Sean Jacobs's Blog, page 636

'I wanna be a Nigerian so freaking bad'

UPDATE: This video, "I wanna be a Nigerian so freaking bad," by a group of American high schoolers focusing on Nigeria in an AP Comparative Politics class, is a minor Youtube hit. The song is a tongue in cheek rip-off of "Billionaire" by Travis McCoy and Bruno Mars. Why Nigeria? "Our teacher has gone to Nigeria multiple times and helped create the documentary Sweet Crude."  (A few lazy blogs, cutting and pasting, kept writing that they were Russian.) The video has had more than 10,000 views since it was posted on June 6.  Some decent political insights, but what's with the guy in the lion cloth? One of the students responded on Youtube:

… the guy in the "diaper" has nothing to do with the video more of a way to make our class laugh. We know there are not all villages it just fit with the original song … This video in no way was meant to offend or make fun of Nigerians or their culture. We are sorry to all we offended.

'I wanna be a Nigerian'

UPDATE: This video, "I wanna be a Nigerian so friggin bad," by a group of American high schoolers studying Nigeria in an AP Comparative Politics class, is a minor Youtube hit. The song is a tongue in cheek rip-off of "Billionaire" by Travis McCoy and Bruno Mars. Why Nigeria? "Our teacher has gone to Nigeria multiple times and helped create the documentary Sweet Crude."  (A few lazy blogs, cutting and pasting, kept writing that the were Russian.) The video has had more than 10,000 views since it was posted on June 6.  Some decent political insights, but what's with the guy in the lion cloth? One of the students responded on Youtube:

… the guy in the "diaper" has nothing to do with the video more of a way to make our class laugh. We know there are not all villages it just fit with the original song which is called billionaire by travie McCoy and Bruno Mars. This video in no way was meant to offend or make fun of Nigerians or their culture. We are sorry to all we offended.

Music Break

Dub Colossus member Samuel Yirga "plays one night a week in Addis's only jazz club/coffee bar, where the way he mixes Keith Jarrett and Herbie Hancock with Ethiojazz has won him a cult following." He says:

I take traditional music and turn it around, and people in Ethiopia are starting to listen to the way it swings now. Our musical culture is under attack from inside and out, it's all rock bands, hip-hop groups and pop singers, and nobody can afford to run a big band.

Via Real World Records.

Free Fort Greene

My neighborhood Fort Greene in Brooklyn, one of the oldest in the borough, is changing beyond recognition, but we still have the annual Fort Greene Festival on Saturday, June 25. This year's headliner: Mos Def (above with Talib Kweli in the video for "History"). And if that's not sick, the annual Afropunk Festival (this year on August 28 and 29), that used to be held in Fort Greene Park and moved to Commodore Barry Park, also in the neighborhood, has Janelle Monae, Cee Lo Green, Fishbone and Santigold on its bill. This year's theme: "Free Fort Greene."  Separately, Antibalas will play in Fort Greene Park at a concert organized by the Fort Greene Park Conservancy on July 12.

* Meanwhile Pharoahe Monch and Baloji (July 2) and Meshell Ndegeocello (July 9) will headline the annual Weeksville Heritage's Center summer concert series in Bed-Stuy.

Music Break

Mikey AKA Kesse Babe, from Nigeria's Project Fame reality TV show, comes with a very nice Twi-Pop, Roots Reggae tune. I was able to visit Mikey's studio recently in Accra. The young R&B singer has a great voice and a lot of talent. Keep a look out for more from him.

'Afropolitans'

If in London next Friday. Press Statement from the Victoria and Albert Museum:

On 24 June the V&A presents Friday Late: Afropolitans, a free evening of music, workshops and performance celebrating African photography, fashion, and style. The evening will host the first UK show by South African house musician Spoek Mathambo and band. Mathambo will perform a live set of his own brand of 'Township Tech' in the V&A's John Madejski Garden.

Friday Late: Afropolitans will take its cue from the current V&A exhibition Figures and Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography. It will explore how Africans living across the world view themselves and their visual culture.

Visitors can enjoy photographs and video projections by South African photographer Chris Saunders and soak up the atmosphere in a north African-style salon especially created by Morroccan designer Hassan Hajjaj. Ghanaian photographer Sal Idriss will have a Malick Sidibé-esque photographic studio where visitors can have their portraits taken and textile designer Emamoke Ukeleghe will run a workshop to design Dutch wax print inspired scarves to take away.

Further highlights include a guided tour through the display of David Goldblatt photographs Lifetimes: Under Apartheid, a special installation of contemporary African fashion by Minna Salami of MsAfropolitan blog with stylist Ola Shobowale as creative director; and an interactive installation by South African designers Heidi Chisholm and Sharon Lombard. There will also be panel discussions, film screenings and contemporary African house and electro music courtesy of DJ Vamanos from London's Secousse Sound System.

"… new trends in Africa and the Diaspora"

At the margins of this year's Art Basel (15-19 June) and curated by Christine Eyene, FOCUS11 presents a group of African artists in the city of Basel, Switzerland this weekend. The selected artists ("reflecting new trends in Africa and the Diaspora") are Nirveda Alleck (above is "Suspended Thought," a 2006 photocollage by Alleck), Natalie Mba Bikoro, Graeme Williams, Ato Malinda, Mohau Modisakeng, Jan-Henri Booyens, Steve Bandoma, Rowan Pybus, Ntando Cele, Vitshois Mwilambwe Bondo, Fabrice Wamba and Youssef Tabti (who is distributing this postcard all over the city these days). With the exception of two, all of the artists seem to reside in South Africa or Europe.

