Sean Jacobs's Blog, page 536

Coca-Cola can’t copyright colour: the art of Sokari Douglas Camp

“Coca-Cola Bird” (pictured) stands facing the corner of the gallery, half-turned towards us in surprise or exhibition, oily red paint spun across the bucket cocked over her head, the same brash colour on the feathered tutu winding around her waist. Her chest sprouts sparkling empty bottles bearing the famous label, and familiar labial body.

The work seems to speak to the soft drinks company’s attempts to nourish Africa with its addictive drinks and, more importantly, message of spiritual community through global consumer capitalism. I’m also reminded of Edgar Degas’ Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen, though this burnished and rough-hewn steel figure clearly rejects the sexualised gaze that figure seems to solicit.

‘It’s Personal’, a new exhibition of work by Sokari Douglas-Camp is on display at Tiwani Contemporary, in London. The Nigerian-British artist is well known for her sculptures in steel, and her public works: in particular, the bus she designed as a “living memorial” to Ken Saro-Wiwa.

As the artist comments in this brief BBC radio feature, the works explore a painful moment for the late middle aged female body, with sculptures of the female body wrought in steel adorned with uncomfortable apendages (tin cans, buckets, bottles). These embodiments, the artist explains, are efforts to exorcise the evil spirits.

‘Middle Age, Middle Rage’, the paint-on-steel triptych (above) of the artist and her husband as a the young man and woman they were when they married (right and left panel) and as now (centre panel) repeat this concern with an angry intensity. Here the red strip through their face is not rage or Coca-Cola but (according to the gallery) a reference to her husband’s football team (Arsenal, naturally), and a joke about her husband’s fervent love for the north London side, coursing through the middle of their marriage.

The exhibition is open until late May; see the Tiwani website for news on their forthcoming schedule of events and talks.

Uptown Sahel

Thinking about ways that Africa is represented by NGO’s and other international organizations (reference: various posts at Africa is a Country), it was nice to run into this project put together by UNICEF that seeks to find new ways of representing crises in Africa.

In order to re-orient our perspectives on the drought and pending food crisis in the Sahel, UNICEF went up to Harlem to find people from the region, and ask them about their experience with the crisis and their memories of living back home. The video doesn’t go too far into the details of the campaign, and what the international community might actually do to avert a long-term food crisis. But, by allowing for those who are directly effected (in our hypothetical backyards) to speak their own voice, it’s a step in the right direction towards facilitating genuine empathy, and away from the sensationalistic portrayals that have come to define awareness campaigns.

Watch part two of “Memories of the Sahel” here.

The 10 best goals scored by African players in the Premier League

Ever since Rupert Murdoch invented football in 1992 (see Fivers passim), African players from all over the continent have lit up the English Premier League and helped turn the competition into a continent-wide obsession. (Just last week, Arsene Wenger said he had been “frightened” by the intensity of Arsenal’s popularity in Nigeria and Kenya.) African players have also scored some memorable goals in the process. So while the Premier League was busy anointing Wayne Rooney’s jammy overhead shinner from last season as the official “Goal of the 20 Seasons”–presumably only fans under the age of seven were allowed to vote?–we put the question to Twitter: What is the greatest goal scored by an African in the English Premier League? As the final day of this 20th season begins, here’s the run-down of the 10 biggest goals scored by African players in the Premier League.

10. Cheikh Tiote vs Arsenal (5 Feb 2011)

Arsenal had been four up at half time at St James’ Park, but Abou Diaby’s red card and a couple of generous penalties put away by Joey Barton left Newcastle trailing 4-3 in the dying minutes. Gael Clichy headed Barton’s free-kick high into the air, and when the ball dropped steeply towards the lurking Tiote, the Ivorian simply battered a crushing left-foot volley into the bottom corner. The goal Paul Scholes wishes he’d scored, it’s safe to say the strike was well-received on local Geordie radio (“Boom, Boom, Cheik Cheik the Room!”).

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9. Michael Essien vs Arsenal (10 Dec 2006)

Another late equaliser against Arsenal, this goal was so good it had Andy Gray pulling out the “Take a bow, son” routine that the old growler usually reserved for Steven Gerrard. With six minutes left, Chelsea’s seemingly interminable undefeated home run under Jose Mourinho looked like finally coming to an end. Essien’s strike was as sweet as it was sudden, and the curve of the ball bent so far outside of Jens Lehmann’s far post that the mad German never had a chance of reaching it.

