Sean Jacobs's Blog, page 395

South African Hip Hop Series: Interview With Khuli Chana

On the morning of 28th October 2013 – a Monday – South Africa woke up to news that rapper Khuli Chana’s vehicle had been shot at by the police after they mistook it for that of a kidnapper on the run. The incident occurred at a filling station in Midrand on Khuli’s way to a show in Pretoria.

The current bullet count on the blue BMW 1 series vehicle that Khuli Chana was driving is seven (7). All seven (7) were shot from the passenger side.  Khuli Chana was the only person in the vehicle at the time of the shooting. A private forensic ballistic report is currently being conducted and will be made public once received

read the press release.

In the same week that he got chosen among GQ’s best-dressed men, and the same weekend where he gave yet another impressive live performance in Soweto mere hours before the shooting, Khuli Chana’s life nearly ended. It was another blotch in a long trail of police-related fuck-ups, a trail whose perpetrators tried to cover up their own misgivings by laying charges of attempted murder against Khuli.

The investigations have been finalised, and the Director of Public Prosecutions’ office shall reach a decision soon.

It’s in the midst of all of this that we had a chat with him, at his recent video shoot for a song featuring Da Les and Magesh. Instead of discussing the particulars of his case, we tripped out over nineties hip-hop; broke down the science behind his flow; and discussed the recent resurgence of Morafe, the group he’s been a part of since the mid-nineties.

AIAC: Let’s talk a bit about your nineties influences. What shaped Khuli Chana?

Khuli: The nineties kwaito, the nineties feel, the nineties boom bap, the hooks, the colours – I’m about that! The nineties’ music was so authentic and so timeless. I’m down to experiment and try out some new things, but I’m still stuck in the nineties.

The Motswako movement wasn’t always as lauded as it is now. What did it take to get here?

The end in mind. If you don’t have a vision, you’re screwed, and that’s what we had.  Today, I just wanna say that we’re living HHP’s dream. Everything that’s happened, he predicted; it sounded like all kinds of gibberish back then. Big up to him.

There seems to be a Morafe resurgence going on, not that you guys necessarily left.  What’s the plan with that?

Like Towdee always says, ‘Morafe never left the game/ we just changed how we played the game.’ It got to a point where we were like ‘we’re not gonna be predictable.’ You’ve got three geniuses, three talented cats. Let’s start to dismantle and experiment. They experimented with me; I guess that was fuckin’ awesome!

You had no label support when you came out, and resorted to releasing the music independently.

When we started up, I wasn’t really down for the idea. It made sense, [but] I wasn’t down for it because I was scared. I just didn’t think I had it in me; Towdee was pushing for it. The guys that gave us that head start, big up to Skwatta Kamp, big up to Slikour and Ventilation. When we dropped ‘Futhumatsa’ on that [Sprite] Hip-Hoop mixtape [was] when I got that validation; that’s when I got that ‘whoa, you could do this!’ That was pretty much Towdee’s experiment. We worked on the joint, we sampled one of his verses. We did it, put it on that mixtape, and then boom, we were touring! We hit all nine provinces. That was an interesting time.

How did you manage to get Magesh on the song?

Khuli Chana: The song is inspired by a Magesh classic joint from his second album. That’s been my favourite joint, so I kind of merged “Hape le hape” with “Time and time again,” which is a Magesh hook. I used to always freestyle on that beat.

You’re one of the few mainstream hip-hop artists who never sacrifice when it comes to lyrical content. What’s the importance of lyrics, and how do you stay ahead of your own game?

Words man, words have power; they can either destroy or build. I don’t write everyday; I wish I could, I wish I did. I put so much thought into that process. I never really know when it’s gonna hit me, but when it does…it’s a spiritual thing. Big up to the lyricists: Reason, Tumi, Jabba, Tuks, Towdeemac! Ba re lefoko ga le bowe, go bowa monwana – words stick. If you’re gonna talk out of your bum now, think about how it’s gonna impact the next generation.

Who influenced your flow, and how did it develop?

