Sean Jacobs's Blog, page 684

Music Break

The Chicago-born jazz musician Matana Roberts, performing live in London late last year. If you don't take our word, here, here and here are some mainstream endorsements. In the video she is accompanied by Robert Mitchell (piano), Tom Mason (bass) and Seb Rochford (drums).

H/T Greg Tate

White Butterflies

The trailer for "Black Butterflies," the Dutch film about the 1960s Afrikaans writer, Ingrid Jonker, is out. Jonker came to prominence when Nelson Mandela at his inauguration as South Africa's first democratic president, quoted her poem, "Die Kind" [The Child]. She committed suicide in 1965. The film which covers Jonker's affairs with publisher Jack Cope and fellow writer, André Brink, stars the well-known Dutch actors Carice van Houten and Rutger Hauer (as her father). Of course we should wait till the film comes out, but the trailer doesn't help. The trailer creates the impression that she had a continental impact; that was hardly the case. All the dialogue–in the trailer at least–appears to be in English when Jonker (and Cope and their mostly white circle) lived their lives and art mostly in Afrikaans (which is close to Dutch); have the producers not heard of subtitles? There's also a curious Dutch translation of the word 'South African' as spoken by Mandela (sec 1:53) in the trailer.  In an earlier post, I also noted that the same person who brought us the deplorable "Goodbye Bafana"–the film about Mandela's close relationship with his white prison guard–is writing the script.

Anyway, filmmakers have struggled to put Jonker's life on the screen. The previous attempt–a documentary by Helena Nogueira didn't quite pull it off.

Tom swears the best piece on Jonker is still that by the Dutch author, Henk van Woerden, who spent a significant part of his life in South Africa (resulting in a shamefully neglected trilogy about that period: "Moenie Kyk Nie," "Tikoes" and "Mond Vol Glas"). The piece is included in Gerrit Komrij's Jonker-anthology "Ik Herhaal Je." Van Woerden, according to Tom, "… wrote the most insightful and 'emic' piece on Jonker I have read so far. 40 pages of pure gold."

Jeffrey Wright Reads Walt Whitman

This is from a minute ago, but I had to post it as it features part of my neighborhood. Wright, actor and unassuming Fort Greene, Brooklyn, resident (that's also my neighborhood) reads his favorite Walt Whitman poem (from his blackberry) in front of the Walt Whitman Houses on Myrtle Avenue in the neighborhood. The reading was for "… a segment from "Works In Progress," a new TV and online series about storytellers around the world in development from creator Ina Howard Parker." The series also includes a less dramatic interview with Ismael Beah, the writer from Sierra Leone, at Madiba Restaurant, also a few blocks from my house. BTW, is that it for the series?–Sean Jacobs

Snoop Dogg's Africa

The music video for a new song by Nigerian rapper/R&B singer D'Banj featuring Snoop Dogg that went online yesterday. The usual quota of hired cars, half-dressed models and money rolls follow the two showmen. The song title is a form of high poetry: "So Endowed."  Is this male fantasy, "The New Black Atlantic"?  Commenters on the video are declaring themselves, "Proudly Nigerian."

Music Break

Video of the Burnt Sugar Arkestra performing live January 21, 2011, in New York City.

Source.

Chinese Invasion

Some researchers and academics bemoan Chinese colonisation of Africa. However, Wole Soyinka has a different take; during his conversation at Cape Town's Book Lounge in August 2010 (during Cape Town's Book Fair), he said that China offers an alternative possibility that African nations can negotiate with, as long as we do not find ourselves in/position ourselves in the beggar's pose:

"I know nothing about business, by the way. But as long as we are in a cut-throat, capitalistic nation," the Chinese simply provide another opportunity and option – "as long as we are not substituting one form of indenture for another."

Now comes a feature story by Xan Rice of The Guardian, on "the Chinese invasion".

RIce asks some of the approximately one million Chinese, "from engineers to chefs," who moved to work in Africa, to find out "why." Presumably the same reason that so many immigrants move to places they regard as wild, furious, and sometimes barbaric. Here we go again.–Neelika Jayawardane.

Black Diamond(s)

Director Pascale Lamche's got some help from Peter Mukurube (that's him putting Sepp Blatter on the spot in the video), Anas Aremeyaw Anas and 'Basile' for her new documentary Black Diamond: Fool's Gold. From the press release:

It's an old story: in the past, it was known as the slave trade, now it's simply a business ranging from amateur operators to an organized network. The film sketches the portrait of an anarchic and international network of speculators and traffickers of young African boys, under the aegis of the global football cult. From the hovels of Accra and Abidjan to the gleaming temples of sport financed by petrodollars, it takes us on the trail of Ananse the Spider, an ancestral folklore figure, who tricks, cheats and manipulates his peers. Entire families are ready to sacrifice their only possessions to it. While on the human market, if the diamond is lacking, the gold of madmen will do the job.