Blogging the 2011 Caine Prize

"What Molly Knew" by Tim Keegan

Keegan's story—containing a multitude of unsettling truths, and revelations so wounding that it seems as though life will never be permitted to return to the routine of peeling and cutting up potatoes for a lamb-shank stew—is so neatly packaged that readers are lulled into accepting his skilful unraveling of details within Molly Retief's life. Here, we begin with an execution-style murder on the third-floor flat of a secure apartment complex in the Cape Town suburb of Goodwood. But behind that explosive violence is a lifetime of tiptoeing around a husband's perpetual drunkenness, routine battery, and the hint of childhood abuse, all of which are revealed within the space of a few days in Molly's life. Here, we learn about the fears of destitution and loneliness that lead women to sign up for such lives—marathons that inevitably result in both endurance and grievous injury to self and others—and the routines that those who undertake such arduous journeys build for themselves, focusing on the stride they must take in the here and now, instead of the eternity of steps ahead of them.

I began writing this review on June 16th – Youth Day in South Africa, commemorating the 1976 student protests against an inferior education system and an enforced language, culminating in brutal state suppression. The discussions at the events I attended revealed wounds yet to receive a healing balm: however much we know about our past, however many details are ceremonially revealed by a Truth Commission or in an ordinary conversation with a neighbour, and whatever material proof of violence might intrude into the intimacy of one's private domain, most people's first reaction is to withdraw from the revelation, find fault with the revealer, and set about the business of spot-cleaning carpets and preparing dinner.

In "What Molly Knew," we revisit the motifs of South Africa's obsessions: Sara, Molly's daughter, determines to reveal some truths to her mother about the man Molly chose to marry after the death of her first husband. Molly doesn't claim to be ignorant of the facts about Rollo; this is the price, she believes, one pays for security. But as this mother is given more and more details about the misery within which her daughter lived, she reacts to the knowledge by deciding to remain bound to the cause of that wound. Molly finds, instead, fault with a new arrival—Sara's Mozambican husband—for having dumped a vast cache of "lies" into the empty vessel of her daughter. This ANC man, who had "fought the Portuguese, although his father was Portuguese himself" and "joined up to the struggle against apartheid oppression in South Africa" who becomes the scab-scratcher: it is he, this intruder-Other, who is miscast in Molly's family narrative.

When Molly is given the power of material evidence—evidence that will mean, once and for all, that she will recognise her daughter's truth, and acknowledge the lies that helped her remain in the security of routine brutality—she destroys that record. What I realised, then, is that Sara's physical and emotional deteriorations had been material evidence enough, obvious proof of the continuing injury caused by Molly's decision to remain married to Rollo. Sara's years of pleadings with her mother were calls for recognition, and perhaps, a call to action. But Molly had already made the decision to un-see and un-hear her way out of the materiality of this evidence. In the end, it didn't matter if videotaped evidence had been handed to Molly, and she were chained to a chair and forced to watch.

There are two sets of people in this story: one who believes that when confronted with undeniable evidence, and given an opportunity to take responsibility, those that caused injury will have no choice but to be "made to own up to everything." For this group, the powers of "forgiveness" lie within their own hands: it is a magical reversal of fortune, in which 'victims' fashion themselves as the location of both power and powerlessness. But those in power hardly ever concede control so easily. This is the second group in Keegan's story: for them, the 'action' of a domestic (or national) narrative must remain within their hands at all cost. Even if the cost includes a complete erasure of such a brazen attempt to change the course of a familiar story.

Purchase the book here. 

Check here for the July Events Calendar in honour of the award.

June 16th

With the 35th anniversary of the June 16, 1976 uprising by high school students in South Africa on our minds today (the uprising that started out in Soweto, triggered by the enforced instruction of black students in Afrikaans, ushering in a new era of resistance both inside and outside South Africa against white racism and economic exploitation), we thought it a good idea to put up some videos by young South African artists that have surfaced on the web over the past year (or so). It's an eclectic bunch although the Johannesburg and Cape Town presence is heavy. Did we miss something? What else has come out of Durban, East London or Port Elizabeth recently that we don't know of (and that we haven't featured before)?

The Federation:

Tumi ft. MXO:

5th Floor:

Kritsi Ye'Spaza:

Deep Level:

Backyard Crew:

Yugen Blakrok:

Purple Hearts:

Ill Skillz:

Jozi's Finest:

Zuluboy:

But let's not kid ourselves, the big crowd-pullers are still the Professor:

…and everything else being put out by the Johannesburg-based production team Gorilla Films.

Nor should we fool ourselves into believing young South Africans can watch all of the above clips in one sitting these days without being cut off for having reached the limit of their monthly bandwidth. What the future holds for the South African youth will be decided this weekend; that is if they still care about that kind of politics or are looking elsewhere for leadership and inspiration or squat in West London.

And that's your extended Music Break.

Music Break

Real World Records has just released (this past Monday) the new album "In Trance" by JuJu, a collaboration album between Brit Justin Adams and Gambian Juldeh Camara. This is the song "Nightwalk. Thoughts?