Sean Jacobs's Blog, page 623

Music Break / Zaki Ibrahim

The other day, we were wondering where all the female African MC's were at. Give us some time to come up with a proper answer (serious, where are they?), but we think South African Zaki Ibrahim is one of the few. Beats for this track (and cameo in the video) are by Canadian house DJ and producer Nick Holder.

Hemingway and Toto

Imagine that Hem was forced to teach Creative Writing at an MFA programme, and Phil Sawyer, the song-writer for Toto, was enrolled in his class. And like every MFA whiteboy in Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, or Billings, Montana, Sawyer's got some woman he's pining for somewhere, and some others in the programme he's gaming. But…he's still thinking of her. Out there, going about the business of achiving the Greater Good of Womankind, NGO-ing in dusty, walk-a-mile-to-get-the-day's-water-supply, female-circumcision land.

Hem's in trouble already with administration: he threw a chair at a kid in his 6-9PM poetry workshop (why has his career come to this – to praising terrible alliterations?  Why do these people think alliterations are good?). The chair-flinging incident was quickly named a 'diabetic fit'  after an inquest by an internal committee (though the whole class sees him sucking on sweets throughout workshop, and the rapidly diminishing contents of a bottle of Black Label in his office), and he was given a mandatory  year of 'medical leave'. But here he is, with the same fools, and the haunting sense of failure that sent him into a rage.

Then, suddenly, Hem gets invited to run a study abroad programme, in Kenya. He's got no illusions: study abroad and MFA? It'll be babysitting 20 idiots, all nurturing the assurance that they will find their Big Break, write the iconic story about Africa, become famous. But Hem's stuck with admin's request – he's this close to losing his Handicapped Parking spot. He's shrewd – after all, he's attached himself to a succession of rich bitches, each richer than the last, who hand-maidened him along.  He earmarks some of the funding for a TA – Phil Sawyer. Of all the fawners, Phil excels in an exceptional way. It's like this limp biscuit has no sense of selfhood, but one seen through others (Hem remembers the therapist-speak from the last forced marital counseling encounter). He feels a glint of recognition.

Phil will gladly take care of the 20 morons, and imagine it to be an honour.

If you've ever imagined the lost short story Hem writes, in the twin-prop on the way to Nakuru, this captures it. Sadly, Hem's brains have been addled by drink and diabetes, so he's using far too many adjectives and metaphors. It's scandalous how much his little protege, Phil Sawyer, the bootlicker, has influenced him. Ah, the servant becomes the master.

Go read "TOTO'S 'AFRICA'" BY ERNEST HEMINGWAY by Anthony Sams (H/T: Kevin Gibbons)

Medea is a Malian woman

By Dan Moshenberg

Did you hear about Medea? You know, the woman who killed her two kids? It turns out, according to the Associated Press, she lives in Mali, and her name is Coumba, or maybe Tabita. At any rate, she's 18, a domestic worker in Bamako, and she did the unthinkable. She killed her child.

Why? Why does a woman do "the unthinkable"? There's the question. According to the AP, it's because women in Mali are trapped. A poor country where abortion is illegal, where contraception use is rare, women are forced first into abusive, low paying jobs, and in particular domestic work, and then suffer rape and pregnancy. They must then rely on the kindness of strangers to help them pull through. The result? For women in prison, the top three crimes are theft, assault, infanticide.

Mali is indeed a hard place. It suffers crushing poverty, is surrounded by weak and poor countries, is landlocked, and, perhaps most significantly, is on the verge of a population tsunami. Mali has one of the highest rates of annual population growth in the world. The capital, Bamako, may be the fastest growing city and, not surprisingly, is becoming one of the most expensive. This means the gap between haves and have-nots is also increasingly, quickly and massively. As if that weren't enough, Mali is one of the most vulnerable places in the world to climate change. According to a recent report, Mali is hotspot for food insecurity due to climate change.

A dismal picture. And an incomplete one.