In the beginning, it was the pioneers of Motswako, [the likes of] Baphixhile. There was this rhyme pattern that was popular; everybody who was down with Motswako had that same (*mouths a rhyme scheme*) I was like ‘okay cool, I’m down to switch’ because Prof (Sobukwe of rap group Baphixhile) was always saying ‘you’re dope, but I want you to try it ka Setswana’. But I didn’t like this pattern, this rhyme scheme. I’d like to hear a guy that has that Mos Def delivery, but spitting in Setswana. That’s when I started experimenting. I remember it was a day, [Prof was] like ‘listen, I’m off to Joburg, and when I come back, if you put me a hot sixteen, Imma put you on. I spat him a hot verse, and that’s when it started. I’ll be honest, ka Setswana it’s always more challenging. I’d go months without writing because all I’m doing is I’m finding new slang; new slang, words. Just trying to find an opening line sometimes takes me a month, and it depends on where we’re at.

You’ve had a very successful run over the past eighteen months or so, plus an unfortunate incident with the police. What’s your state of mind right now, and going into the future?

It’s a new chapter, we were talking about that le Towdee ke re you know what, sometimes you get to this place and you just have to acknowledge that everything you wanted to  achieve, my whole list of goals I’ve literally scratched everything off. I’m just starting all over; it’s a whole new journey now. Running a business is not an easy thing, and that’s where I’m at right now. A lot of musicians blow up and become businessmen, and then the talent suffers. I wanna be just like a JAYZ who still raps like an eighteen year old, and the business sense and hustle is just as crazy. That’s where I’m at.

What goes into preparing your live sets?

I wish we had more time. I’ve become so busy trying to balance fatherhood, work. I treat every show like a rehearsal; I’m always learning something new. Big up to my band – J-Star, Raiko, Maestro.

*Get Khuli’s music on iTunes

**This interview first appeared on Mahala

Obituary: Nadine Gordimer

My first introduction to Comrade Nadine was through her writing during my student activist days in the mid-1970s and later when I was serving five years on Robben Island as a political prisoner from 1979 to 1984. Her writing struck me so powerfully as it spoke of the lived experiences of people like me fighting the everyday trauma of the inequities and horror of apartheid. Alongside the writings of Karl Marx, Rosa Luxembourg, Samora Machel, Fidel Castro, Mariama Ba, Chinua Achebe and countless other revolutionary authors and thinkers, Comrade Nadine’s work occupied a pride of place in the reading and study menu of Robben Island prisoners and activists in the streets of townships, rural villages, exiled freedom fighters, or university lecture halls.

It was after my release from a year-long (1986-1987) State of Emergency detention that I met Comrade Nadine face to face in July 1987 when she and other comrades (Prof Njabulo Ndebele, Achmat Dangor, Andries Oliphant, James Matthews, Gladys Thomas, Nise Malange, Mavis Smallberg, Barbie Schreiner, among others) converged at Wits University to form the once-vibrant but now-defunct Congress of South African Writers (COSAW). She was, and continued to be, a live wire of COSAW until its demise in the late 1990′s. She was always ready to serve, through its regional and national structures, the course of empowering young up-and-coming writers by organizing and taking part in creative writing workshops, encouraging “barefoot publishing,” straddling the country distributing books through what COSAW termed “suitcase” libraries, fundraising, international writer-exchange programmes, interaction with other writers’ organizations on the African Continent and elsewhere. She even put her own money into uplifting an already accomplished musician’s knowledge of reading and writing music and awards to encourage short story writing in African languages.

A freedom fighter always looking out for the less-privileged than herself, she was a committed campaigner in PEN International‘s prisoner of conscience committee to support detained writers and journalists.

Comrade Nadine’s brutal honesty and consistency are legendary, from picking a fight with Amiri Baraka on the best socialist route to her shredding you to pieces until you got your writing to a modicum of acceptability, to speaking truth to power at every level, whether you are friend or foe…

I had the privilege, through Comrade Nadine, of getting Nelson Mandela’s endorsement of a book of poetry Richard Bartlett and I were compiling, titled Halala Madiba–Mandela In Poetry. It was quite a feat when my wife, Sindiswa, Comrade Nadine and I got an audience with the great Madiba to personally hand the book over to him. Comrade Nadine was very selfless in that and many ways.

As we bid a sad farewell to this gallant fighter, Comrade Nadine,we remember her uncompromising stance in her defense of her political homes in the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party.