8. Didier Drogba vs Everton (17 Dec 2006)

Drogba is the leading African scorer in Premier League history with 100 goals. None have bettered this late winner at Goodison Park, which came just a week on from Essien’s effort above. The Guardian’s Dominic Fifield described the goal in his match report: “It was Didier Drogba who settled this glorious contest. The hosts were still coming to terms with the reality that their resilience had not been enough to retain an advantage, Frank Lampard having plucked an equaliser across Tim Howard and into the corner six minutes earlier, when the Ivorian gathered Andriy Shevchenko’s flick. The ball cannoned up from his chest, Drogba spinning instinctively to hammer a wondrous volley which soared for 35 yards then dipped over the goalkeeper at the last. Jose Mourinho tore off down the touchline, arms pumping in celebration, as those present gasped or wailed at the splendour of the winner.” Fast forward to the 8:56 mark in the video:

7. Emmanuel Adebayor vs Tottenham Hotspur (15 Sept 2007)

The trouble with Adebayor playing for Tottenham is that he only seems to play really well when he’s playing against them. Arsenal were leading 2-1 late into a game that would see Martin Jol fired as Spurs manager. Cesc Fabregas fired a firm pass to the feet of Adebayor, standing with his back to goal on the edge of the box, a couple of yards ahead of Michael Dawson. Rather than hold up play and look to play in Alex Hleb, who was unmarked on the Arsenal left, Adebayor gently scooped the ball up across his body and in one fluid movement blasted it in right-footed. The two touches could hardly have been more different. What made the goal even better was that just seconds earlier, Denilson had squandered a one-on-one in the most pitifully apologetic fashion. The Brazilian’s timidity made the sheer conviction of Adebayor’s strike all the more awesome.

6. Peter Ndlovu vs West Bromwich Albion (18 Jan 1995)

In the first Premier League season, 1992-1993, there were, I think, only three Africans in the competition, and incredibly two of them were Zimbabweans: Bruce Grobelaar and Peter Ndlovu.*  Ndlovu, endlessly mispronounced “Und-love” by commentators, was a star of the Coventry side of the mid-90s. Nicknamed the “Bulawayo Bullet”, his goal against West Brom in 1995 was a vintage example of the relish with which he tormented opposing defenders. Fast forward to the 1.45 mark.

Andy Morrison, who had to mark Ndlovu while playing for Blackburn in 1994, recently said he thought the Zimbabwean had single-handedly wrecked his career: “I was at Blackburn, had broken into the first-team squad and was in the plans of the manager, Kenny Dalglish. But I got ripped to shreds by Peter Ndlovu… Blackburn still had a chance to win the title and were pushing for an equaliser. Time and again I was left one-on-one with Ndlovu and he tore me to pieces. He beat me on the inside and the outside until I was put out of my misery after 80 minutes. I came across him a few years later and told him that he had ruined my career. He, of course, had no idea what I was talking about.”

5. Jay Jay Okocha vs West Ham (19 April 2003)

So good they named him twice. Or as the Telegraph match report had it, “almost too classy for the Premiership”. This was a six-pointer between two clubs fighting relegation. Picking up a loose ball, Okocha surged towards the West Ham goal from deep inside his own half, shrugged off Joe Cole, before steadying himself and lashing the ball into the roof of the net from 25 yards. The Nigerian legend scored other great goals in England, but this was his best.

4. Papiss Demba Cisse vs Chelsea (2 May 2012)

A goal so good it made hardened journeyman striker Steve Claridge throw up his hands and whimper with fear on live radio. The wow-factor of the goal lies in just how implausible it was, at the moment when Demba Ba chested the ball down for Papiss Demba Cisse (this manœuvre is now known as the “Double Demba”), that Cisse could possibly beat Petr Cech from a position wide out on the left wing by striking the ball with the outside of his right foot. But that’s exactly what he did.

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3. Tony Yeboah vs Liverpool (21 Aug 1995)

“Yeboah’s two goals against West Ham on Saturday were spectacular enough,” wrote Guy Hodgson in The Independent, “but last night’s had a quality that threatened to defy physics. Tony Dorigo crossed from the left, Rod Wallace headed back and Yeboah, showing no compromise to a range of 25 yards, thumped a right-foot volley that hurtled through the sultry air and crashed past David James with awesome ferocity.”

“I hate that goal,” said David James recently. ”At the time, I spent quite a few weeks afterwards moaning about the fact that I should have saved it.”

It’s difficult to imagine how he would have done that. Watch it again, and bear in mind: Yeboah is left-footed. If you can’t wait, fast forward to the 3:24 mark.

