France in Mali: The End of the Fairytale
This is not a neo-colonial offensive. The argument that it is might be comfortable and familiar, but it is bogus and ill-informed.
6436 Article(s) by:
Ladan Osman
Ladan Osman is the author of Exiles of Eden (2019) and The Kitchen-Dweller’s Testimony (2015). She lives in Brooklyn.
The Discovery Channel’s Africa
Plying potential audiences with expansive vistas, mystery, exotic landscapes, and ancient holdovers are time worn formulas when presenting Africa to Western audiences.
Is Chester Missing blackface?
He performs to packed-out theatres and is a regular correspondent on a satirical television news show,
On Safari
We are taking a collective break from blogging until Thursday, January 10th to give us a
S is for Samora Machel
We asked about a dozen Africa Is a Country contributors what their favorite books of 2012 were. Here are their picks.
The Top 10 Soundclouds of 2012
Every few years my mode of music discovery changes. I went from browsing the racks of
My Subjective List of The Best Albums of 2012
In any case, here’s 10 albums I liked this year; in no particular order. It includes Alabama Shakes, Isaac Mutant, Kendrick Lamar and Bruce Springsteen.
10 Albums You Might Have Missed in 2012
Janka Nabay, Ben Zabo, Sinkane, Jagwa Music, Kanyi, Youssoupha, Kyle Shepherd, Ebo Taylor, Karantamba and Francis Bebey.
When the moving picture merges with the sonic beat
Our very biased selection of the top 10 music videos of 2012.
Not an African Christmas
If the image of the starving black child has been deemed obsolete, then so has the Western “we” that claimed so much power for itself in the late 1980s.
Styles and Genres
The best films of 2012 with African subjects as their focus: incredibly powerful and moving activist filmmaking that has documented the shifting politics of the continent.
Kuduro’s International Wave
If Os Kuduristas is problematic, there’s no one to blame for its existence but perhaps us, the international community and the media.
Weekend Music Break, N°29
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=301NtFqV5SI Here's a resolution for the new year: to feature more Togolese pop. If you don't
Why does the BBC care what FW de Klerk thinks?
It’s 2012 and FW de Klerk still thinks Apartheid had been beneficial to its black victims. Yet global media treats him like an analyst on South African politics.
Social Media in Africa’s Revolutions
How anonymous parties define, construct, and support uprisings in Africa via social media.
François Hollande went to Algeria
Hollande’s visit coincided with a vote in the UN Security Council authorizing ECOWAS intervention in Mali; something Algeria, Mali’s northern neighbor, objected to.
The Trouble with Aid with “The Trouble with Aid”
How the humanitarian movement grew in close relation to the democratization of moving image technologies.
Waiting for Superman
The idea that leadership is the panacea to South Africa’s varied troubles, is asserted as an almost axiomatic truth amongst South Africa’s monotonous punditry.
‘Race jokes’ in South African ads
In South Africa, repackaging dated colonial fears about race and sex are used to sell beer and to win an advertising award for being “different.”
Woman of the Year
Alice Nkom, the brave, activist lawyer, harassed and imprisoned by Cameroon’s repressive regime on the government’s actions: “Threats like these show us that the fight must continue.”