Mali is also considered a stable democracy, even a model moderate Muslim democracy. It's current Prime Minister is a woman, Cissé Mariam Kaïdama Sidibé. New elections are expected next year. The leading candidate, at least at present, is Dioncounda Traoré, who supported the recent Family Code legislation, which supported equal rights, or more equal rights, between women and men.

In fact, women are quite prominent all over Mali. Women choreographers like Kettly Noel, Haitian-born and Bamako-based, compose and perform dances that engage women's issues, in Mali and across the continent. Militant women artists like Oumou Sangaré sing protest songs against polygamy as they organize concerts that are women's, and feminist, festivals.  Defiant women singers such as Khaira Arby challenge their families and home communities as they challenge the world to keep up and to keep dancing. Fiercely feminist women writers such as Oumou Ahmar Cissé write, and argue, for the rights and autonomous spaces of women and girls. Malian women are prominently engaged in political structures, in State structures, in anti-poverty and other social movements, and in women's leadership development among younger women and girls.

This is not to say that Mali is perfect or easy. Its homophobic laws, and violence, made the news globally earlier this year and last year. Women struggle daily, and over the long haul, with all sorts of exclusion … and worse. Rather, it is to say that Coumba and Tabita, two young women, are part of a complex local, national, and regional narrative and fabric. They are not simply victims, they are not simply objects of pity, they are not simply vessels of pathos. They are not the African reiteration of a Greek myth or drama. They are, instead, two young Malian women who await and deserve a better report.

'Live from the Continent'

South African artist Spoek Mathambo gets the Tim & Barry treatment for their online music channel dontwatchthat.tv. (Watch it here.) Spoek will be playing in New York (Damrosch Park Bandshell) on August 7, by the way, as part of the 'Live from the Continent' line-up. Other guests are Blitz the Ambassador and Iyadede. DJ's for the night are Boima (if he can make it back from the continent in time) and the Ahficionados.

July 26, Liberia

The oldest republic in Africa, Liberia–formed in 1847–celebrates its independence today.  Chances are Dumyarea, the song we wrote about earlier will pump from stereos and in cars, but there's more. Right now you have two major styles Gbema and Hipco (the co is for Colloquial), and sometimes they mix. All of the songs on youtube are a few years old (because that's how long it takes to upload a video from Liberia — Ha!).

Friday the Cellphone Man – Simple Mistake, a previous big hit in the folk style Gbema:

Monrovia's resident reggae artist Nasseman – Til' We Meet Again:

Liberia's current number one Hipco artist Takun J – Who Make You Cry:

Dream Team – One Man One Cup, a socially poignant, hilarious tune about the way youth are living in Monrovia. (I wrote a post about it here):

John Bricks – Just Be There:

K-Zee's Kountry Chicken (a mix of Hipco and Gbema):

Number one Liberian R&B artist David Mell does a style he calls Soulco:

And if R&B isn't your thing, there's always the gospel:

Music Break / Stromae

Stromae seems determined to turn every song on his 2010 album Cheese into a hit. A video like the one above will no doubt help. I've always been surprised by articles digging for his 'Rwandan roots' (e.g. "in Africa, I am considered white"), for in Belgium we just know him as the dude from Alors on Danse (and its hilarious 'making-of' you must have seen by now).

Maid in Public: Nafissatou Diallo Speaks

By now, anyone who's been following the case knows that Nafissatou Diallo's exclusive interviews with Newsweek and the US television network, ABC, have changed the manner in which 'the maid from Guinea' has been portrayed by news agencies and reporters. Newsweek and ABC must be giddy that they got the exclusives – but giving up her anonymity, or controlling her 'story' was hardly ever in her hands. French news already published Diallo's identity with in a week, after prodding out information about her from such reliable sources as a New York City taxi driver who had a regular run by Sofitel; the New York Post; (a tabloid run by Rupert Murdoch's News Corps) claimed that she made money on the side through prostitution (Diallo's lawyers are now suing the Post for defamation, while the newspaper stands by its story).

DSK's lawyers, who used their agency and access to The New York Times et al to slander Diallo a few weeks ago have yet again used their public platform, The New York Post, to release the following statement yesterday: "Ms. Diallo is the first accuser in history to conduct a media campaign to persuade a prosecutor to pursue charges against a person from whom she wants money."