2. Nwankwo Kanu vs Chelsea (23 Oct 1999)

Two nil down at Stamford Bridge, with 15 minutes left, Kanu came up with an incredible match-winning hat-trick. Great goals can be judged in lots of ways. One is their level of difficulty, and what Kanu did against Chelsea in the dying minutes of that match was something just extraordinarily difficult. Chasing an overhit Davor Suker pass, Kanu somehow kept the ball in play as he blocked Albert Ferrer’s blasted clearance at point blank range with a stretch of his long left leg. Chelsea keeper Ed De Goey charged out and cornered him on the by-line, and it seemed Kanu’s only option was to try to cut the ball back for Overmars and Suker waiting in the middle. Perhaps that’s what De Goey thought too, because Kanu sold him the Dutchman the most languid, the most delicious of dumbies. As De Goey slid for the ball, Kanu danced inside him, trod in a large puddle that gave up a visible splash, and from the narrowest of angles sent the ball skimming just over the heads of Marcel Desailly and Frank Lebouef and into the top corner of the far post. Watch from the 8:16 mark.

It was the best goal the great man would score for Arsenal, though this against Spurs and this against Middlesborough were also pretty special.

1. Tony Yeboah vs Wimbledon (23 Sept 1995)

“It’ doesn’t need any words,” reflected Sky’s commentator at Selhurst Park that day, “just wonderment, really. The two goal cushion is restored.  It could not have been restored more emphatically.”

Now who did we miss?

* The third African to play in that inaugural 1992 season was the Nigerian Efan Ekoko, who was born and grew up in the UK and played for Norwich City in 1992. It’s a shame Nayim, the Spanish midfielder who played for Tottenham, does not count as African. He’s from the Spanish enclave of Ceuta on the North African coast at the edge of Morocco. Anyway, he could score amazing goals, like this.

Sean Jacobs contributed to this post.

First as tragedy, then as farce

By Melissa Levin

What is it with the conviction, held primarily in the West, that you can save yourself and the world (well, usually Africans) by shopping? Last week the tony Canadian chain, Holt Renfrew, began selling “the bag that can change the world.” For just $50, consumers can purchase a Tory Burch designed sack, some of the proceeds of which will go to feeding hungry African children. Feeding hungry children, wherever they may be, is a noble cause. But the persistence in undergirding a system that starves them in the first place detracts from the gesture.

The bags have been produced in partnership with Lauren Bush Lauren’s “FEED” NGO (she’s the niece of the former president and married a guy who’s last name is Lauren; and that’s her modeling the bag in the pic above). In a promotional/informational article in the Toronto Star, the gorgeous white face of charitable and entrepreneurial giving is foiled by the black mass of youthful faces representing all African children. It is hard to tell whether their little hands are waving to the camera or hailing their saviour.

I am struggling with the arithmetic: consumption of luxury goods = food security.

The straps of the tote were sewn in Spain. Given the precarious nature of the Spanish economy, I would hate to make an argument for doing such creative labour elsewhere. But the charitable face of capitalism would surely shine brighter if it mustered up the courage to manufacture, to set up shop in its zone of generosity.

This FEED/Tory Burch effort comes hot on the tail of an email I received the other day urging me to buy a pair of TOMS shoes, both because they are trendy (and they really are) and because my purchase will result in the company donating a pair of shoes on my behalf to a poor person in a developing country. Again, giving shoes to the shoeless is all very well and good, but we must ask, who labored to make these shoes, in which place, under what conditions?

It would be useful to pause and watch Slavoj Žižek on the ethical implications of charitable giving again:

* You can read Melissa Levin’s previous posts for AIAC here.

Interview: Baloji

I recently had the chance to sit down with Congolese-Belgian MC, Baloji during his visit to New York City. Here’s what transpired.

How do you like New York?

New York is an amazing city, especially from a hip-hop perspective. It’s one of the few places on earth where you can see that hip-hop is part of the culture, not just something that you watch on TV. But for me – doing music that is mostly in French and not in some Congolese language that sounds exotic for Western people – it’s a difficult market. I take everything that happens here like a plus one. I’m not supposed to be here.

In your song, “Independence Cha-Cha,” you say that “gold is turning into lead”. Can you explain that lyric?

Normally it’s the opposite – you turn lead to gold. In Congo, we had gold, but we turned it to something that had no value because we didn’t treat our country with the right respect. I think we have our share of responsibility. It’s a special song because we worked on it for the 50th anniversary of independence. It is about the Congolese’s own responsibility for what happened in the country.

Since we’re speaking in English, tell me about the decision to not include songs that are in English on your last record.