And this is a (translated) snippet from an interview with the director:

For this film, you have chosen to work with African journalists only, why?

There are three journalists in the film: a South African (Peter), an Ivorian (Basile) and a Ghanian (Anas). In South Africa, Peter asks FIFA president Sepp Blatter the key question of the film. He reminds Blatter that he once called the transfer of young African players a 'new kind of slavery' and asks: "Can you tell us what you mean by that?" Here you have an African in the country that is about to host the first World Cup on the continent – the Biggest Spectacle in the World (after the Olympics) – posing a question that clearly embarrasses the president of the almighty governing authority of football. We have to wait until the end of the film for Sepp Blatter to rediscover his mettle and answer the question.

In Côte d'Ivoire, the journalist is presented in animated form. Why?

Because right now no culture of press freedom exists in this country. Basil is an alias. It is a composite character, embodying an emergency doctor present at a stadium catastrophe and a journalist. They both insisted on remaining anonymous for fear of reprisals. In Ghana, Anas Aremeyaw received the prestigious accolade from Obama himself for being a "courageous journalist who dares to speak the truth." In the film, it is Anas who is doing the 'investigation'. I find that much more interesting. He comes to the conclusion that football is a perfect channel for human trafficking. (…) Anas turns his attention to an organization funded by Arab potentates that 'looks for talent' among 700 000 players aged 13 throughout 15 countries in the developing world. Anas wonders why – if the stated objective is to give a handful of boys a grant every year – they avoid countries like Brazil and Argentina, which have a highly organized system to exploit their own football talents and have asked Sepp Blatter to intervene so as to stop the poaching of their players by foreign predators. Anas follows the trail of some "lost boys" of the system and discovers what he calls an "enormous machinery" of illegal double scouting of talents through which boys are being moved around the world, sometimes for as long as 15 years, in the hope to generate future profits.

Anybody seen it yet?

–Tom Devriendt

'Jew-Man Business'

Within the inner city of Freetown, Sierra Leone lies an area known as 'Belgium'. Hundreds of youth, many of them ex-combatants, are hustling in this area on a daily basis. Jew-Man Business, a documentary made by anthropologists Maya Mynster Christensen, Mats Utas and Christian Vium, portrays three young men in their daily lives, doing 'Jew-man business' in 'Belgium': Bone Thug lives on the street, Junior tries to leave the street life behind, Ice T is a former rebel soldier.

A fragment of Jew-Man Business is available on the documentary's website.

- Tom Devriendt

North Africa Stand Up

Since we're on revolutionary soundtracks, check this: The first song on this mixtape (cover above) of North African rap is the one that apparently got rapper El Génèral, arrested by Ben Ali's police in the run up to the Tunisian Revolution.  From there, this collection of songs can provide a soundtrack as we follow events on the ground in North Africa and around the Arab world (via Wayne and Wax).

Check the description below:

For another post inspired by the Egyptian and Tunisian Revolutions mix, check out Eddie Stats' latest from his regular column here.

Of related interest, some friends and colleagues of mine from Dutty Artz are headed to Morocco to help teach digital media and music production workshops in Marrakesh this summer.  For more detailed information check out their Kickstarter campaign video, which you can contribute to here and help them get there.–Boima Tucker

Deafening Silence

Has there been a deafening silence from African artists and musicians following the murder of gay activist David Kato? This Is Africa seems to think so, and I can find nothing to contradict them. As that blog points out, musicians are usually the first to speak out on behalf of the underdog. But not if you're lesbian or gay, apparently.

Joining the musicians are some media houses – usually the first to complain when they're the subject of censorship.

Again, it seems freedom of speech is a value only sometimes worth protecting. The Ugandan newspapers, "The East African" and "Monitor" refused to run an advertisement paying tribute to David Kato, which was to be paid for by my colleagues at the Open Society Institute of Eastern Africa. The publishing house wanted some of the text "toned down," which OSIEA refused to do.

Kudos then to British muso Marsha Ambrosius for her recent video against homophobia (above). It tells the story of a black gay couple who are socially shunned, and commit joint suicide. Congratulations to Ambrosius for speaking out (see the props here from Colorlines). The messaging, however, is a little clumsy. For one, it did not need the monologue by Ambrosius at the end–the song and the video stand on their own. Neither is the reference by Ambrosius to "alternative lifestyles" helpful. Finally, since the video clearly has a social message, surely it would have been smarter to depict a couple overcoming prejudice rather than succumbing to it in such a stylish manner?–Brett Davidson