Spoek Comes to New York City
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqWFUXYqFUU&w=500&h=307&rel=0] Spoek Mathambo, the part-time Johannesburg-based “… Post-Apartheid, Post-Hip Hop Posterboy,” is interviewed by BSTV during
Culture
African 'World Music'
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3mHMWO_-mM&w=500&h=307&rel=0] Nigerian superstars P-Square doing “Do Me.” This is not your average world music band.
Yesterday and Tomorrow
Nine young filmmakers and artists look into Congo's histories, its present and future desires.
'Someday We’ll All Be Free'
I first saw this video this summer when it was posted online. I love the swing
Mugabe’s a Chicken
I don’t care much for Cape Town group Freshlyground’s muzak. But you can’t deny the cleverness
The Good Life
[vimeo=http://vimeo.com/12812385 w=500&h=281] The promo for South African-US duo Blk Sonshine‘s latest release.
The Good Guys
This film "Mugabe and the White African," is too busy picking sides, to ignore and obscure land dispossession by Whites of Blacks, instead hoping to posit White farmers as outside of history.
Our People
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0mPUpojd84&w=500&h=307&rel=0] This past summer at least three prominent figures of the Cape Town jazz scene–the saxophone
The Scramble for Vinyl
The trend among rare-groove DJs to make money of "discovering" and "rediscovering" old vinyl in Africa and then rereleasing the music under their own labels.
Music Mondays
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SK_Z_LGEac&w=500&h=301&rel=0] These guys are obsessed with the elements. The band is named for the cold current
Simphiwe Dana Speaks
Simphiwe Dana is probably the most talented female singer of her generation from South Africa. (Thandiswa
The Pan African Space Station
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dydtXJ94CE&w=500&h=307&rel=0] Detroit DJ and producer, Theo Parrish, is one of the artists slated to appear at the
Music Break
[vimeo=http://vimeo.com/14091396 w=500&h=281] The debut music video from Nigerian-born, “alternative-soul” artist, Bez. The video was shot in
V.S. Naipaul does Africa
The British writer V.S. Naipaul’s previous forays into Africa were fictional: The novels “A Bend in
Music for Africa
This 60 minute radio program on the music and ideas of Oumou Sangare–known as “The Songbird
As-Salāmu Alaykum
[vimeo=http://vimeo.com/13045384 w=600&h=368] This short clip of Brooklyn’s Mos Def, offering greetings while performing at the most
Who Are We?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zoqsw3n8D6g&w=500&h=307&rel=0] My man Gary Younge, New York-based feature writer and columnist for The Guardian, has a
The Liberation of Afrikaans
A new film - and play - want to mainstream Afrikaans' creole origins; a historical reality odds with Afrikaner nationalist visions of language.
Music Mondays
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_TU7lhqnN0&w=500&h=307&rel=0] From an article in last week’s “Detroit Metro Times”: ‘… In the ’60s, Motown was