Sean Jacobs's Blog, page 597
October 28, 2011
Music Break. Bonus Friday Edition
5 for le weekend.
"Propaganda" by The King's Will (one half is Musa Okwonga, British-based artist of Ugandan heritage.) The song is a homage to PR and advertising pioneer Edward Bernays:
M.E.D.'s "Blaxican."
Video for "Rain On My Lips" by rapper Pepe Haze (Burundian) and singer Steph McKee (Kenyan). They're based in Nairobi, Kenya. The video is described as "the first ever African music video that is entirely in stop motion animation."
A scene from "Coz Ov Moni," "the world's first pidgen musical" by Ghanaian duo Fokn Bois.
Two more scenes: here and here.
A parody of rapper Drake's "Up All Night" by Femi Lawson:
Sweden and Senegal collaborate. Sousou and Maher Sissoko:
See you Monday.
H/T: Kweligee and Welfare State of Mind.
'Ghanaians like sex too much to be homophobic'
October 27, 2011
Music Break. X Plastaz
Nice work by Tanzanian crew X Plastaz, with some help of Fid Q, Bamba Nazar and J4. The video comes with subtitles, and the lyrics speak for themselves. Curious how many recent tracks carry an explicit 'Africa' in the title.
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The films of Sarah Maldoror
By Basia Lewandowska Cummings*
Sarah Maldoror's film Sambizanga (1972) is a courageous and powerful piece of filmmaking. Beautifully shot in 35mm film, the director masterfully tells the story of a young couple – Maria and Domingos – who enjoy a seemingly blissful family life with their young baby, until Domingos is seized by the Portuguese authorities for being a suspected political activist, and taken to a brutal prison in the city. The film follows Maria on her heroic journey to find and save her husband; the narrative is punctuated by her heartbreaking cries; 'Domingos!', and her encounters with officials who turn her away, while Maldoror cuts to scenes of her husbands torture, creating a sense of frantic urgency to the film.
Sambizanga captures a moment in Angolan history where a tide turned. By deliberately setting the film in the past – 11 years previously – Maldoror is able to show the deaths and acts of brutality that served to both unify and advance the liberation movement. She shows, as she says in her own words 'the political consciousness of the people had not yet matured'. Domingos' torture and Maria's struggle to learn the truth are symbolic of a generation of people becoming politically aware. At a time when a single death was still an inconceivable act of violent oppression, Maldoror's narrative captures a society on the knifepoint of change. Later in this period, death and injury were common in the fight for freedom; it is estimated that by the end of 1961, the first year of the war, 50 000 Africans died as a result of rioting, massacres, mass executions and torture, while approximately 450 000 fled to neighboring Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo).
Maldoror is honest about the didacticism of her film; 'to make a film means to take a position, and when I take a position, I am educating people. The audience has a need to know that there's a war going on in Angola… I make films so that people – no matter what race or color they are – can understand them'.
Her approach to her art has consistently been one tied up in the world of politics, and in the desire for political change. Her personal life is an astounding story in itself. Maldoror is of Guadeloupian origin, but moved to Paris early in her childhood. She was invited in her youth to study film at the Moscow Film Academy in the early 1960s, under the eye of the great Russian director Mark Donskoi. Here, following in the footsteps of the 'godfather' of African Cinema, Ousmane Sémbene, she learned about politically committed cinema, developing a revolutionary aesthetic of her own. She worked as an assistant on Gillo Pontecorvo's celebrated film The Battle of Algiers (1966), and soon after made her first short film Monamgambée (1969), which acts as both a narrative and technical practice for her later feature Sambizanga.
Maldoror was by no means an outsider to the liberation movement in Angola. She was closely involved with the MPLA – the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola – as her husband, Mario de Andrade was its former president, who had a close role in the writing of Sambizanga's script. In her life, as in her films, Maldoror is concerned with community, action and politics. Her scripting of a powerful, stubborn and loving woman as the central character of her feature film both embodies and provokes the complex notions of community during struggle, and what political struggle really is. Domingos is the 'activist', brutally treated for the possession of a mere flyer, his struggle is physical, degrading, the scenes of his torture are difficult to watch for Maldoror has so adeptly shown us his compassionate and loving character in an earlier family scene at his home. Maria's struggle is protracted, anguished, in the dark. A community of women come to her aid to remind her of her responsibilities to her child. Maldoror achingly reminds us of the ongoing struggle to continue living in such politically volatile times.
The narrative trajectories that Maldoror shows us skilfully unravel a political situation made up of individuals. In the final scene of the film, we see the activists dancing, socialising; upon the news of Domingos' death, they stand in a circle and celebrate- it is both a moment of mourning and of joy, for as Mussunda – one of the leaders – says, Domingos has begun his real life, at the heart of the Angolan people. This line captures the true spirit of Sambizanga; its will to show the development of a strong political consciousness and a will for change in Angola.
Sarah Maldoror will be participating in a Q & A after the screening of Sambizanga at the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton on Saturday 12th of November at 03.00PM. Maldoror will also be presenting the Silver Baobab Award for Short Film on Sunday the 13th of November at the Hackney Picturehouse.
* Basia Lewandowska Cummings will blog for AIAC about film and art in London.
Woyzeck on the Highveld
In case you were too young to attend William Kentridge's original version of the early nineties puppet play 'Woyzeck on the Highveld' (as I was), the South African Handspring Puppet Company gives us a new chance to see it. They're on tour in the UK these days. Future dates elsewhere will follow (I hope).