When it was not fashionable, she reached out to people she may not have seen eye to eye with, including the PAC’s firebrand, the late David Sibeko, whose last stop before he and his family went to exile was Comrade Nadine’s house: she and her late husband, Reinhold Cassirer drove them over the Botswana border.

There is more, so much, to say about this indomitable freedom fighter and fine writer.

May you beautiful and forever revolutionary spirit rest in eternal and graceful peace, you, guerrilla of the imagination, Comrade Nadine!

Image Credit: Bengt Oberger (Wiki Commons)

South African Hip Hop Series: Ill Skillz In Five Videos

Cape Town’s self-proclaimed two dope boyz Uno and Jimmy Flexx are Ill Skillz. At the end of 2013 they released Notes from the Native Yard (NFTNY), a collection of songs steeped in the tradition of great storytellers with its lucid detail and raw emotion, and driven by stellar production from beat-gods Hipe and J-One, among others.

Melancholic in parts (without being dull), it’s a pocket handbook to give outsiders a hint of life as a black man in Kaapstaad, a city often criticized for its brash treatment of the poor and underprivileged. NFTNY is also upbeat; it’s a celebration of being young and alive, of being part and parcel of pivotal shifts in culture, of embracing one’s influences and learning from one’s mistakes. Ultimately, it’s an album about growth – both personal and artistic.

Ill Skillz have, since their full length debut Off The Radar in 2008, paid immaculate attention to their appearance. To them, the visual is as important as the music. To this end, they’ve managed to build a repertoire of videos worthy of envy, and they’ve managed to achieve it all by maximizing whatever resources are at their disposal.

To pay homage to their keen eye, we compiled five of our favourites and asked them to share stories behind how they were made. It’s all very compelling stuff filled with quotables such as “This video inspired Kanye West’s interest in ballerinas.” Have a look.

“Rocoflo” is our first video. It was a pretty big deal to finally have our first video at the time. We knew this [was] gonna be our introduction to a lot of heads. More importantly, we wanted [them] to bug out. We linked up with Garth and the team from GreenHouse Productions who were at AFDA film school at the time. They knew their stuff man and we made it happen – just having a good time in the CBD, guerrilla-style.

“Unbreakable” was probably the most challenging as it was part of The 24 Hour Project, Skillz That Pay Da Billz. We had to choose a song on the day and we went with Unbreakable. Greenhouse only had a few hours to come up with a concept and execute it all in the 24 hours. We were recording, mixing, mastering, having a photo-shoot, interviews a performance at the Cape Town Festival, and our launch the same night. This video inspired Kanye West’s interest in ballerinas. It’s about being extra-ordinary in the face of tremendous hardship [and] odds.

“We Are Over Here” made us most proud. It became a talking point; the bar was raised again. We enjoy working with creatives in other disciplines because we get to explore what else is possible after the song is done. This time, Echoledge came through with new tricks. You see these tricks in other videos - even commercials now - but it all started with We Are Over Here. [This is to] let the ladies know we’re over here, where they want to be, where they need to be.

Once again Echoledge came through, we wanted to have a bunch of ill skillionaires and at least one Bonita Applebum in the video, the rest is a gazillion cool kids in the ghetto.

Brown Sugar, I Used To Love H.E.R…we worked with ONS on bringing this to life the journey of the South African Hip hop head before rap blew up into what it is today in SA. Reminding people that Hip hop is really a street culture, no matter how many culture vultures come at it, for as long as there is young people in the townships and urban areas, inner cities. It’ll keep getting bigger and more consumer driven, but it’s core will remain raw. Real life.

*Ill Skillz’s album Notes From The Native Yard is available on bandcamp and iTunes. They’re currently in post-production for their third video off of their latest album. 

***This article is part of Africasacountry’s series on South African Hip-Hop in 2014. You can follow the rest of the series here.

Football is Politics in Nigeria

A few days ago, FIFA once again, suspended Nigeria from international football. On History Class today, we will take a look at the remote causes of that, and attempt to compare it with Nigeria’s politics. This will not be the first time that the big stick is being wielded on Nigeria, it probably won’t be the last. Nigeria is a serial offender at so many things, and the shenanigans in Nigerian football can’t be divorced from our bad behaviour. What is happening within the NFF, has strange parrallels to what happens on our political playground as I will show.