I think I don’t speak English well enough to make music in English. You have to write it properly and spell it in the right way, otherwise you sound stupid. It’s like listening to Fat Joe singing in Spanish, rapping in Spanish. He doesn’t really pronounce the words right. A listener might feel disturbed. You might be like, “hmmm that’s not real.”  I have an issue with that. Some people say, though, that you have to go for English because you will be limited as a French act, one that just got let in because the video looked good.

As a hip-hop artist, how do you negotiate the challenge of working with a genre that started here? How do you give it roots and how you do you think artists are doing that successfully across the continent? 

What led me to do this is having a hip-hop perspective. My parents listened to Franco and I hated it, but after growing up, you can connect to what you once hated. You listen to a lot of jazz. You feel a jazz feeling in Congolese sixties music like Franco. Then you can reconnect to it. I love that song by Ghostface Killah that’s based on a song by the Delfonics. You hear the needle and then they put on the song: “La la means I love you.” It’s a really classic song and on every break when they don’t sing, Ghostface raps. That’s basically where hip-hop comes from. That is what I try to do with antiphonal structure, to do something like that, to do something that is part of my heritage.

It’s as if the space for hip-hop was already there and you’re just filling in the blanks?

Yes, it was already there, even the rap flow. I’m from Katanga, from Congo and there was already a two hundred year old tradition of griot, of people talking on the music. And they are amazing rappers! Technically, rhythmically amazing. They never call it rap, but it is almost the same. And they have this tradition of ambiancer – it’s basically MCing. They were just animating a party, repeating some small phrase, some gimmick; it’s really close to hip-hop. Even when Franco performed, he always had someone there to animate. Like you have in a dancehall music, someone was telling the audience, “now this is the move, left right left, do this do this, this is the movement.” Just some rhythmic stuff that you do to push people to dance, similar to reggae and other styles with that Jamaican vibe.

I’m interested in your flow, in the way you compose and fit verses into songs. Can you explain how you started rapping over songs that didn’t have rap in them and how you developed your flow and timing?

I was in a rap group with these three guys from Colombia. We listened to salsa music, La Fania, old-school stuff, Puerto Rican music. They told me that if you’re a rapper, you have to adapt to any rhythm. They had me rapping to Augustus Pablo. They just put on any record and I’d rap on it. At first, I was like, “come on, I need a boom bap,“ but the more I did it, the more I felt at ease with it. I could feel my voice like an instrument, like percussion actually, as part of the mix.

On your newest record, Kinshasa Succursale, you managed an incredible work of A&R-ing; you brought together a ton of artists including older, classic musicians from the Congo. Getting people in the studio is not an easy thing; getting them to collaborate is not an easy thing, and it can be an expensive thing. Can you tell me a bit about that process, and how you managed to put this thing together?

I’m going to give you a really cheesy answer, a really hip-hop answer: It has a lot to do with money, power, and respect. Money, because when you pay the people, they are more willing to work with you; that’s something we can’t lie about. And respect is key because when someone from the Diaspora comes back to Congo, they always act like they know better. But for us, recording there in Congo, we were just humble. We learned so many good things from these old Congolese musicians. There was a lot of respect. As for power, our power came from saying that we wanted to do something that was not cliché; we want to make something that we can share together – this may be my idea, but let’s build it up together. If you have something, let’s go. If you have an idea, let’s try it. We share the rights to the song; we share everything. In African music, the publishing rights are a big issue. Few people have publishing rights to their songs and that’s a mark of respect for people, sharing those rights. I also paid everybody. I paid everybody. You know how it works – people don’t want promises. People don’t take promises.

So you took a lot of risk in putting this together.

Yeah. It’s a crazy record. We did this in 2009. I was on another label and when they got the record, they said, no fucking way. I went to my publisher and he told me, just bring in some western African big names like the Amadou and Mariams and Magic Systems. You know, the big names. The Youssou N’Dours. Because your record, they told me, is way too dark and we cannot release it. So I was really pissed off because I did this record in seven days, and we worked like crazy and we were so happy with the result, with what we learned from that record. It was just a great experience.

Seven days?

