My favorite things from the last six months
Art South Africa me asked to pick my “Best Six;” basically my “favorite (six) things from the last six months.”
508 Article(s) by:
Sean Henry Jacobs
Sean Henry Jacobs is the founder of Africa is a Country and Professor of International Affairs at The New School.
A voice that is incessantly in exile
South African jazz singer Sathima Bea Benjamin’s life complicates jazz history and shows how Africans reshaped American jazz in the 20th century.
Film Africa (1): ‘The Beautiful Game’
This documentary film about football in Africa is actually not that terrible once you get past the
Jakes Gerwel and “the intellectual home of the left”
The fate of the University of the Western Cape, set up for coloureds, radicalized by black consciousness and from where the ANC prepared to govern.
What joy sounds like in German
Bonus music break: Abdullah Ibrahim, John Tchicai, Gato Barbieri, Barre Phillips and Makaya Ntshoko performing live on German public television in 1968.
The cliché about ‘struggle photography’
Cedric Nunn’s photography reflects the complex emotions of his black South African subjects, their humanity, dignity, in very personal terms.
Friday Bonus #MusicBreak
Yes, I've been listening to pop music a lot. You get work done and don't have
That time Rick Ross filmed a music video in a Lagos slum
Can a rap music video do better than some journalism in showing the real, unvarnished existence of ordinary Nigerians?
Yasiin Bey plays a mbira …
This was done for GQ Magazine. He also raps half-heartedly. I suppose, we should be "tril(led)."
My favorite photographs N°6: Stanley Lumax
Stanley Lumax (born in New Jersey, US where his parents, Ghanaian immigrants, settled) lives in Brooklyn.
10 African films to watch out for, N°2
'Grand comme le Baobab' ("Tall as the baobab tree") is a film told through the voice of
Il Manifesto
Africans can draw uninformed conclusions about what’s going on in their own backyards and on the continent.
On Safari
If you're wondering where we are (if you don't read through to the end of posts)
The Decade of Film
I participated in Sight & Sound’s once-a-decade poll of the greatest films of all time. I included at least two African films: “Borom Sarrett” and “Mapantsula.” Hopefully, they make the cut.
The United States of Africa
Yannick Létourneau talks about the genesis of his film about the Senegelese rapper, Awadi. Also, why so many political musicians come from West Africa.
Struggles over memory in South Africa
Revisionism pervades popular culture in South Africa now, coloring our perception of the past.
Nando’s Grilled Chicken Politics
We asked the Africa Is a Country “office” to comment on Nando’s new ad that is supposedly a comment on the widespread antiblack xenophobia in South Africa.
This is not about art
Between the relentless media coverage, the twitter deluge, the pronouncement by a South African judge (“This
Akin Omotoso’s Country
A recurring theme in director Akin Omotoso’s films is the fraught postapartheid relationship between Nigerian migrants and their South African hosts.
Friday Music Break, N°10
http://youtu.be/2tig5g9jV5Y British based Nigerian rapper Modenine starts off our weekly Friday Music Break. Here's four more.