Remember that we failed to qualify for Germany 2006 losing out to Angola in a rather foolish manner. Following that failure, the NFA chairman at the time, Ibrahim Galadima declared that qualification wasn’t our birthright. As a result of that statement (made in July 2005), some football “stakeholders” had him sacked from office.

In December 2006, Galadima called for NFA elections in Kano, his hometown, and won. Those elections were conducted by Nduka Irabor. The sports minister of the day, Samaila Sambawa didn’t feel comfortable with Galadima, so a group called “stakeholders” fought Galadima. At the time, Amos Adamu was still a bigwig in FIFA, and he was, err, contracted to put the nail in Galadima’s coffin. He got FIFA secretary, Urs Linsi on board, and Linsi agreed to back the “stakeholders” in a congress which removed Galadima.

In July 2006, at a new NFA election, Sani Lulu cme first, 75/97 votes, Lumumba Adeh came second, Segun Odegbami came last 6/97 votes. Forward two years, and in July 2008, the congress changed the name of the NFA to NFF, and changed ‘chairman’ to ‘president’. The 2010 congress, normally meant to hold before the World Cup was shifted to August 2010, after South Africa 2010. Another twist was introduced in that state congresses were shifted to after the national congress of the same year rather than before.

The 2008 congress also amended the statutes so that the only way to get into the NFF is thru the state FA. So, let us ask a question, what were the implications of the changes made in 2008, how are they a metaphor for Nigeria?.

Under those new changes, the NFF president has sweeping powers since he constitutes both the electoral and appears committees. Note that he, the NFF president is a candidate in the elections of which he is the hidden umpire. Does that sound familiar? In Nigeria’s political dispensation, the President appoints the chairman of INEC, and is responsible for INEC’s budget. This makes it possible for him to pick a sympathetic party to be the head of INEC, sorry, electoral committee. Also, since the national elections are held before the state FA elections, he can guarantee that those loyal to him win at state level. That way, in the 2015 elections (blame my keyboard, sorry) in the August NFF election, his return is virtually guaranteed.

To be fair, it was not the incumbent that put those rules in place, Obasanjo started it. Sorry, I meant Sani Lulu. You see, OBJ in 2007 shifted state elections to April 14, so that his guy could take advantage of incumbent governors on April 1. I’m so sorry, my keyboard keeps misyarning. Sani Lulu wanted to stay beyond 2010, so he made sure that state elections were after national. As a sweetener, Sani Lulu’s board sponsored over 300 people (state FA bosses and their wives/babes) to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Unfortunately, fate intervened and the Super Eagles had a disaster in South Africa. It opened the door for new “stakeholders”. This new set of “stakeholders” led by Chris Green sacked the Lulu-led board, and held elections that produced Aminu Maigari.Out the door went Lulu and his henchmen, Amanze, Ucheagbulam and Ogunjobi. In came Maigari, Ogba and Green.

However, Goodluck Jonathan continued Obasanjo’s tactics of swapping election. I’m sorry, Maigari continued Lulu’s tactic of swapping elections. As it were, in the 2014 World Cup, congress members, and their hangers on, got a joy-ride to Brazil. Maigari even went a step further.

With the congress in his pocket, his more serious opponents were even banned from contesting. His second term was virtually in the bag. Rumson Baribote, is serving a 15-year ban from all football related activity. Even Luciano Moggi didn’t get that much. Taiwo Ogunjobi is serving a 10-year ban. Both bans began in October 2013. For clarity, neither man is a saint. Had the drama of the last two weeks not happened, Maigari’s second term was lock, stock and barrel assured. Barring any drama in the next few months, GEJ’s second term is lock, stock and barrel assured. That Baribote’s wife, has instituted a court case, and is backed by their, err, countryman, the minister, isn’t a shock.

All in all, the drama that has plagued Nigerian football, I hope I’ve shown, is a template that can be used in the 2015 elections.