Just because we didn’t have the money! We did fifteen songs in seven days, like crazy. We stayed there eight days. And nobody wanted to take the record. I sent it to all the cool labels and nobody took it. I decided that to make the vision more clear I would make videos. I produced the videos and we put everything together with the videos, and we sent it again to all the cool labels, all the cool people that you know, that we all know. And they said, “nice video, but no thanks.” I was fucked, stuck with my record and my expensive videos that I produced by myself. And then I started to look for concerts. Luckily for me I had the chance to work with Blitz the Ambassador and his people. They made me come to New York for a showcase, and with the showcase we found a booker. Often you hear people saying, “use the Internet, and as long as you are on iTunes, you’re good.” But you still need a promo guy, a label. We kept on searching. Somebody said, “Why you don’t try Crammed?” Then we talked with them and they agreed to release the album. Then when they released the album, we got nice reviews in the UK and the cool labels called back! It’s stupid.

You mostly live in Belgium now. Could you ever see yourself moving back to Congo if the circumstances were right?

Yeah. The big difference is that you don’t have wifi. That’s the biggest difference. The Internet, that’s it. Artistically speaking, that’s the difference between South Africa or Nigeria and other places in Africa. They have Internet access so they can share ideas and vision with the rest of the world, and that means that the gap between these African countries and the rest of the world is shrinking.

Have you performed much in Congo and what is that like for you when you do?

We did a big tour last summer, and maybe we are going to play again in June. Yeah, we did a big tour. It was for a month and it was a nice experience.

Did people embrace your music there? Do you see that as an important audience for you, or are you more outward-facing? 

No. It’s really important, especially because the album was made in Kinshasa. And it was really important to play it there live and with the guests off the record. But to be really honest with you, we had to face the fact that Congolese music is suffering. It’s like the Cuban embargo. There is one kind of music that people listen to – the Soukous, the ndombolo . They really have a small window; we had to face that. Like wow – we asked them to listen to something different that they are not used to hearing. And we also played the game of piracy. We went to markets, shops; you just give it and people make copies, just like that. We didn’t ask for money. They are not gonna pay for this music, but at least they know that there is something different to listen to.

Are there any Congolese rappers today that you are excited about, that you would like to collaborate with?

There is this guy, Larousse Marciano, who is amazing.

Is he popular out there?

Not enough because he is not doing typical music, but he is amazing. Congolese still listen to the same old music. It’s like Cuba. Nothing has changed, and they don’t have other music that can enter. The only one is the Ivory Coast version of old school Soukous, a Coupe-Decale thing. That may be the only thing that can get in the mix.

What about house music?

House, yeah. It’s slowly getting in. I mean the Nigerian scene is releasing some great stuff.

Konono No 1’s contribution to your record sounds like traditional trance music. Even the Konono No 1’s dancers, when I first saw them, they were going into a mild state of trance. I wonder how trance relates to your process.

I’m from Belgium–Holland is the country of trance music! So I grew up listening to this “new beat.” You remember it? It’s close to a Detroit vibe; one line that goes for ten minutes straight. Konono and all these traditional bands are playing one line for five-hours while everyone gets up to the mic. There are definitely some similarities.

Is trance connected in some way to the spiritual images in your videos?

The album cover that we have now is not the original cover. I prefer the original cover because if you don’t know the story of the record, on the new one, it looks like a Christian record; it looks like I’m getting baptized. But I do like it because it’s related to the video for “Karibu Ya Bintou.” The whole idea with this Baloji project is related to the fact that my name “Baloji” shocked a lot of people in the Congo because it means “sorcerers.” Actually, Baloji means, “a group of sorcerers”. Everywhere I go in the Congo, especially when I did the tour last year, everyone was like “you need to change your name and get baptized right away, or else you will carry the sorcerer with you, the bad force with you.” So I didn’t get baptized, but at least I can show them the cover.

What was the cover meant to signify? Was it meant to signify getting baptized? 

The song was meant to be talking about the fact that sorcerer means something bad nowadays because of Christians, but historically it meant just someone who was a man of science. Before the Christians, “baloji” was doing good and bad science. After the Christians, Baloji related only to the bad and Christianity to the good. With my name, I’m saying that we are all wearing a mask. We are all into this game, but if you believe in it, you get trapped. If people believe that you are in this box, and you treat yourself as in this box, you get trapped.

When people think about the Congo today in the US, and hear your music as a connection both to Belgium and the Congo, what do you think they should be thinking about?

Tomorrow we are in Brazil for three weeks, and I think that Brazil is the mirror country to the Congo because of the forests and because they are on the same level on the equator. We can learn a lot from Brazil because they had a dictator and now they’re on the rise. Congolese can learn from them. We can make people see the Congo in a new light.

* This is the first in an ongoing series of cross-posting between Afropop Worldwide and AIAC. This interview was originally posted here on Afropop’s blog.

