuff we wrote or filmed about, tweeted or Facebooked this year, this was undoubtedly the year that Prince Akeem, Queen Aoleon, King Jaffe Joffer and the “African” Kingdom of Zamunda made a spectacular comeback. Whether it was Snoop Dogg’s wife throwing a “Coming to Africa” birthday party for their son (TMZ has the video evidence), rapper Jidenna (!) throwing his “Nigerian Renaissance Ball,” Action Bronson reprising the whole film as a music video (Chance the Rapper played the Cuba Gooding Jnr. role) and, most notably, the Knowles-Carters borrowing not once–but twice–first in May (we couldn’t help noticing their inspiration) or at Halloween (above), everyone seemed to be in on Eddie Murphy and John Landis’s 1988 send-up of African stereotypes.

Well, not everyone seemed to be in the joke: For example, Kandi from TV’s Real Housewives of Atlanta recreated scenes from Coming to America, including rose petals and real lions, for her wedding: “I wanted to do something inspired by Africa,” she said. Nevertheless, the upshot of all of this is that it is so 1988 to go after bad Western media representations of Africa and Africans. We dispense with that on Twitter. There are more important things going on. Of course, someone is probably planning to write a blog post (calling out celebrities who can’t find Zamunda on a map) or a dense academic paper (quoting Baudrillard or Stuart Hall) about what Zamunda stands for or to decipher Randy Watson’s homilies. While they figure that out (we’re onto something else in the meantime, just check the Archive), I’ll take the opportunity to say thank you to everyone who worked on AIAC this year and for staying the course. We’re exhausted. So, we’ll be on a break from tomorrow till January 13th. Here’s to 2016.

Further Reading

Fuel’s errand

When Africa’s richest man announced the construction of the continent’s largest crude oil refinery, many were hopeful. But Aliko Dangote has not saved Nigeria. The Nigerian Scam returns to the Africa Is a Country Podcast to explain why.

Fragile state

Without an immediate change in approach, Somalia will remain a fragmented country populated by self-serving elites seeking foreign patrons.

Coming home

In 1991, acclaimed South African artist Helen Sebidi’s artworks were presumed stolen in Sweden. Three decades later, a caretaker at the residential college where they disappeared found them in a ceiling cupboard, still in their original packaging.

Imaginary homelands

A new biography of former apartheid homeland leader Lucas Mangope struggles to do more than arrange the actions of its subject into a neat chronology.

Business as usual?

This month, Algeria quietly held its second election since Abdelaziz Bouteflika was ousted in 2019. On the podcast, we ask what Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s second term means for the country.

The complexities of solidarity

Assassinated in 1978, Henri Curiel was a Jewish Egyptian Marxist whose likely killers include fascist French-Algerian colons, the apartheid South African Bureau of State Security, and the Abu Nidal Organization.