That's a silly claim – not only because both defendants' and prosecutors' sides have appealed to 'the public' as long as there have been legal cases conducted in public, and a fourth estate to disseminate information regarding cases generating public interest. DSK's lawyers already did so, with incredible aggression that showed their dedication to their client, and illustrated the power accessible at the fee scale a man like DSK is able to pay. That Diallo now appeals to the public, using a different set of emotional appeals from those employed by DSK's defense, is hardly novel.

Basically, the two interviews with Diallo cover what I wrote in a previous post (see "DSK, the maid from Guinea and 'agency'"), exploring the manner in which 'the maid from Guinea' was being caricatured as a 'global player' with agency deployable on the same scale as the 'Global Player': there, part of my argument was that immigration status/money in the bank/trying to get more public assistance (and whatever hustles all that involved) have little to do with a case of rape. If her credibility is questioned based on those issues, then, so, too, must DSK's personal/public financial dealings. (At least, his sexual dealings are supposedly being 'investigated' as the prosecution builds a case about DSK's behaviour in that actually relevant department).

Here's what should be obvious: if one's credibility is dependent on past dealings, and if matters otherwise unconnected to the particular experience of violence being addressed comes up in a present case of rape, then none of us would stand a chance if raped. And as feminists have clarified many years prior, rape is a violent crime that is about a display of power and a desire to make that power manifest to self/Other, rather than some nebulous thing at the nexus of 'flirtation' gone wrong, mismatched communication, and differences of opinion about what to do with those pesky bits of body parts linked to sex and desire.

Need further support for the revolutionary idea that immigration and applications for public assistance are unrelated to a charge of rape? Peter Ward, the president of the labor union that represents Diallo (New York Hotel Trades Council local 6, of UNITE-HERE: the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees – Hotel Employees, Restaurant Employees International Union) writes, in the Union's public statement regarding the case,

"…news reports have accused this member of lying in an immigration matter and on a housing application and her tax forms, which, if true, makes her one of probably millions of people who have done the same things."

Ward adds, "Just as Mr. Strauss-Kahn has great resources at his disposal to support him, our member has a right to know there are people on her side, including her friends and co-workers, and her Union." Ward clarifies that "Unless and until there is strong reason for this Union to do otherwise, she is entitled to our support."

It may, in fact, be wise, now, for Diallo to be in public, and to do public interviews: the fabulosities published about her capitalised on her anonymity, lack of a 'face' and therefore, lack of/minimised agency. As we see her, her body/face/voice/narrative offers the possibility (and I'm being careful with wording here on purpose) of 'agency'. Americans love a personal confession/testimony – whether it's on Oprah, or in a memoir – and tend to give the 'confessor' some level of sympathy (which translates to a degree of 'power' within a limited community). This addiction to public outings of personal details comes from the nation's history of sometimes-coerced public confessions within the Protestant Christian tradition. In tapping into that national obsession with the personal, her handlers may be finally giving Diallo some good advice.

As to how Diallo's avoidance of her immigration status and public assistance applications will fly with Regular Joe America, who largely believe that they stand on their own two feet, with no assistance from government, I don't know. (These are erroneous views of self-sufficiency fuelled by old-school Westerns and more recent Tea Party mythologies. Americans receive subsidies on many things, including petrol, their university educations, corn, sugar, meat, and get some of the lowest-cost food supplies due to big corporate supported illegal immigrant labour on farms, meat packing plants, restaurants, and hotels). But there's a huge population in the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, Harlem, or in any large city in the US, and rural areas throughout the country in which immigrants work under subpar standards, that will respond with an eyeroll: that's what you have to do to make it in America.

And why does DSK not do a similar public confessional?  Perhaps because a confessional is a request to be allowed to re-enter the community of grace – in fact, it is almost a demand to be given grace: in the Christian belief system, all one has to do is ask God for re-entry (with a true and penitent heart, of course) and one shall receive. But of course, one must feel 'fallen' or out of 'grace' in order to supplicate (with all the implications of 'supplication': on knees, bereft of agency, having given up power to a Higher Authority and all that).