Acoustic Guitar Break

We thought it cool to compile a Bonus Music Break centered on acoustic guitar music. First up is Toronto-based Ghanaian Kae Sun with “Lion on a Leash”:

Another Ghanaian: Kesse (made his breakthrough on Ghana’s version of American Idol) was profiled by The Fader last year:

Then there’s German-Nigerian Ayo:

And video of a 23 minute live set by Asa, France-based Nigerian (credits: “Fire on the Mountain,” “Mr Jailer,”), recorded in San Francisco:

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Bez, the young Nigerian (remember him?) will be in New York City next week (Society HAE has the details)

You can’t say acoustic guitar music and not include Michael Kiwanuka, Ugandan-born British crooner. He is a big part of our regular Twitter #musicbreaks.

Stateside, there’s Cody ChesnuT. (BTW, while below he slows things down, I’ve seen him crank it up with The Legendary Roots Crew):

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And Gary Clarke Jnr with a stripped down version of my favorite tunes (remember him?)

Africanos Latinos

Latin America and the Caribbean haven’t gotten enough attention on this site. We’re going to intentionally rectify that, and I’m excited to start by sharing this video from sometimes collaborators of mine, Los Rakas.

Beyond having worked with Los Rakas I’m a fan, especially because they are able to take the best of what Panama represents in its multi-cultural, multi-lingual stew of Afro-Caribbean culture, and mix it so effortlessly with another amazingly multi-cultural place I once called home, Northern California.

The above video is for a single from the Hip Hop in Spanish project: 24 Horas Escuela de Karate, by the always impressive Ski Beats (check the first single with Spanish rapper Tote King here).

If you don’t know much about Panama’s historical cultural mix, I’d say start here. And if you really want to go in, head on over here for sounds like the following, and a lot more.

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Africa as Science Fiction

Since Sun Ra descended in a breast-shaped Ark to recruit Americans for his planetary Afrotopia, science fiction has played a significant role in representations of African life. The original past represented by Africa as ‘cradle-of-civilization’ has recently been inverted in work which measures futuristic narratives against everyday life on the continent. Now the Arnolfini gallery in Bristol, England, has produced Superpower: Africa in Science Fiction (until July 1st), an exhibition bringing together ten works for which the continent is the point of departure for speculative fiction.

The show starts with Luis Dorado’s ‘Untitled (Map of Africa)’ (2010), which uses a cut-up technique to confound the Mercator projection in radial diamonds, as coast and centre are thrown inside out and upside down in beautiful disorder. This work proclaims for the show a promising (albeit perhaps a little predictable) refusal of existing political geographies.

A significant proportion of the works considered the science fiction genre as a Western imposition, which images Africa from an alien perspective. Nostalgia, a triptych of films by Omer Fast, restages a remembered conversation with a refugee and flips it into the retro sci-fi vision of a tawdry television drama in which a white British man seeks asylum in ‘Fortress Africa’.

The importance of science fiction in relation to Africa is, for these artists, manifold. The genre offers the opportunity to consider Western cartographies of the future as fictions in their own right. In Nicolas Sarkozy’s nicely idiotic Dakar speech, he argued that “The tragedy of Africa is that the African has not fully entered into history … They have never really launched themselves into the future …” (Reuters). These comments plainly regurgitate Hegel’s infamous exclusion, and modifies it, denying Africa both a past and a future. In Sarkozy’s impoverished vision, launching oneself into the future involves no more than making one’s country and its resources more entirely available to the global markets.

Works of futurology are often eu-topian (good-places), but the future is often represented as utopian (no-places). Insofar as it is unknown, the future must be placeless, and this absolute otherness conditions its most persistent fictions. Thomas More’s Utopia is based on sixteenth century English fantasies about the geography paradise in the New World. James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ was criticised for basing the representation of future-other-worldlings on certain ethnic groups (not to mention its compulsive adherence to the white man savior complex). The future may be unpredictable, but our imagination certainly isn’t. Perhaps all works of futurology or utopianism are refracted ethnographies.

Fictions are only theoretically placeless, and fantasies which seem to depart from the world invariably happen within it. The future, an important fiction in itself, is formulated in the present. Visions of the future can radically alter the landscape of the present. A construction site, for example, is an eyesore to the spectator unaware of plans to transform it into a beautiful building; a ruined building may be evidence of the failed ambitions of a deceased regime to construct a future.

The effects of Western visions of the African landscape are clearly mapped out in AIAC favourite Kiluanji Kia Henda’s project ‘Icarus 13′ (2008; photo above), which offers a (fictional) account of an African space program, illustrated by (real) images of faded Soviet architecture in Angola. This simple juxtaposition which speaks eloquently to the hubris of inter-planetary ambitions, the waste of resources in Utopian projects, and the aftermath of the Cold War still visible in Africa.