The film about the small businessman who took on the bread cartel

“Crumbs–Toppling the Bread Cartel” is the inside story of a Cape Town businessman, Imraahn Mukaddam’s fight for social justice and the personal cost of blowing the whistle on corporate greed.  To fill you in: in late 2006 Imraahn Mukaddam, a local businessman, is told by his supplier that the price of bread is going up by 30 cents, and that all the other suppliers would also be raising the price by the same amount. Faced with possible destitution and the knowledge of the flagrant swindling of the public, he decides to report them all to the authorities, launching a legal battle that continues until today. The central theme of the documentary is that challenging the costing of bread has taken a huge toll on Mukaddam’s life, yet the bread suppliers continue to thrive, unhindered despite paying fines ranging between R45 million and R1 billion rand. 

“Crumbs,” written and directed by local filmmakers Dante Greeff and Richard Finn Gregory (and produced by , recently premiered at the 2014 Encounters Documentary Film Festival.

Here’s the trailer:

While focusing on Mukaddam’s personal trials the documentary tries to emphasise how artificial price inflation feeds into issues of corporate ethics and food security. We are told about South Africa’s entrenched history of corporate collusion and corruption—a system that really is built on a culture of theft, as one media expert puts it. This is reflected in the findings of the Competition Commission, which showed that “between 1994 and 2006 (local bread companies) Tiger, Premier, Pioneer and various independent bakeries increased bread prices “by similar amounts at or about the same time”, and between 1999 and 2001 agreed to close certain bakeries.”

The film also shows how price inflation disrupts the food security of the poor, revealing the ethical dimension to this sociological problem. They use vox pops to let ordinary working class folks tell us, in all colours of the Cape linguistic spectrum, about their dependence on bread and its burden on their pocket. There are solutions and alternatives. We are introduced to a community working plots of land cultivating greens for Abalami Bezekhaya, and talking heads who opine about food solidarity rather than food security, and government’s drive for one household, one garden.

The struggle over the price of bread is the struggle over adequate nourishment, and securing the right of the poor to flourish. Imraahn Mukaddam’s struggle therefore concerns a struggle for human rights. And it’s a task as monumental as the grain silos of Pioneer Foods in Salt River. But he finds help from a number of NGO’s lawyers and organisations who rally around him for change. They make for a refreshing cast of characters.

This is also a story about rampant inequality. And Crumbs succeeds in showing this by crafting its narrative against the stark mise-en-scene of social life in Cape Town. Images slice between the rust and dust of townships and the vintage chic of the inner city; shots of diners delighting in the cornucopia of artisanal food at the Old Biscuit Mill in Woodstock, and the hungry and homeless enjoying their basic, bland 5 cent meals, not far away at the Service Dinning Rooms in the inner city.

This angle is also the documentary’s weakness. Sometimes it comes off as smarmy, overwrought. And it does so through eyes familiar with a landscape that others may find difficult to interpret. The sentiment reaches its zenith in a religious theme explored towards the end, one that amplifies an appeal to morality that does not cut it when fighting corporate nemeses.

Mukaddam is a fighter. His is a story is about working the levers of the law to compel corporates unswayed by such appeals to sentiment. It’s about risking financial ruin in pursuit of changing an unjust economic system. It’s a story that resonates in post-apartheid South Africa.

And his struggle goes on. The bread cartel may have been toppled but economic justice was not equitably met. But there is a bit of a happy ending. In 2013, Mukaddam got a break when the Constitutional Court ruled in his favor for a class action suit. It opened the way for distributers and retailers affected by the collusion to sue the bread suppliers. Through pioneering this legal action they may yet force the hand of corporates unwilling to share their sometimes ill-gotten wealth.

* Go check out the film, the project online, and support Mukaddam’s work at Consumer Fair and Cape Town TV.

Another lazy South Africa ad

Africa is a Country has written plenty in the past on problematic advertising, particularly that which rides on racial and sexist stereotypes, and tropes about the African continent. Invariably, the common thread that runs through many of these ads—especially the ones that ostensibly promote a social cause, like SAB’s victim-blaming‘You Decide’ billboard or Woolworths’ black labourers-white consumers tribute to Nelson Mandela—is that the people who thought them up were incredibly lazy and uncreative.

Cape Town agency Ogilvy’s ad for a local NGO, Feed A Child South Africa, is yet another example of this phenomenon, which is why the agency was forced to withdraw the ad after an outcry. But, somehow, Ogilvy appears to believe all was well and that it was “controversy” that caused it to be withdrawn, not their own failings. Let me try to disabuse them of that notion.

