Sean Jacobs's Blog, page 679

Found Object, No. 11

A rare film clip (there must be more where this came from), posted on Youtube in September 2010, of the Don Cherry Trio live in Paris in 1971. Cherry, an American, is on piano and cornet and is accompanied by South African bassist Johnny Dyani and Turkish percussionist/drummer, Okay Temiz.  All three called Sweden home at that time. Cherry is singing in Xhosa; probably one of Dyani's compositions. Cherry later appeared on Dyani's 1978 album, "Song for Biko." Dyani and Temiz later formed the group Xaba with another South African Mongezi Feza. Dyani died while playing on stage in Germany in 1986. Chimurenga Magazine's most recent issue has an interview by Aryan Kaganof with Dyani.

I'm Gonna Dance

No more "Down on My Knees." Nigerian-German singer Ayo's new–well at least one month old–single of her upcoming March 2011 release, "Billie-Eve," is all empowerment.

Sierra Leone Has Style

Short, tight video profile of Freetown, Sierra Leone-based designer Adama Kai and her label Aschobi Designs made by UK production company, Nomad Productions.

The Black Portrait Symposium

Information.

The Race Card

Bridging the Western art world and the West African film industry, London-based artist Doug Fishbone cast himself as a local farmer in the film Elmina, a feature-length movie shot and produced in Ghana and starring well-known Ghanaian actors. The over-the-top story is rife with witchcraft, murder, and intrigue as the characters battle against corrupt multinational corporations, but it all pales in comparison to how bizarre (sometimes painfully and sometimes amusingly) it is to watch Fishbone, "a white Jewish guy from New York," play the lead role without any reference to the overtly odd casting choice. "In a quietly radical way [it] completely overturns conventions of race and representation," he says. Adding another level of interest is Fishbone's choice to release the film throughout Africa on DVD–planting one foot in mass-media–as well as to put it on limited display at the Tate Britain and Rokeby galleries in London–planting the other in the more limited art world.

From the little I've read I like the politics behind this project, but I'd like to hear what others think of it.  Here's the film's trailer:

Via [H/T: Nerina Penzhorn]

The Land Deals

Examine the 21st century's land deals in African countries, and it's mostly a collection of unequal "agreements" struck with wealthy nations and companies, busy securing land on which food will be produced.  The International Institute for Environment and Development's Lorenzo Cotula's article "Land deals in Africa: What is in the contracts?" provides a rare glimpse into the backroom handshakes, the details of which remain mostly secret.

Though hundreds of deals have been struck, Cotula examines 12 publically available contracts in which large areas of land have been leased. The deals range from a timber deal in Sudan to a rice and corn deal in Madagascar – and the agreements are not exactly in favour of the African nations:

The leases are long, up to 100 years, and the rents are low – a dollar per hectare per year in one case. In another contract, the land is allocated explicitly for free. In some cases investors get priority access to water, the very stuff of life.

While governments make these terrible decisions to hock the family diamonds (without asking the family), hoping that the deals will bring long-term benefits, the deals are so vague and so lopsided that there is hardly a place for recourse, once the sale is made.  However, as we said in a previous entry about the fears of Chinese investment/invasion in Africa, the nations on the "receiving end" do not have to supplicate in the beggar's pose  - in Liberia, "where land contracts are ratified by its parliament and available online," the country's "political leadership allied with expert legal assistance" to produce contracts "which are shorter in duration, clearer on investor commitments."

Read the story here.

H/T: AIAC reader ebele.

–Neelika Jayawardane

R.I.P.

By London-based poet Suli Breaks.

Music Break

Tidal Waves (the "hardest working band in South Africa" – they really are) played a set at MK Studio 1 recently. 'What you got' is on their latest album Manifesto. They're planning to tour in the US later this year. We'll keep you posted, or you can follow them yourself of course. - Tom Devriendt

'Heal the Hood'

Short BBC profile of Emile Jansen, a staple of Cape Town hip hop since the 1980s and community activist. (He is contemplating a run as a councillor in local elections scheduled for later this year.) Jansen, also known as Emile XY and a founder of the group Black Noise, runs the non-profit Heal the Hood where he "teaches kids to dance and sing while preaching non-violence."

'100% Liberian'

African nationalism from an unlikely quarter;  rapper I-20 from Ludacris-owned label, Disturbing Tha Peace. Great hook too.  (Actually scrap the stuff about unlikely quarters.)

via Bombastic Elements