Scholars have often recognised the importance of ethnography to science fiction, and extra-terrestrials are given the appearance of fabled strangers. Pawel Althamer’s ‘Common Task: Mali’ (2010) plays on this familiar argument:

In Common Task: Mali, the group travelled to Mali in order to visit the mythical Dogon tribesmen. Engaging in a series of activities for the duration of their stay, the whole time wearing their trademark gold suits, the Common Task group appear as curious invaders in the Mali landscape, with peaceful intentions. (Gallery notes)

The exhibition displayed images of the group – formed of the artist and some neighbours from his home in the Brodno district of Warsaw – essentially a bunch of pallid men in golden jumpsuits, interacting with local people. The project seems to offer to the viewer a kind of reverse ethography, reflecting on the absurd ritual of Western attempts to explore space. The whole thing is illuminated, like Icarus 13, with the same humourous measure of transcendent ambitions against everyday life.

A retro-futurist MDF structure houses a viewing space for Neil Beloufa’s film ‘Kempinski’ (2007), which targets cliches about the African imagination, presenting a series of interviews with ‘stereotypical’ Africans, who discuss a range of speculative fiction (which mostly involve new sorts of relationships with cattle).

If you need persuading that scifi presents an effective tool for interrogating boundaries of the familiar and strange in Africa, there are two early films by the omnipresent Neill Blomkamp, ‘Alive in Joburg’ (2005) and ‘Tetra Vaal’ (2004), and Wanuri Kahiu’s celebrated feature film ‘Pumzi’ (2010).

The Arnolfini bills this exhibition as a ‘survey’ of the ‘recent tendency’ to use science fiction to reconsider African life, and vice versa, and it is certainly a valuable opportunity for those within pilgrimage distance of Bristol to see these films. While the exhibition indicates the genre has an exciting future, it does not give much evidence of tradition, beyond mentioning 2001: Space Odyssey in the press release. More context for these works, which would have given under-informed visitors such as myself greater insight into the central question: how representations of realities on the African continent emerge from within broken fictions. The ten works selected as exemplars of this trend were not produced in a vacuum, and without their proper historical context, these appear like strange creatures from a distant place.

The potential richness of African critiques of European and American ideas of the future is certainly present within the works on display, but the curation does not provide any external suggestion of its place within political thought. In contrast, a current exhibition at Eva International in Limerick City, After the Future, presents contemporary art’s extensive response to discourses of the future in explicit correspondence with theorist Bifo Berardi’s new book on abuses of the future in global financial markets.

The richest store of thought into the problems of the utopian thinking native to Western modernism is in the exhibition’s only textual work: the script of an extraordinary conversation which took place during the 1976 Soweto riots between South African activist Steve Biko (under an assumed name), American theorist Francis Fukuyama, American architect Minoru Yamasaki and Egyptian Marxist economist Samir Amin. This script, taped to a wall in one of the rooms, is also available online, as part of the Arpanet Dialogues (co-organised by Nav Haq, one of the Arnolfini curators) which took place through an experimental computer system developed by the American military.

The conversation, which ranges across the respective mens’ disciplines, is characterised by a common interest in the improvement of human life. The contribution of the Americans, both key exponents of post-modern thought (Yamasaki had already built the World Trade Center; Fukuyama would later proclaim ‘the end of history’), try to understand the non-American ideas of freedom, but they end up repeating the mantra that America represents the best possible state of human freedom. The dialogue culminates with a statement by Amin that ‘economics is the mathematics of life’, and Steve Biko intervenes to emphasise the importance of ‘human dignity’, which Amin then places at the centre of his science. The men all agree this is the ultimate destination for human endeavour, and this ‘economics of dignity’ seems an imagined future which has not degraded.

There will be a free screening of some of these films on July 4th as part of the Africa Utopia programme at the Southbank Centre, London.

Ode to Oshodi Market

One of the more endearing attributes of Lagos, Nigeria are the markets. In varying sizes and forms, they attract a multitudes from the region for various reasons. Wholesale, retail, technology, textiles, car parts, all sorts of meat, school supplies … you name it, Lagos markets will satisfy your needs; plus some adventure to boot. Markets In Lagos include Computer Village in Ikeja, Alaba International Market, Idumota, Mile 2, Mile 12, Balogun, Oyingbo, etc.