In the ad, Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 14 plays while a white woman is shown in different scenes treating a black child like a pampered dog: petting and feeding him while he rests on her lap; feeding him “treats” when he fetches her newspaper; letting him lick her fingers while she cooks. The choice of cast, which was no coincidence, inscribes South Africa’s racial dynamics into the ad’s message. The ad eventually ends with the pay-off line: “The average domestic dog eats better than millions of children. Help feed a starving child. SMS “child” to 40014 to donate R20.”

Unsurprisingly, the ad was widely panned as racist, an affront to the dignity of the boy made to play the role of a dog, and a perpetuation of racial stereotypes. Richard Poplak wrote in the Daily Maverick:

We come now, as we must, to the question of gaze: who is looking at the black boy/dog? Is this advert meant for, um, black people? I’m sure Feed A Child would be happy to include the black middle class in its donor demographic. But I suspect that the images are meant to shake and shock white folk from their torpor—to remind them that their lifestyles are not just unethical, but unsustainable and cruel. But by employing this element of racial trickery, by dangling the bait of the black boy, the advert is not undermining but reinforcing stereotypes—it is simply anotherimage of black subservience fed to whites who have gorged on them for generations.

There’s also something to be said about how the ad continues a mass media tradition of presenting black bodies as those most suited to denigration and abuse.

But to reduce the ad to a problem of racial stereotypes only is to let the supposedly creative folks over at Ogilvy off the hook for their laziness.

It’s their laziness that led them by the nose to the racial stereotypes. They mindlessly called on a common trope that plays the well being of black people off against the well being of dogs, rhino, elephant, or whatever animal white folks are said to care more about at that moment. As a rhetorical device, this trope can be powerful in the right hands. But, as responses to Feed A Child’s ad show, it can also be, to paraphrase writer Athambile Masola, as awkward and prone to misunderstanding as a supposedly liberal white person showing how liberal they are by attempting to rehash Trevor Noah jokes.

To examine the laziness more closely, let me begin by calling bullshit on the ad’s claim that the average domestic dog eats better than millions of children. Maybe they mean the average dog in a white household, given the disparities in household income by race.

The average South African household gets by on $930 per month, whereas the average white South African family earns $3,000—almost six times more than the average black household. Thus, assuming an even distribution of dogs per household, the average dog eats how the average South African household that owns it eats: poorly.

Even without assuming an even distribution of dogs across South African households, it’s safe to say that the well being of domestic dogs is inextricably linked to that of the household that owns it. This is enough for us to conclude that Ogilvy’s and Feed A Child’s claim is very likely untrue. The truth is that a dog in an average white household is sitting pretty, like its owners. And a dog in an average black household, despite whatever efforts its owners might put up, suffers the same indignities as the rest of the household, including frequent, often hidden hunger, particularly in the former apartheid-era “homelands”.

The laziness is also apparent in false dichotomy the ad establishes between the well being of hungry (black) children and the well being of animals as a category of thing well off (white) people spend money on and direct empathy towards. Why not rich (white) people’s own kids? In fact, I think the ad would have been more provocative if Ogilvy had applied their minds and played the well being of rich kids off against the well being of poor kids, Hunger Games style. That would have established the moral complicity of the wealthy in the hunger of poor children, and it would have done so without any of the unnecessary noise in the current version of the ad.

But, no. Instead, the minimum threshold Ogilvy and Feed A Child chose to establish for what is just and fair for the black child is the same treatment afforded a pampered dog, not the treatment the better off afford their own kids. Guaranteed, on the whole, they treat their kids better they do their dogs.

Thus the false dichotomy guaranteed from the start that Ogilvy would be made to withdraw the ad. There’s just no way to look at it that escapes the equivalence of black kids to dogs. Considering how much Feed A Child likely spent on it, Ogilvy might as well have added a disclaimer at the end: No child was fed through the making of this commercial.

The least Ogilvy can do at this stage is refund Feed A Child for the ad, or agree to create a new, better ad for free. If they accept payment for this withdrawn ad, they are stealing food from the mouths of children.

All of that said, South Africa does have a troubling history with Inja Yomlungu (The White Man’s Dog). That’s the title of a documentary written and directed by Sipho Singiswa. The documentary explores the disparate ways in which white people treat their dogs compared to how they treat black people, and how white people use dogs as a fear-instilling weapon against black people. Parts 1 and 2 of the documentary are available on YouTube.

