Sean Jacobs's Blog, page 604

Music Break. BET

Erykah Badu rocks a niqab! Lupe Fiasco's Palestinian flag! At the BET Hip Hop Awards last night.

Here.

Music Break

Erykah Badu rocks a niqab! Lupe Fiasco's Palestinian flag! At the BET Hip Hop Awards last night.

Here.

Photography. Andre Wagner

Here.

Found Objects No.14

"Judge Hatchett Discovers She Is Nigerian." She even does accents. The Hausa gets mangled in the process. So does Benin.

* Found Objects is back.

Independence Day in Equatorial Guinea

What's to celebrate on independence day in the land of the current chairman of the African Union? Not much, when reading what Guinean writer (in exile) Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel publishes on his blog. Or it should be the construction of those presidential villas. (At least they'll be of some use during next year's African Nations Cup.) Let's try it anyway. Melitón Pablo Mangué tells us Guineans are dancing to the tunes of Mbini ('Misek Bi Nnem') and Antorcha De Zaragoza ('Nza Ve Me Nnom') at the moment, although the videos haven't surfaced on the net yet — let us know when you find them. Recent hits that do come with a video are:

Fifi La Mirey's 'Angon Osok':

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Luis Mbomio's shiny Faya Faya:

A classic by Tawola Mesam. 'Bicomsua':

Sandra Star and 'Her Thing':

Yuma's throwing a party:

And some Equatoguinean Spanish (Spanish is one of EG's two official languages — French being the other one) hip hop to end. Verso Roto's 'Arte Sagrado':

Here's a good blog to follow up on what's new in Equatorial Guinea hip hop.

R.I.P. Dieudonné Kabongo

A great actor died on stage last night. Belgian-Congolese comedian, actor and musician Dieudonné Kabongo will be remembered as starring in long and short films like Petit Conte Nègre, Lumumba, Le Huitième Jour and (most recently) The Invader. In Belgium we'll miss his ubiquitous plays in and around the capital. Not too long ago, Kabongo joined Baloji in the recording of his song 'Tout ceci ne vous rendra pas le Congo':

Last May, I learned via a tweet that Dieudonné had been kidnapped by the armed forces in Kinshasa. The news spread like wildfire to other credible sites. Worried but sceptical –being well aware of his political positions– I never imagined that we were speaking of his namesake.

I looked for one of his close friends because I didn't have his number on me. I called to my manager to ask if she could find him and she tells me: "Listen, I don't understand because he's sitting twenty meters away from me, on the tram to the city center."

I finally got hold of Dieudonné some minutes later to explain him the dubious moments we just lived through and he replied with that devastating humour: "It is an honor to see how people react to my death, as if I were Machiavelli. I've received many similar calls this morning. It's good to know people look after their close ones. I can start preparing my will and the guest list."

Dieudonné is a legend from Katanga, Congo, and an ambassador of Belgian culture. My thoughts are with his family and with our orphaned community.

I'm thinking back to our collaboration in the studio while recording 'Tout ceci ne vous rendra pas le Congo' and I'll be playing the song as a tribute to my 'papa' for the rest of this tour.

Merci, papa!

Baloji.

Massage for Africa

"BE TOUCHED. It touches you, if you allow yourself to be touched. Massage for Africa."

On the inside of an Amsterdam bathroom stall door at the Africa in the Picture festival. 10 euro for a 30 minutes massage. That's a bargain. What is it with the Dutch and Africa?

H/T Nerina Penzhorn.

'Hipster in Africa'

This video, shot in Tanzania, is at once hysterical and suspect.  The description on Youtube: "An American hipster visits a Maasai tribal village in Africa. The natives try to get him to dance. Awkwardness ensues." That's it for information.  It's the sort of thing the tumblr blog I Studied Abroad in Africa! would fish out. Anyway, the video was posted by "brianmuller333″ and his channel includes a lot of videos of his dogs and wedding. I was too lazy to send him an email.

We know the video is a joke meant to poke fun at hipsters. So what do hipsters 'do' that make them so ridiculed, hated, and yet, desired?

They are drawn to being 'first' to arrive, discovering, and claiming 'ownership' of a location, a trend, or a taste. In that, they are the embodiment of the American pioneer: others may be there already, but the important thing is that they are the someones who got there first, to stake a claim. They are after the 'authentic', the pure, the unsullied, that which is remarkably 'counter' to the popular/done/accepted thing. Only everything is borrowed, and one can really only give homage to one's predecessors. But as any modern adventurer after the 'authentic' Africa, India, or wherever will find, there's always a Coke bottle in every remote Eden–nothing remains undiscovered, and in fact, as long as another human being is there (however discounted that human may be, in terms of her/his value to modernity), that place was, of course, found.

In a way, the hipster obsession with 'being there first' points to a sadder reality: we are in search of the sacred–something untainted by repetitive use (and has therefore lost its meaning), something unsullied, something that allows us to feel security in its Real. I've no idea if there are actual hipsters attempting to find the illusive sacred in Masaailand, but the caption at the end points to the ridiculousness of claiming ownership, when one 'discovers' something that gives one a beautiful experience – as only hipsters can.

Also, it shows how hard it is to look graceful leaping up and down in one place. That man looks …ugh, like something else.

Music Break / Lousika

The video for French-Ghanaian female MC, Lousika's "No Bee Aloo" says more about where popular culture (that stuff on TV and commercial radio) is heading on the continent than about the music itself.

State of the Nation

A striking piece from "State of The Nation," a new project of Zimbabwean-born, South African artist Kudzanai Chiurai (remember him) which "focus[es] on youth culture and proposes a fresh way of looking at the socio-politics of our continent by juxtaposing the past and the present."  For the show in Johannesburg– curated by Melissa Mboweni–Chiurai is collaborating with photographer Jurie Potgeiter and singers Thandiswa Mazwai and Zaki Ibrahim.

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