Congo: Two Stories, Two Lives

click cc for subtitles

fisttap afroeurope & tomdevriendt

Roland Gust was born to a Congolese mother and a Belgian father. He grew up in Congo, believing he was White. That is, until his family decided to return to Belgium when he was twelve. Twenty years later, he made a film about his life: The Belgian Colour Bar.

As long as I kept it to myself, there was no problem. Not for the outer world, that is. I remained Roland, the perfectly integrated coloured. I didn’t want to come across as a frustrated black man who was ungrateful for what Belgium offered him. I didn’t want to be expelled after so many years of trying, because I was begging for a recognition of my Belgian identity. I had to serve Belgium and remain silent.After all those years of absolute and blind dedication to the country of Belgium I have now crowned myself a Belgian. I have earned my place in Belgium and no longer need the Belgian’s approval to be a Belgian. As a Belgian I make use of my freedom of speech to tell my Belgian story. I no longer lie awake about the potential repercussions following my critical discourse about Belgium and the Belgian identity.

- From 5 Questions for Roland Gust by Tom Devriendt from Africa is a Country - The Belgian Color Bar

fisttap @telamigo (tomdevriendt)

Kwa Heri Mandima (kwaheri means goodbye in Swahili and Mandima is a village/growth point in DRC) by Robert Jan-Lacombe is a short, biographical exploration of his early life in the Congo. He never expected to say goodbye, but conflict made it so. Like The Color Bar above, this film explores similar issues of identity, belonging and non-belonging, race, memory, migration and displacement, albeit from a different perspective. It provides a good juxtaposition.

postcard from ajdabiya...

Ajdabiya, Libya: Children flash the victory sign while playing in a square

fotocred: Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images

I Am An African

I believe this extends to all of Africa: North, East, West, Central and Southern,

Happy Africa Day.

Shake the Dust

The amazing clip above is a preview from an upcoming documentary, “Shake the Dust which features hip hoppers from all over the world. Made by emerging film director Adam Sjoberg, the film tells the story of b-boys, and girls in poor communities from Uganda to Yemen to Haiti who all connect through the universal language of hip hop. Acknowledging the universality of music, Sjoberg writes of hip hop culture: ”

"although separated by cultural boundaries and individual struggles, are intrinsically tied to one another through their passion for break-dancing and hip-hop culture....“Shake the Dust” uses b-boying to show commonality and humanity in cultures that are affected by war, disease, and poverty. It seeks to paint a picture of the struggles the characters have– but only as a backdrop to the real story: one of hope and beauty."

Interestingly, there's a side story that developed out of making "Shake the Dust" in Yemen Sjoberg met up with some Somali hip hoppers who dropped some rhymes about the futility of war, their ancestry and forced migration.





For more on Yemen's b-boy crews, I recommend Tom Finn's article, on Sana'a's breakdancers. Apart from insight into how hip hop as universal livelihood and source of creativity for Yemen's youth, the different class mix and multi-cultural dancers stood out for me. The main group featured in this article is The Blast Boyz who are described as "a motley bunch of refugees and expatriates, harking from Canada, Tanzania, Iran, Somalia and America." This is an important thing to remember at a time when there's so much political focus on Yemen. It is often presented as a monocultural and monracial society and yet Yemen like many other Arab countries is visibly multicultural and thousands of years of interaction with countries on the Horn of Africa. Depending on what you believe, modern humans are said to have migrated out of Africa through Yemen and milleniums later, the Ethiopian Queen of Sheba (Makeda) ruled over the then south Arabia and parts of the East Africa. Presently there are at least 700 000 Somalis in Yemen as its one of the closest countries for people fleeing conflict or seeking a better life. Obviously, migrants are in the minority (23 million pop.), but they're some of the small everyday stories which are part of the current, mass anti-government protests which will hopefully topple Ali Abdullah Saleh. On the impact of the protests on hip hop and family life, Finn writes:

"Social stigma, the b-boys say, is the only thing stopping them from joining the ranks of protesters who have been camped outside Sana’a University for the past two months calling for Yemen’s ruler for the past thirty-three years, President Ali Abudallah Saleh, and his family to leave power. “My father would disown me, simple as that,” says Danny Al-Basry, another Iraqi considered one of the crew’s most talented members. “But if things get much worse here, I will have to join them.”