Perhaps DSK will appeal to the public, later, for damage control, if his team feels that their ability to control the narrative is shifting away from them. But persons in power typically do not have to put themselves in such a bended-knee supplication position to the hoi polloi. Why should one ask for 're-entry' if one inherently believes in one's intrinsic right to be above the community of believers? There's no need to sway that group's mind, since it has no control over one's position to begin with.

Planet of Hip Hop

Cape Town-based Driemanskap's 'I will make it' is not new, but the video for the track is. We threw 5 questions to Damian Stephens, founding partner of Pioneer Unit Records, the independent hip hop label to which Driemanskap is signed. He is also a music producer (as Dplanet) and one half of an audiovisual 'band' called Pure Solid (the other half is Anne-Sophie Leens, who directed the video above).

How did you end up in Cape Town?

I had an opportunity to come to South Africa shortly after the first democratic elections in 1994. I was inspired by the energy and the feeling that anything was possible. There was an incredible feeling of being part of something historic. I felt that I was on the wrong path in London and South Africa represented an interesting opportunity to re-focus my energy on something more positive. I eventually packed up and re-located in 1996.

I was amazed at the wealth of musical talent and the passion for hip hop culture I found in Cape Town. I was also shocked at the lack of infrastructure and resources available to help musicians develop their talent. Lack of recording facilities, access to sound engineers, rehearsal spaces and music venues with good quality sound systems. Then there's the lack of support structures in the form of artist managers, promoters, booking agents and so on. There is also very little independent media that is willing to, or capable of, meaningfully covering South African hip hop.

Hearing hip hop done in African languages (primarily Afrikaans and isiXhosa) really excited me. After many years of developing relationships with various Cape Town based artists I decided to start the label. I was absolutely certain that some of these artists had the potential to be developed into world class talent.

We are passionate about developing artists who understand the cultural significance of representing the reality of life in South Africa, rather than aspiring to mimic the music and the lifestyles promoted by major labels from the US. In terms of the pressure for musicians to make hip hop tailored to a mainstream audience, South Africa is no different from anywhere else in the world. However, unlike Europe and the States, very few people have made a long-term investment in developing and promoting music which focuses on the art.

The Cape's hip hop scene has a long, strong and important tradition (especially when it comes to Afrikaans MC's). As an English speaking immigrant, how did you relate to this terrain you encountered?

I have always found that hip hop heads anywhere in the world are generally enthusiastic to share their take on the culture. Being around artists and fans, I learned a lot about Cape Town's hip hop history. It wasn't like an anthropological study, I just took it all in organically. I spent many years watching artists perform, seeing the crowd reaction and talking to fans about why they like certain artists. You can tell a lot about an artist by their performance, even if you can't understand the words. If a particular song caught my attention, I would ask the artist what it was about. Direct translations of poetic language are always difficult but having a song deconstructed gives you an amazing insight into as all the cultural references, allegories and metaphors have to be explained.

One thing we in the Cape Town hip hop scene have in our favour is the shared struggle to survive in difficult conditions. We don't have any superstar artists who would consider themselves above working with us.

On the flip side, I've approached quite a few local musicians who, for whatever reason, have either dropped out of projects or taken so long to do anything that I've given up. I'm sure this happens everywhere in the world though.

Sometimes it's actually easier to collaborate with artists from countries with more developed infrastructures and industries – they are more likely to have access to recording facilities and high speed internet for example. I've been lucky enough to work with some exceptional artists in Cape Town so I'm not complaining — we make it work!

Pioneer Unit seems to think one of the ways to overcome this infrastructural deficit is to invest heavily in an online presence. How big a gamble is this, especially remembering what you yourself wrote some time ago (in a different context), pointing to "our limited access to affordable, high-speed internet in South Africa." Which audience do you hope to reach in making intensive use of these social media?

Maintaining an online presence is not a huge investment so we don't see it as a gamble. There is increasing access to the internet via smart phones. I read recently that there are now up to 6 million active internet users in South Africa (almost double the number in 2007), thanks to the proliferation of smart phones.