October 26, 2011
Music Break. Alabama Shakes
I have a student (born in Texas) who insists he won't travel to or through Mississippi or Alabama. What if he had to see The Alabama Shakes play live?
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Chris Martin's Brain
Last week, AIAC ran a short post on the then-new video for Coldplay's most recent single, "Paradise." On Monday the album went on sale.
To refresh the memory: The video shows Mr. Elephant (lead singer Chris Martin) escaping from a zoo in London, catching a plane out of Heathrow to Cape Town, South Africa, where he moonwalks for spare change. With these modest earnings Mr. Elephant is able to buy a unicycle, which he uses to pedal across nearly abandoned highways and lonely dirt roads, through mountainous regions and a wildlife preserve of some sort (the giraffe did not appreciate his presence). Eventually, through the heat haze of the grasslands Mr Elephant finds what he's been searching for: his herd. Now reunited with his kin, in the joyous kicking of dirt and an amalgamation of strange dance moves, they finish the song before (white) masses in a Johannesburg stadium.
Nearly 5 million views later on Youtube, there are many possible interpretations of the video for "Paradise."
The verdict on AIAC then was very dismissive of the video and Coldplay's stadium rock. I wanted to give it a second look. So I waited for when the album when on sale Monday to hear the rest of the album.
Given that Coldplay, and its lead singer Chris Martin in particular, are very politically active–working with organizations such as Oxfam and Amnesty International–it is safe to assume that there is some sort of ulterior motive to the video's content.
Mylo Xyloto (the title of the new album), tells the story of the modern-day rebel. On par with demonstrators in Zuccotti Park here in New York, Mylo Xyloto's unnamed character (we'll call him Mylo, for short) exclaims,
I turn the music up, I got my records on/from underneath the rubble sing a rebel song/don't want to see another generation drop/I'd rather be a comma than a full stop…
Mylo falls in love with a girl (if you're following along with New York Magazine's imaginary summary, the girl would be played by Rihanna, who collaborates on the song "Princess of China"), but ultimately gives her up, choosing to fight for the greater good over happiness for himself ("the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one," yes, I'm referring to the Marxist logic of Spock).
In "Paradise," which takes place early on in Mylo's story (track three of 14), the girl dreams of paradise, of escaping from the "bullets," where every tear matters—"every teardrop is a waterfall."
In an interview late last year, Martin explained that Mylo Xyloto—a name which he "took from the randomness of the universe," so he told Stephen Colbert, which prompted the response, "Chris, are you high?"—was inspired by "…anybody who's standing up for themselves. It's about being free to be yourself and to express yourself among negative surroundings. Being able to speak out or follow your passion, even if everybody seems against it."
So Martin the elephant (endangered species) escapes from Britain (the oppressors) and goes home to South Africa (the oppressed), fighting all obstacles, riding a unicycle (so lonely! he can't even get two wheels to join him!) in order to be free. Coldplay's previous album, Viva la Vida, was laced with themes from the French revolution; Mylo Xyloto is the 60s, MLK, Vietnam, South Africa, Egypt, Wall Street …
In this album of resistance, "Paradise" can be found by those who fight for it, like those who participated in New York's graffiti scene in the 1970s, and by those who fought against Apartheid in South Africa. The problem of the video, however, is that in its quiet depictions of sweeping vistas, mountains, and gentle giraffes, Coldplay's "Paradise" in South Africa is an antiquated perception held by many in the West.
I don't believe the video is meant to represent South Africa as a literal paradise, but it is certainly an easy connection to make. In tipping his hat to post-apartheid, Martin and the video's director Mat Whitecross, promote outdated and problematic tropes about Africa, unmindful of the current race and power structures in South Africa, in particular.
Coldplay is a very popular band, in particular, millions of fans in the West with little knowledge of Africa other than romanticized version they see in movies, infomercials or tourist pamphlets. At some level the video for "Paradise" just adds to Western misinformation, than they do to illuminate something about the political struggles going on right now as Martin or the band wants to claim.
'My Africa is in the dark'
Malian rapper Mokobe ripped into French perfumer Jean-Paul Guerlain's comments about "hard working blacks" in his recent video, "Ca passe tout seul." Now Burkinabé MC Art Melody takes on Nicolas Sarkozy and other "chefs d'états." That's a sample of Sarkozy's infamous Dakar speech at the beginning of the song about how Africans have "not fully entered into history."
As for African leaders, Art Melody accuses them of only being interested in selling Africa "in the name of France-Afrique." (Like Gabon's Lord Ekomy Ndong did last year.) The video is above; part of the chorus is translated below.
The ebony is in the dark. The black is in the dark that has plunged us into the dark. My Africa is in the dark…
BTW, Art Melody also does up-beat songs. (Read This Is Africa's feature on Art Melody.)
H/T: okayafrica.
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'The ebony is in the dark'
Malian rapper Mokobe ripped into French perfumer Jean-Paul Guerlain's comments about "hard working blacks" in his recent video, "Ca passe tout seul." Now Burkinabé MC Art Melody takes on Nicolas Sarkozy and other "chefs d'états." That's a sample of Sarkozy's infamous Dakar speech at the beginning of the song about how Africans have "not fully entered into history."
As for African leaders, Art Melody accuses them of only being interested in selling Africa "in the name of France-Afrique." (Like Gabon's Lord Ekomy Ndong did last year.) The video is above; part of the chorus is translated below.
The ebony is in the dark. The black is in the dark that has plunged us into the dark. My Africa is in the dark…
BTW, Art Melody also does up-beat songs. (Read This Is Africa's feature on Art Melody.)
H/T: okayafrica.
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