One special market that is sorely missed is the old Oshodi Market. A market known for its large size, diversity (providing for the rich, poor, local, expatriates, male, female, urban, rural, young and old) and lack of coherence, Oshodi Market was Nigeria’s second largest market after Idumota market. Until early 2008, when Oshodi was still Oshodi, pedestrians and motorists found it impossible to move freely in the market due to the the virtual standstill of walk and motorway ways by shops and shop-less purveyors of good. Old Oshodi highlighted the complexity of the city, showcasing the ingenuity of the people of Lagos in their use of the informal market in making a living. Oshodi was a market of legend where there was no room for any perceived sense of weakness by any and demanded a keen sense of sight and wit. This is aptly and beautifully described by Tosin Adeniran in this 2010 write-up:

Struggling to board a yellow mini commercial bus, Mr. Patrick Uwa (not real name), a businessman from Benin, did not notice when his wallet was picked from his back pocket. He got on the bus and at the request for the fare by the conductor, he started searching his pockets for his wallet. He explained his predicament to the conductor, thinking he would understand. But he was disappointed when the conductor told him that he would not allow him to alight if he did not pay the fare. Immediately the bus got to his destination, Uwa jumped down, pleading with the conductor who ignored his pleas. In a second, the conductor bent down and removed Uwa’s Italian leather sandals in substitute for the bus fare of N100 . As if that was not enough, he slapped his back, saying welcome to Oshodi as the bus speed off. That was the common scene at the ‘old Oshodi’.

This inviting allure of Oshodi was however abruptly brought to an end by the Lagos state government supposedly out to rid the state of “rowdiness, lawlessness and disorderliness”. Oshodi was a prime target to get this message across. The state’s Ministry of the Environment (MOE) on January 4, 2009, brought out the bulldozers and flattened all the tables, kiosks, and stalls. Eye witnesses recount that Oshodi’s skyline was enveloped by thick black smoke from around 3 am till sunset on the fateful day. Hence, the end of an institution in Lagos. Memories, histories, nightmares, hopes all demolished in less than 24hrs.

Oshodi market (the real deal) has sorely been missed by some and will continue to be missed. While one can see why this old maiden would not fit in the new over-priced metropolitan Lagos brand that Governor Fashola is attempting to build, it cannot be denied that Lagos lost an irreplaceable artery and pulse with the end of the old Oshodi.

‘We found love in a hopeless place’

The central point of this song and music video by violinist Lindsey Stirling (the singer is one Alisha Popat) begins with an invocation of a familiar trope: Africa is a hopeless place. But African love springs eternal. So much so that it has the ability to save and teach privileged people from the west, who arrive with fancy hopes of ‘saving’ picturesque Africans. Hell, I’m sure you could even save the elephants if you spent long enough prancing around them playing the violin and the elephants somehow managed to resist the temptation to grind you into the dust with their massive feet (note to American celebrities). And people love this kind of thing. By late last night, this video had nearly half a million views since it was first posted on Youtube on Monday, May 7.

Once you get over the Johnny Clegg-Ladysmith Black Mambazo echo, and after some violin performances for the requisite gaggle of adorable black school kids (we’ll never get why posing a lone American adult with a bunch of African kids plucks the heartstrings of the Youtube crowd), another performance under an acacia tree (pop up text reminds you “this is their time hearing a violin”), a virtuoso drummer (another local?), and then the gracious sharing of the ceremonial violin with Maasai warrior  (another requisite trope of any transformative Africa video), we get the re-minted lyrics: “We found love in a holy place.”

Yup, once again, the amazing transformation that Africa is ever burdened with granting to soul-searching westerners has magically taken place. So: this land is now the tabernacle of God, if not the location of God himself. Deep stuff. In the Rihanna original, of course, the “hopeless place” is basically somewhere where you get to do a vast amount of snogging: snogging in a cornfield, snogging in a skatepark, in a burger-joint, in a car, in a grimy apartment after having taken loads of drugs, in the bath wearing Doc Martens. But no snogging for Lindsey Stirling in Kenya. Instead there’s just a whole lot of very determined and very chaste smiling. Grin and bear it.

They also find ‘authentic’ Kenyan clothing and accessories. (Must be the knockoff Vlisco prints, or the red tartan blankets given to the Maasai by Scottish missionaries?) Sadly, it wasn’t the fantastic young Kenyan designers these people ran into. Imagine the transformation that might have happened. If only. The credits suggest Lindsey et al went to Kenya on the dime of an online retail store, but you wouldn’t know this whole Save the Children thing is about selling clothes.

Meanwhile, however, they find the love in a hopeless place.

* Elliot Ross and Sean Jacobs contributed to this post.