We recently created a mobile-friendly version of our website to give cellphone surfers a better experience. There is no doubt these numbers will increase as smart phones become cheaper and people become more aware of the capabilities of their phones.

The label has put out some great videos for Ben Sharpa, Rattex, Jaak, and more recently, Cream:

Some of these are being aired on local and national TV (although it took a while for those channels to pick them up). What has been the response to these 'spaza hip hop' videos on a national level?

The video for S'phum'eGugs by Driemanskap was aired on Live, which is a prime time show on the national broadcaster SABC1. It's probably the single largest viewership of any music program on TV in South Africa. The reaction was amazing. Driemanskap's Twitter feed went crazy. There were a few common threads through the comments — people were saying it was great to hear 'real' hip hop again. They were amazed that isiXhosa could sound so good and they were proud to hear truly South African hip hop. Very few people realised that Driemanskap's album actually came out two years ago — it was like a major revelation to a lot of people.

Being played on Live was a major breakthrough. Since then our music has been played on YFM and 5FM — two major commercial radio stations. For many years it has felt like we were being completely sidelined by the media. A few months prior to the S'phum'eGugs airing on Live, Metro FM (a national broadcaster) turned down Driemanskap's music.

Part of the problem is that people are so conditioned to respond to the ubiquitous 'international' sound that their ears aren't tuned into the quality of what we're producing in South Africa. We're very slow to appreciate home-grown talent. South African rappers often see adopting an American accent, the swag, the slang, the visual aesthetic and commercial sound, as a way of accessing mainstream media — unfortunately their efforts are often rewarded.

Do we find independent labels in Johannesburg approaching 'truly South African hip hop' in a similar way, or is Gauteng another country?

There's a video being played on TV at the moment featuring a group of South African rappers who are 'swagged-out' in typical MTV music video fashion, and using American accents (or 'twanging' as it's called here). Hearing them proclaim that they are, 'proudly African', always strikes me as slightly ironic. I am not trying to suggest that they aren't proudly African, but it raises interesting questions about the nature of African identity in hip hop.

African identity obviously cannot be distilled to such superficial elements as visual styling or accent, but in the broader context of South African music, the wholesale adoption of someone else's culture (visual aesthetic, accent, slang, fashion, subject matter etc) is unique to South African hip hop. If you listen to a typical hip hop show on one of the major radio broadcasters, it's hard to keep in mind that so much of the content was created in South Africa as it's so generically 'international'. Hip hop is a global culture so there are obviously going to be some elements that are shared everywhere in the world. However, it begs the question at which point an artist's cultural identity is lost.

We don't believe that you can create great South African music simply by rapping in indigenous languages. Likewise, we don't believe that it's impossible to create culturally relevant music if you rap in English. However, language is undeniably one of the most powerful factors in expressing cultural identity. Driemanskap always struggle to translate their songs into English because their lyrics are so loaded with cultural references. If you limit yourself to using American English, you risk losing the richness of your cultural identity.

The polemic of Johannesburg vs. Cape Town is often used as a lazy way of distinguishing between so-called 'underground' and 'commercial' music. However, I don't believe that it's particularly helpful as an analysis of South African identity in hip hop. There's culturally relevant hip hop being made all over South Africa.

What white faces did to the Mau Mau

Looks like toothfish won't save the British Foreign Office this time.

The judge presiding over the matter, Justice McCombe, has ruled that the four Kenyan claimants, Jane Muthoni Mara, Paulo Muoka Nzili, Ndiku Mutua and Wambugu Wa Nyingi now have permission to sue the British Foreign Office for their alleged torture by British colonial authorities 50 years ago. A fifth claimant already died waiting for justice. McCombe ruled that they have "arguable cases in law", but has stopped short of stating that there was evidence of 'systematic abuse' carried out during the Mau Mau insurgency.

Up till now, the Foreign Office argued that the UK government was not liable for acts committed during the colonial period, using an obscure law about toothfish (see "Mau Mau and Toothfish" for a detailed explanation) to illustrate that all jurisprudence of such matters devolved to the Kenyan government after Britain left.

