Brilliant new song: “There’s more to Mama Africa than poverty and war.” (Via Chris Vourlias)
Archive for the Arts in Africa Category
Twende Twende (Wainaina and Mtukudzi)
Posted in Africa, Arts in Africa, Music, Video on February 3, 2012 by frankburesJaguar: Kigeugeu
Posted in Africa, Arts in Africa, Music, Video on October 17, 2011 by frankburesJust back from East Africa, where I heard this song on a bus. It’s been in my head ever since.
Bittersweet Goodbye
Posted in Africa, Arts in Africa, Video on July 21, 2011 by frankburesA beautiful, poignant film, Kwa Heri Madima, by French-Dutch director Robert-Jan Lacombe about leaving the village in eastern Congo where he lived the first ten years of his life. (Via Texas in Africa and Africa is a Country)
Stella Mwangi Shines
Posted in Africa, Art, Arts in Africa, Music, Video on March 5, 2011 by frankburesBack to the present. Love this song! How could it not conquer Eurovision? (via @textorian):
On the Curious Journey of V.S. Naipaul
Posted in Africa, Arts in Africa, Books, Clips, Writers on November 7, 2010 by frankbures
At some point while I was reading V.S. Naipaul’s new book, The Masque of Africa, it became hard not to picture the venerable Nobel Prize winner in a pith helmet and khakis, doddering around the continent looking for bits of religious trivia he could take home and put on his mantel. This was not, of course, his stated purpose, which was, instead, to investigate the current state of “belief” in Africa, and to see how the modern world is intermingling with the older one on which it rests.
To this end, Naipaul travels to Uganda, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Gabon and South Africa, an impressive itinerary for the nearly 80-year-old. Along the way, he spends time with witch doctors, politicians, businessmen, professors and the like, all the while peppering them with questions about their rituals and religions and historical events.
Those events are something in which Naipaul is steeped: The writings of Mungo Park, John Hanning Speke, Henry Morton Stanley and others who first wrote about the continent. In a way, this is refreshing since that context is sometimes lacking in writing about Africa. But in the end, Naipaul seems perhaps too steeped in it…
Read the rest here, or see a copy of the October-November issue of The Africa Report.
Maggie Gee’s My Driver: Dark, Hilarious, Humane
Posted in Africa, Arts in Africa, Books, Clips on October 25, 2010 by frankbures
Vanessa Henman is the aging writer at the heart of Maggie Gee’s luminous new novel, and she’s been invited to Uganda for the International Conference on African Writing. When she lands, it’s hard not to despise her, since she’s every bit the obnoxious foreigner she hopes she’s not: “Black tea, cold milk, English-style,” she tells a waiter, “slowly and with emphasis. Why can’t they ever get tea right?” When the Internet connection fails, she laments her “right to good communication.”
And yet, as the book unfolds, we see that Vanessa is not quite as she seems. This shouldn’t be a huge surprise, since Maggie Gee is no ordinary novelist…
Toe Tapping, Dictator Slapping
Posted in Africa, Arts in Africa, Music, Video on September 17, 2010 by frankburesNice bit of politics and music from South Africa’s Freshlyground
Nollywood Rising
Posted in Africa, Arts in Africa, Clips, Travel, Video on August 11, 2010 by frankbures
Last year I spent a few weeks in Nigeria looking into the state of the Nigerian film industry known as Nollywood, which I’ve reported on before. In the new issue of Afar magazine, there is a short piece I did about that trip, along with some brilliant photos by Marco Garofalo. While there, I spent a little time with Kunle Afolayan, who was filming The Figurine, which earlier this year swept the African Movie Academy Awards. It was amazing to see how much the industry has changed in such a short time, how it was transforming, and how it was taking its first few steps onto the world stage. Nollywood looks set to be a serious cinematic force yet. For more on that, stay tuned.
Rebranding Nigeria
Posted in Africa, Arts in Africa, Books, Clips, Travel, Travel Writers, World Hum, Writers on April 24, 2010 by frankbures
On the road between Oshogbo and Abuja, as I traveled across West Africa, I noticed one of the old men in my taxi reading over my shoulder as I paged through my Rough Guide to West Africa. So I handed it to him, as well as my Bradt Guide to Nigeria. Partly out of embarrassment, I held back the Lonely Planet Guide to West Africa, which I’d also brought because I didn’t have time to photocopy all the countries I’d be going through. I know I’ve said I only bring eight books when I travel. But sometimes you just can’t decide what to leave and what to take.
Incidentally, though, this gave me a chance to road test what I think are the three best guide book companies: Lonely Planet had the best maps, but it was a few years old, and things in Africa change fast. The Bradt guides (For Nigeria and Burkina Faso only) had amazing depth, but also suffered from the pace of change. The Rough Guide had the best cultural information and was the most accurate, so I used it the most.
For a while, the old man and the others in the care passed the books around. “Very impressive!” he said of the parts on Nigeria. “If we had books like this about our own country, that would really be something!”
When I got to Abuja, Nigeria, I called a friend of a friend who’d invited me to crash at his place. His name was Jeremy Weate, and when I arrived, he saw my Rough Guide and asked how I liked it. I gushed: The Nigeria section, at 148 pages, with five pages about Nigerian literature, another five on music, and a wonderful section on food, was easily one of the best guidebook sections I’ve ever read.
“Well that’s good to hear,” he said, “because I wrote it.”
After we got back to his place, I sat down with Weate and asked him what it’s like to write a guidebook about a place as unpredictable, difficult and thrilling as Nigeria. You can read the interview here.
Kenya Goes Viral: Go Ahead, Makmende
Posted in Africa, Arts in Africa, Video on April 12, 2010 by frankbures
From Kenya, with love and attitude. This is rumored to be East Africa’s first big viral web hit. Glad to see some of the good new music making the rounds! (Via Naijablog.)