Like many others, the boys say they feel alienated by social expectations that are no longer achievable as a result of the deteriorating economic and political situation. For some of them, b-boying is not only a means of expression but also a vital way of escaping from these looming pressures as well as the monotony and tedium of everyday life in Yemen."

b-boy in yemen

fotocred: adam sjoberg

jacked from www.jonatascouto.com

fisttap @tomwfinn

Freedom, With Love Egypt

Kilimanjaro Studio Sessions

The Noisettes deliver a brilliant cover Miriam Makeba's Kilimanjaro for Levi’s Shape Of What’s To Come campaign. The studio-session video above is of lead singer, Shingai Shoniwa covering the Miriam Makeba classic. I love that she gets the Zulu pronunciation and clicks right and she even worked in a li'l accent there, but still gives the song a modern twist. Props to the bad and backing vocals too! Very nice blend into Never Forget You and switch back to Kilimanjaro.


You can download this session from Goodies | Shape What's To Come

In DOPE Music We Trust

postcard from gaza...

Jabalia, Gaza: Palestinian children peek from windows 

to watch the funeral procession of militant Jalal Nasr

FotoCred: Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images

Lhola Amira: The Harlot's Feet

Lhola Amira is one of the most in demand high end call girls in the country. She has a uniquely intimate perspective on the state of the nation given her select client base (including a host of government officials, a Provincial MEC, business leaders, and one or two key players in the tri-partite alliance). She writes exclusively for Mahala. These are her thoughts.

The jury's still out on whether Lhola's real or not, but Mahala swear she is. This is her second piece and I like this better than her first, so I jacked it without permission, coz Mahala's cool like that. 

FotoCred: Lhola Amira/Mahala  

Jesus is my first encounter with a socialist revolutionaire, but his bible troubles me – it rejects me completely. As a woman, a black person. At least he washed the harlot’s feet. He washed her feet. Which kills me. Naturally I inspect history.

The condition of blackness is serious. Post-1994 has changed nothing for most of us.
This is where I am at: lynched. I’m in a dire space, the illusion of the Rainbow Nation has dissolved. The truth is painful. Out of black suffering I’m at black depression.

The burden of womanhood. The intensity of being black. The mirror lies to me and says, “you’re fine, Lhola, everything is fine.” I walk streets and hear them echo, “no need for your volatile blackness here!” My anger mutates. I seek solace in books at home alone about ‘revolutionary men’. Can they free me from the echoes?

I write my own way out. On hotel stationary. When he’s washing up. When he’s done. These after moments in hotel rooms. These songs of myself. His money in my hands.

My body is written by unknown authors
My limbs are parted by faceless men.
My thighs are gutted ghetto streets.
What more can you take from me?
You pollute my insides. Yet you scramble for me still,
Drawing lines like veins.

Can the revolution still-to-come save me? When my own black skin yearns for whiteness. How weird is that? How sad. Would that ease the pain? Was Fanon right? Was Biko? Is our contemporary Black Wash working? Illusions of whiteness. So many traps. But I’ll write my way out. On hotel stationary. When he’s washing up. When he’s done. These songs of myself. His money in my hands.

I’m the dark cannibalistic sister
Of your fever dreams, your Tarzan dreams.
I am the slave, cotton weaving the modern age.
Made from the core of a universe. I’m black.
Even my words are not my own. In your tongue.
I am a coconut. I’m waiting to evolve. Waiting to take on my white self.
But my black body denies me.
Lynched, my feet dangle, swaying, after this beautiful violence.
My womb sings its painful symphony
My womb’s a commodity
And my eyes look upon your whiteness John, trick, stud
And I smile with dry lips dry, cracked lips that say
Am I white yet? Have I suffered enough?

This is it. Tomorrow I stop. No more. I’ll awaken and wash my own feet. But right now I’m in-between spaces where nothing exists. Until he comes back for more.

The Most Beautiful, The Most Moving, The Most Truthful, The Most Relevant Video of All Time for All Young People Everywhere

fisttap africasacountry

This video is truth. Accept no substitutes. It is a truth that applies to every single person out there, not just in Kenya but in every country in the world. The more apathetic and indifferent we are as tenant citizens, waiting for freedom to fall as manna from the heavens, the more leaders will abuse power and steal from the country in any way they can whether it's bad investments (Iceland), overspending (Ireland), cooking the books (Greece), containing people within a small territory (Israel), clan wars (Somalia), imprisoning the most number of young people in the world (America), fighting illegal wars (NATO), interfering with broadcasting services and scrambling messages (Argentina, China) or imperialistically funding military ventures while public health services and education grants are cut (UK). All of these actions impact on us, and this video touches on how how our inaction, as tomorrow's generation of leaders allows evil to continue. Although this video was made by young Kenyans to encourage other young Kenyans to vote, the genius of this message is that it is universal and it is timeless. It is not only about putting or not putting an 'x' on a piece of paper, it's about actively taking responsibility for the future, particularly for apathetic educated, younger generation who see politics as nothing to do with them or are so disillusioned with the state of things that they don't care any more. 
#deathtoapathy
#deathtorunningaway
#deathtoarmchairpolitics

From Kuweni Serious:

Featuring a random sampling of Kenyans. Directed by Mbithi Masya and Jim Chuchu for Kuweni Serious. Edited by Mbithi Masya. Narration by Bill Sellanga, words and music by Jim Chuchu.

There is a difference between the one who rents a house, and the one who owns a house. The one who rents a house doesn’t care if the walls crack and crumble, they can always move to another house.

The one who owns a house knows that no one else will take care of it, thus they paint the walls and mend the cracks. More than 60% of Kenya’s population consists of young men and women like us.

The problem is that we behave like tenants of Kenya. We have let the older generation tear this country apart. We have let them use us to fight their battles. We have let them loot this country. We have let them fool us into thinking that we’re not fit to run this country ourselves.

So we hide in our alcohol, in our religions and on the Internet as if there is some other Kenya out there that we shall move to when this one crumbles. We sit at home and wait for others to fight for us on the streets.

We want green cards instead of voter’s cards. We are angry, but we are too scared to do anything about it. It is not Obama’s job to save this country. It is not the donors’ job, and the government has shown that it is not their job, either. Responsibility is not shared, it is earned.

Freedom is not given, it is taken. When we decide we want freedom, we will have to get it ourselves.

Because if this country burns, we burn with it.

3 rounds. 12 minutes.

Audley Harrison 32 punches thrown, 1 punch landed. Just. One. The Hayemaker TKO.

Impande Core

fisttap Mahala.co.za

Impande Core are a five-piece unsigned band from Vosloorus, South Africa that's been around for a couple of years on the underground scene, blending neo-soul, mbaqanga, hip hop and funk. I've only just heard of them even though the video's almost a year old and there's very little of their stuff out there on the net, but now that I've added them as friends on Facebook (add: Namanje), I hope to hear more from them.

Impande Core

pic shamelessly jacked from the band's Facebook Album

postcard from the kalahari...

 

San Storyteller 
Xai Xai, Kalahari Desert, Botswana 
pic by Julian Asher, UK

postcard from the maasai mara...

jacked from the beautiful www.stoodinthemasaaimara.com,

subject to copyright, iHope it's cool iStole a pic.

Out now.

Happy Birthday Michael

RIP

L-Boogie in Rwanda

About a month ago, the uber fab, super stylish Lauryn Hill performed in Kigali, Rwanda at Fespad 2010 (a week after the faux Presidential election) and by the looks of things she tore up the place! Get 'em Lauryn, now hurry up and release an album! 

Electro + Kwaito = HyperDub

OKMalume KoolKat (pronounced ok ma-loo-may kool kat, translation: ok uncle kool kat, as a riff off of ok player) is one half of the phreshest up n coming duo, Dirty Paraffin and now he's teamed up with UK electrofunksters, LV. This wickd! choon is set to drop Oct 11th, iHope this gets him outta brokesville for good!

If this is ur kind beat, checkout !okmalume!'s blog for a Dirty Paraffin Greatest Hits mixtape free download & more info.

Monday Giggles Brought to You by News of The World

This past weekend saw the return of yet another series of the UK's biggest singing competition, the X Factor. Among the hopefuls was Gamuchirai Nhengu from Zimbabwe, currently living in Scotland. She has a beautiful voice and did her mom proud on stage, I hope she goes very far in the contest... However, the tabloid press just couldn't resist hyping it up. The News of the World takes the cup for the most idiotic headline and gutter press journalism par excellence! 

Peep this: 

'THE Scots girl who wowed millions on last night's X Factor is a survivor of evil dictator Robert Mugabe's brutal regime in Zimbabwe.
Gamu Nhengu, 18, escaped the horror which left tens of thousands dead - either murdered, starved or killed by disease. 


Her mum Nokutula, 38, fled in 2005 and found refuge in Tillicoultry, Clacks, with Gamu and sons Milton, 11, and Marty, ten.
A family friend said last night: "It's unimaginable what they must have been through.  "There's a melancholy about her that tugs at your heart strings. She must miss her home." Gamu's unique rendition of Katrina and the Waves' 1983 hit Walking on Sunshine had the audience on their feet screaming. And the charismatic student's stage confidence dissolved when she tearfully told judges: "This means everything.
"I want to give something back to my mum, she has worked so hard."
All four gave Gamu a a yes, and she's tipped as a front runner. '

...Needless to say this is absolute rubbish, but it makes for  good Monday laugh. It has all the right 'Africa's the Heart of Darkness' buzzwords and is filled with just the right dose of Mugabe is Hitler rhetoric, plus two absurdities thrown into the mix for 1xtra comedy: i. she 'beat' Mugabe (errr how exactly? Is he secretly on X Factor or is she secretly the new Prez'nit of Zimbabwe?) ii. she is a 'Scots girl' but she is a Zimbabwean - I distinctly remember her stating that she is a Zimbabwean who moved to Scotland and Scottish citizenship does not yet exist (although it is a national and ethnic identity), so she is either a Zimbabwean national living in Scotland or a British citizen orginally from Zimbabwe.


Anyway here's Gamu's performance, she reminded me of Fantasia Burinno when she was on American Idol, they kinda look alike. The meedja really need to leave her alone to do her thing on the show, this overhyping of her talent by any means necessary is dangerous, irresponsible reporting and also very untruthful. This isn't about Mugabe - iBetchu her mother has no political affiliations whatsoever and like many Zimbabweans is an economic migrant forced to leave because of the economy. And yea sure she can sing, but let her prove her worth on stage, rather than the press manipulating viewer's opinions with so much coverage - unsurprisingly the usual suspects, The Sun, the Daily Mail have been at it, but none quite like News of the World...


Shame abt XFactor using autochoon on some contestants, it was uneccessary, because this girl can SANG! Best of luck to Gamu!

Irie Sunday Vibez

This is Meta & The Cornerstones whose members are from Africa, North America, the Middle East and Asia. This beautiful video was shot in the hometown of the leadsinger, Meta-Dia in Jaffa, Senegal. 

From okayafrica: 

[Meta & The Cornerstones] carry a sound that is a literal unification of the world’s musical experience. With a classic feel-good reggae sound that also channels the smoothness of soul, the political fire of hip-hop, and the energy of Afropop, the band has carved a niche for itself, especially here in New York City where they just announced a monthly residency at the 92Y Tribeca. The other day, National Geographic Music premiered the group’s first official video, featured above. This colorful masterpiece gets at the heart of Meta’s music – African inspired reggae goodness.

Kelechi Meets Keziah

Kelechi Amadi Obi vs Keziah Jones from Joel Benson on Vimeo.

simply beautiful.

                                                                                           fisttap thisisafrica.me