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The inexhaustible subject of lost love and heartbreak is addressed by Kenyan musician and activist Sara Mitaru on "You Said" (featuring Sauti Sol member Bien Aime), an acoustic version of which you might have seen her perform a few months ago on producer Blackman's Nairobi Sessions . The song's been well received locally since its release last December, and perhaps it'll find an audience beyond Kenya now that it's got a video.
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Miners form a human chain while gold mining the the Congo (Photo: REUTERS Finbarr O'Reilly) A little history There are critical junctures in human history where a clarion call is issued against an injustice so great but tolerated in one or more parts of the world. The succeeding decades following this call are greatly shaped by how the global family responded to such calls. One such call was that to end slavery in the USA. Some headed the call. Others chose not to, thus triggering a war between those on either side of the call. What would the world look like today if the south had won the American Civil War? Drastically different, I'd wager - a world that barely noticed as discrimination of all sorts fettered freedoms of all kinds. Thankfully, those of that generation who heard the ...
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Zion80 Jewish Afrobeat? Why not? Afrobeat emerged from Nigeria while Israel, the homeland of Jewish people, is way over in the Middle East, but culturally, the two countries might not be that far apart: there are those who believe a particular group of Igbo s from Nigeria might be a lost tribe of Israel (throughout history, large populations of dispersed Jews became "lost" through forced conversions and cultural assimilation).
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The cars waiting at the traffic lights are like rectangular islands in a sea of motorcycle taxis. The lights change to green and a symphony of mid-high-pitched buzzing fills the air as the urban cowboys on their metal horses dart forward to claim the road ahead, whizzing between cars and fighting for the right of way. It's a chaotic 'dance', a dangerous one, too, but the boda-boda , aka okada , aka piki-piki is such a familiar part of street culture that it's hard to imagine Kampala's streets without them.
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Bob Gosani Rise and Fall of Apartheid is a photo-art exhibition currently running at the Haus der Kunst public museum in Munich, German. Some of our New-York-based readers might already have caught the show when it was on at the International Center of Photography late last year/early this year. If you're in or near Munich anytime in the next 10 days, try to see it.
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The Euro-club-meets-Naija sound worked very well on the single Chemical Reaction , which came out in 2011, so fans weren't entirely surprised to hear a few more tracks in a similar vein when the album Away and Beyond hit the shops just over a year ago: Dance Floor , Ihe Ne Me , both of which went down as well as that early single. Thus singer/producer 2Face Idibia would have been nuts not to have put out a video for Omo No Dulling . He and his label mates even managed to sneak a bit of Azonto into this one. Nice.
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Memories of the antipathy towards Heavy Metal In Nigeria in the 80s, to profess an interest in Heavy Metal was to invite looks of bemusement or pity. Liking Metal meant you were either trying to imitate white people, or that you were simply "lost", as in wandered so far from your roots as an African that you'd lost touch with who you were. And that was just for listening. Not sure what would have happened if you'd actually tried to form a Metal band, but I doubt you'd have found many takers.
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Faarrow (Iman and Siham Hashi), Left; Dentaa Amoateng, Right On the air with Afrik Lounge Radio this week were Iman and Siham Hashi, the two sisters from the energetic pop group FAARROW . Born in Mogadishu, Somalia, they fled home to escape the civil war raging at the time, relocated to Toronto, Canada, and then to Atlanta, Georgia, where they began recording, and within six months had caught the attention of one of Universal Motown. These things really happen.
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No one watches televised music talent shows looking for sonic innovators or originality (not with all those cover versions), and though such shows can be pretty cheesy (look at Eurovision, for instance), they're not bad for unearthing pretty decent genre artists. One such artist is Mike Anyasodo , aka iMike, who parlayed his triumph at the second season of MTN Project Fame (2010) into a credible career as a professional singer, songwriter and producer. A worthy winner, as even his debut single that year saw him beating out seasoned professional for awards. Not sure about the rebranding to "iMike", but we love the percussion-driven rhythm in Adaure , plus that touch of highlife guitar.
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On April 20th, thousands of people marched in the streets of Tizi Ouzou in Algeria demanding autonomy, cultural recognition, and according to the banner in the picture below, justice for the Kabyle martyrs. The date and slogans are not coincidental: such demonstrations have occurred annually for decades now, ever since the cancellation of a poetry lecture in 1980. Yet how did such a seemingly mundane event lead to massive protests and the killing of over 100 activists?
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