Christmas Day*

UPDATED: So there you have it. After 120 minutes and a great goal by Mario Goetze (whose name will now be part of German lore like Gert Muller and Andreas Brehme), Germany are World champions. It’s been a magical month. But it is also basically the last time (till the next World Cup in four years) for journalists and pundits (yes, that’s a real profession now) to trot out cliches for a while about Messi’s “magic” versus the “German machine.”  Tomorrow we’ll return to our lives, especially Brazilians who have to pay the bill for FIFA’s untaxed profits and who have to rebuild their football reputation from scratch (start by firing Scolari) and can’t hide their business behind empty slogans of mixing. So now we have a summer of expensive meaningless friendlies between top European club teams featuring their reserves playing in Asia and North America coming up and the English media (and 101 great goals) convincing us all over again of the superiority of the Premier League. Which is a good time to remind ourselves that must people play the game away from advertising boards or without pundits and close-ups. And that’s a good opportunity to posts these images of pickup game, players warming up or practising dribbling skills taken at various sites in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Senegal by photojournalist and Africa is a Country contributor, Ricci Shryock.

 

* Football is a Country’s Elliot Ross describes the World Cup Final as Christmas Day for football fans, just better)

Get Your Football T-Shirt On

Last year, while on a visit to LA, Sean met artists Carolyn Castaño and Gary Dauphin at a friend’s house in Echo Park. Of course, conversation veered to futbol. Sean had known about their work for a while (Back in the day, Gary–who also reps for Haiti–was one of the key figures at Africana.com–a sort of Africa is a Country 1.0, and Carolyn’s built a solid rep for her art exploring aspects of Latin American identities in LA). They introduced their project (actually, they showed him a t-shirt of Andres Escobar designed by Carolyn) , “CARGA1804 is Art, Politics, T-Shirts, Fútbol, Play, Repeating Islands.” Of course they weren’t new to this. Carolyn had by then already held an exhibit in LA built around t-shirts of assassinated footballers, Asesinados United, and was later part of LACMA’s critically acclaimed exhibitions, “Fútbol: The Beautiful Game and Phantom Sightings” and “Art After the Chicano Movement,” which traveled to the Museo Del Barrio, New York City and the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Rufino Tamayo in Mexico City, amongst other venues . Sean was interested. The idea was to collaborate on working together on producing a series of t-shirts with the World Cup in mind, one which includes a healthy representation of players from the African diaspora. The shirts are here now. Available for sale on Etsy. Each shirt is silkscreened by hand by Castaño and come in men and women’s sizes. Africa is a Country will get a cut from every shirt sold. So you won’t just look good, you’ll feel good about yourself too. Go on, buy your shirt. 

We collaborated on a few: Mohamed Aboutreika (most probably Egypt’s greatest player, who defied FIFA bans on players making any statements–apart from declaring your undying love for Jesus, like most of the Brazilian players–by declaring his support for the embattled Gazans),  Didier Drogba (the lodestar of Cote d’Ivoire’s greatest generation and now inspiration for Turkish protesters), and  Mario Balotelli (“I am Italian, I feel Italian, I will forever play with the Italy national team”). There are also shirts for Diego Maradona, Lionel Messi, Faustino Asprilla, Carlos Valderrama, Radamel Falcao and Jozi Altidore.

The Final Report

Today the 2014 World Cup in Brazil ends. It was a fun ride, and I don’t think that anyone will disagree that this has been an unforgettable month of international sport, politics, and drama both on and off the field. The video below is my attempt at showing another side of Rio de Janeiro and a few of the contrasting faces of this megacity. It takes place in different locations in the city on three different days of the World Cup:

In doing these periodic reports from Brazil on Africa is a Country, I set out to try and show a side of the country that perhaps would go under covered in the mainstream media. I suspected back in February that visitors to the country would be perplexed by its unique local nuances and many contradictions. Luckily there have been some great local projects and organizations working to amplify underrepresented voices in the country. However, while there has been some great reporting on the ground, the country’s inequality (especially evident in the areas where FIFA activity was concentrated), its team’s ugly and violent play on the field, and their embarrassing loss to the Germans have contributed to a growing unease with Brazil as a growing global super power (and perennial footballing one.)