In April this year, I interviewed Faith Maina, one of my colleagues at SUNY-Oswego . She remembers how her father—a teacher—was detained twice during the Mau Mau uprising, after which he could only get a job as a "boy" in the city; how her family lost their lands; and how some Kenyans, like those of the Michuki family, cooperated with the British, partaking in torture and becoming some of the biggest beneficiaries of the lands confiscated from fellow Kenyans.

She wrote to say: "This is indeed very good news!! What has always been denied can be shared in public…and whether the victims win or not doesn't matter…at least to me. What I know is that healing will begin for the millions of my parents generations that have lived in shame and silence."

During the period of insurgency, the security forces regularly used two techniques: "screening", or interrogation; and "dilution", the use of force to extract co-operation from suspects. In camp Hola, the beatings are believed to have left 11 detainees dead. The descriptions remind of the methodology used in present day torture camps run (or authorized) by the US government: Wambugu wa Nyingi survived being tied upside down by the feet and beaten at Hola:

Nyingi said: "…they had locked us up in an isolated space. There were twelve of us and they killed eleven. I was the only survivor."

Women and men were systematically sexually assaulted (at times using bottles filled with hot water, which were forced into vaginas), and castrations were by no means rare, as Professor Maina said during her interview. And it's not just Kenyans who are confirming the stories of torture. A former district officer during the Emergency, John Nottingham, 81 (originally from Coventry), spoke about how he saw an old man being attacked: "It was clear that there was a major piece of evil going on in Kenya, and I have learned more about it in recent years," he said.

In the Sunday Independent,  the story brought the usual vitriol from the readers: one set agreed the UK could no longer hide from its deeds, bringing about responses like "You're obviously too young to know what the Mau Mau did to white faces; not that they had faces for long!" from cooperative5.

Others, like Run4demHills, had personal details to share: "My father, who was in military intelligence, was district officer for Nandi District, Rift Valley Province in 1955. My father hated what he was made to do and what was going on in Kenya and managed to get himself transferred to Aden a little over a year later."

Run4demHills then added: "Although I was only two when I left Kenya I can still remember the wonderful smells of Africa. I have heard it said that this is not uncommon."

To be fair, smell is the sense most connected to memory – more than those of sight, sound, or touch. But why are people always talking about the smell of Africa, as if the whole continent smells like one monolithic blob?

Egypt, July 23

July 23 is actually the celebration of the The Free Officer's Movement that culminated in a military coup d'état in 1952, overthrowing King Farouk I. Most Egyptians don't celebrate February 22 – the date in 1922 when the British declared Egypt's "independence" – as the British continued to back Egypt's monarchy and dominate its economy. Since the endurance of the military rule and neo-liberal economic policies in Egypt is what the revolution today struggles against, Egyptian pop music has become increasingly politicized in favor of the revolutionaries. Some of the pop songs below are in honor of the revolution. But of course, some are the standard of Egyptian pop music – cheesy, fun, easy to dance to and always honorably defending Egypt's reputation as the musical backbone of the Arab-speaking world (or so we like to think!).

I should confess, I'm more partial to the classics of Egyptian music - Sheikh Imam and Umm Kulthum, for instance. But the following are all in good fun, and I have to admit I've taken up the challenge to bellydance to most of them at one point or another!

First, a song from Harfoosh, an Egyptian singer who continues a very long tradition of satirizing corrupt politicians in song (and did so before the January 25 revolution began):

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This band, Sodfa, has recently come out with a song in support of Palestine (the band members make sure they're very present at cultural events related to January 25):

Egyptian rap group Arabian Knightz with Palestinian artist Shadia Mansour:

The pop/techno craze has pretty much overtaken mainstream pop music in Egypt, and here's Mohamed Hamaki's contribution to the club scene:

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Somaya el Khashab isn't my favorite singer (or dancer, or actress…), but she's been steadily climbing the charts over the past few years:

Kareem Wagdy keeps a couple traditional instruments present in his songs – and always a half-dressed woman in his videos. You won't be surprised to hear he brings his own hairstylist to every recording: