The Music of Alex van Heerden
Van Heerden was a fixture in Cape Town's jazz and alternative music scenes. His music is now available for purchase online.
Culture
Mos Def and the Battle of Algiers
What is that sample of Arabic during Slick Rick’s verse on Mos Def's "The Auditorium"?
Superheroes of History
Batman watches Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro addressing US media in an imagined black-and-white 1959 photograph.
Structures fit for animals
A selection of news items, videos, music from and drive by commentary before I shut down for December 2009.
Fela Kuti was an AIDS denialist
Fela's AIDS diagnosis and denialism was fairly well known and an open secret.
Blood on the chair
Platon, the New Yorker staff photographer got many of the world's leaders to sit for portraits. A number of African leaders obliged.
The Carnival at the Cape
The historian John Edwin Mason's photographs of Cape Town's New Year's Carnival.
You can now trust Nigerians
Recently advertising and the movies in the West have have been hard on Nigerians. Even when they mean well.
House music
Since it is Friday, I might as well put up a few music videos.
Let Robeson Sing
Manic Street Preachers pay homage to the greatest American of the first half of the twentieth century, Paul Robeson. The music video by Nigerian Andrew Dosunmu is a tribute too.
The New Black Atlantic
What does it mean when a Tanzanian rapper joins a cypher on BET, the US entertainment TV channel on its biggest night - during prime time - and rhymes in Swahili.
Family ties
The Wall Street Journal has an interesting news piece on the growing migration by Portuguese workers to Angola.
That’s Not Rugby
Don't expect "Invictus" to break from the "rainbow nation" narrative despite that symbolism's sell buy date having long expired.
The Radio Kalahari Orkes
The curious appeal of a band of celebrity Afrikaner musicians engaging with a quite easily defined past and present.
Race bingo and dancehall
A busy week means a lot of stuff gets the speed blog treatment. Among others, the African country that gets the worst treatment in US media.
A ranking by any other name
This story of Harvard political scientist, Robert Rotberg, and Sudanese billionaire, Mo Ibrahim, falling out, is quite something.
South Africa is far from Jamaica
Not sure why Ghostface Killah thought Vampire Weekend is riding a Jamaican riddim in the very popular song, 'Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa.'
Mauled by an old lion
How Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's Life President since 1980, bested CNN's Christiane Amampour.
The Darkness in Senegal
The mixing of popular protest and music in protests over electricity cuts in Senegal.
Nigerian Millionaires
That time Nigeria's government objected to a commercial for SONY's PS3 video game console.