I, for one, can’t help but feel that feelings of unease towards certain more-visible aspects of the country just work to continue to marginalize those less-visible aspects of the country that we may learn from or find solidarity with. Brazil has been described to me by friends as the country of a future that never quite seems to arrive. This is what the mainstream media is referring to when they say Brazilians are mourning the death of a dream in the wake of their loss to Germany. But, we’ve been here before.

While some Brazilians use the Minerazo as a place to channel their frustration, for many others their government’s deals with an international body like FIFA in the run up to the Cup was all they needed show that the dream wasn’t being realized. For even others yet, the death of such a dream is a reality that renews daily, regardless of any mega event, as they come up against a host of impermeable social boundaries. The collective inferiority complex that seems to continually characterize Brazil is something that I can relate to in my own way. Ultimately, in the game of (both personal and national) global belonging I am not just ready for some new winners, I’m ready for new rules. Because those dreams that plague the Brazilian people often cause a state of limbo. The dreamer is stuck between heaven and hell as they await their ultimate judgement from those who made up the rules. Tomorrow, after everyone else has gone home, that’s the state that Brazil will be left in, again.

Did Cameroon’s police interrogate Samuel Eto’o and take away his passport over the World Cup? Who knows

Did Cameroon’s police really quiz national soccer team captain Samuel Eto’o and seize his passport in connection with a government investigation into the terrible performance of the Indomitable Lions at the World Cup? After brouhaha of claims and denials in recent days, the answer seems to be another question: who knows? But Far less ambiguous are an insider’s perspective on the raging frictions, bags of cash and political considerations that define the outlines of national soccer in Cameroon, and elsewhere in Africa for that matter.

The idea that the General Delegation for National Security (DGSN), a branch of the Cameroonian police, questioned Samuel Eto’o on June 27th and confiscated his passport does sound like a fitting Kafkaesque twist to the decision by Cameroon’s ruler of 32 years, Paul Biya, to order a government inquiry into the poor performance of the Indomitable Lions at the World Cup. The report first appeared on the front page of the June 30th edition of leading independent daily Le Jour before spreading to international news outlets and eventually social media. Eto’o’s lawyers immediately denied the allegations in a press release, criticizing Le Jour’s reporting as “the fruit of the fertile imagination” of political desk editor Jean-Bruno Tagne, the author of the article, “and his masterminds hidden in the shade.” In response, Tagne’s editor, Haman Mana, issued a press release of his own defending his journalist and standing by the reports: the information was crosschecked by four sources, he said. On July 3, Tagne appeared on leading independent station Spectrum TV as the guest of broadcast journalist Thierry Ngogang’s evening program “Entretien” (Interview). Tagne firmly defended his reporting and his integrity.

Thankfully, the discussion on the Eto’o sideshow was the shortest segment in the program. More interestingly, the program offered a TV moment for Tagne to very publicly go through the dirty laundry of Cameroonian national soccer.  The journalist is a respected authority on Cameroonian soccer based on his years of intimate access to the team. He followed the Pride to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the African Nations Cup in Angola that same year and most recently to Brazil. In 2010, he published a book about the Lions entitled Programmés Pour Échouer (“Programmed to Fail”).

Tagne spread criticism evenly among every stakeholder in Cameroon national soccer: from the players’ egos to the Cameroon soccer federation’s interference with training schedules, to officials’ use of public funds to enjoy personal time at the World Cup, to the government’s failure to invest in stadium. “You cannot handle honey without licking your fingers,” he said, citing a local proverb to criticize the attitude of soccer federation officials tasked with distributing bags of cash payment to the players. He talked about the imposition of political considerations over training schedules, and the clashes of egos among the players tearing the team.

These practices will not surprise anyone familiar with the business of African soccer. After all, one of the iconic images of the World Cup remains that of Ghanaian defender John Boye kissing a stack of cash distributed to the players. The Ghanaian government has defended the practice of airlifting cashto players and Ghana President John Mahama has also called for an investigation into the circumstances of the Black Stars dramatic elimination from the World Cup amid a pay dispute and infighting. What is remarkable is how these embarrassing patterns are becoming banal, with African teams more entertaining off the field than on the field at the World Cup.