Quality surfing for afro-media goodness has suffered a precipitously decline lately here at casa forota, captivated as we are with the US elections. Against our better judgement, we have been spending all our alloted Internet time (and more) scouring the political blogs to make sure there isn’t an event that will disrupt what is looking increasingly like the election of the first 21st century global citizen as the leader of the free world.
This feels like one of those moments in time when history bounces off current events and moves in a whole new direction. In addition to a historic election, the global 21st century finally arrived recently with a noisy, gigantic financial thud and a big cloud of evaporated market wealth. There is now no question just how interconnected this world is thanks to money, the Internet, human networks and global popular culture. I have an academic background in International Business, so the global economy is a personal, if not academic, interest for me. So far it looks like most leaders and public institutions are not even in the same ballpark in terms of understanding or even addressing the complexity that surrounds the social, economic and political implications of the recent crisis and the process of globalization that underlies it.
So … what happens now? The US President, as the ultimate symbol of that global leadership, will need to signal the right kind of behavior to attract the concentration of minds and money in the US and elsewhere to continue to take globalization in a positive direction. This is as opposed to what we have seen in the last 8 years where America, in response to an admittedly traumatic event, created a fortress around itself and viewed almost everyone they saw through its turrets as hostile. As the recent financial events are showing, we are all in this together; we may not be crazy about each other but no one person, group, country has the right answer about which way to go now.
Street art poster, Lower East Side
It has been a little baffling to see, on one hand the large crowds that Barack Obama draws, but on the other the closeness of this race given how unpopular the Republican party is and how overmatched McCain is in terms of campaign resources. There are those who love Obama because they can project their hope and aspirations on him. There are those who won’t vote for him because of the color of his skin. And then there are others with no reason to be racist who can’t put their finger on who he really is.
Those of us who have grown up or spent large chunks of their adult lives beyond the borders of where they were born, instinctively understand Barack’s appeal, and his challenges connecting with certain Americans. We have learned to live with multiple identities, literally, to be able to navigate all the worlds we encounter. For instance, I have one “mental” hat for when I am in Central Kenya visiting with my 80+ year old uncle and the rest of my relatives. I have another hat late at night in Brooklyn when I am with my friends. My uncle no doubt claims me as his flesh and blood, but I know he has a sneaking suspicion that he doesn’t really know me (he is so American!). Central Kenya and New York City have little in common in terms of place, but are now linked in the abstract by the global economy and in reality by my existence.
I believe that this has been the core of Barack Obama’s challenge with some of those hard working “real” Americans. This is a man who has lived in Hawaii and Indonesia, has been to Harvard and worked on the South Side of Chicago. Unable to possibly appreciate that he could a composite of those experiences, some pick parts of his life to define him (Muslim! Terrorist! Elitist!) But it is that ability to navigate different realities that is sorely needed at the commanding heights of both policy and economy at this time of exploding global interdependence. A 21st century leader will need the ability to sense that seemingly unconnected people, places, events are nonetheless related by our growing interconnectedness. More and more Americans are getting comfortable with Obama’s potential as a leader, let’s hope enough of them are convinced to make it more than just potential.
Let’s vote already! I need to get back to looking at the less weighty aspects of globalization and its effect on our media and culture.
So … it is early 1970’s Nairobi. Petrol is still cheap. The city is clean, safe and orderly; the City Council picks up garbage regularly. The Kenya Bus Service is still the way to get around town. Matatus are not yet ubiquitous (who wants to ride in the back of a pickup outfitted with benches, anyways?). Kenyatta Conference Center, the coffee boom, inflation, economic collapse, the deaths of JM and Ouko, stifling corruption, AIDS, famine, megaslums are all still in the future. And from the Voice of Kenya (VoK), a University of Nairobi campus student can pick up on his transistor radio a newfangled African urban music, the cultural response to James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Isaac Hayes, to post-civil rights/post-independence Black pride and a re-energized vision of pan-Africanism.
Manu Dibango: “Soul Makossa”
Osibisa: “Music for Gong Gong”
Fela Anikulapo Kuti: Early performance from “Ginger Baker in Africa”
TRACE: Black Girls Rule! Issue. Lately, Claude Grunitsky’s has moved Trace towards upscale fashion and away from the underground “transcultural” scene that originally made the magazine so unique. However, I still like their annual “Black Girls Rule!” issue for showcasing, um, Black women in positions to inspire or lead in other areas of life away from the runway or studio. I haven’t been able to track down a physical copy of this year’s edition (guest edited by Spike Lee), but there’s a link to a free downloadable PDF copy of the magazine right here
SHOOK: I still miss Straight No Chaser that brilliant magazine that chronicled the global underground music scene from “ancient to future”. Shook picks up where it left off (including the hard to read typography). I am yet to see Shook on the newsstand, like SNC, it is hard to find (although one can mail order it from Dusty Groove). Downloadable PDFs of Issues 1 and 2 are available right here.
Curated by the editors and contributors of Chimurenga Magazine, the Chimurenga Library is an online archiving project that profiles independent pan African paper periodicals from around the world. It focuses on cultural and literary magazines, both living and extinct, which have been influential platforms for dissent and which have broadened the scope for print publishing on art, new writing and ideas in and about Africa.
“Is Anyone Reading in Kenya?”: Africa Journal report on the culture of reading in Kenya in the context of the recent Kwani? Litfest.
Posted: October 9th, 2008 | Author:kamau | Filed under:music | Comments Off
Bibi Tanga: “It’s The Earth That Moves Video”
Bangui-born Bibi Tanga is a self-proclaimed devotee of the everlasting spirit of black music luminaries such as Curtis Mayfield, James Brown, Sly Stone and Fela Kuti. As a teenager growing up in France, he learned to play a range of instruments – guitar, sax, bass – and developed a vocal prowess that allows him to sing, chant and story-tell with great confidence and vivid charm. He can even turn his feet to tap-dancing, should the need arise.
Screenshot from New York Times slideshow of Eritrea’s art deco architecture
PHOTOGRAPHY: NY Times slideshow: Relics of a Long-Gone era in Eritrea. Frozen in time classic Italian-inspired art deco architecture found in Etritrean towns like Asmara and Massawa.
Trailer for “Black Orpheus”, directed by Marcel Camus starring Marpessa Dawn and Breno Mello
FILM: RIP Marpessa Dawn. Dawn played Eurydice in 1959’s Orfeu Negro (Black Orpheus) which was a retelling of the Greek myth “Orpheus and Eurydice” set in Rio de Janeiro at Carnaval. With its all-black amateur cast it was both hailed for introducing the world to bossa nova and criticized for stereotyping Rio de Janeiro’s black poor. Despite that and the cringingly wooden dialog, it is an important film to watch. For one, it illistrates the power of myth to depict the universality of the human condition (love, fate, death, rebirth) free of time and place. For another, Camus went into documentary mode to film the carnaval and dance scenes and captured the fleeting moments of authentic happiness that favelistas enjoyed during carnaval, as respite from the sea of endless sadness that would have been the life of being poor and black in Rio de Janeiro. Spooky: Breno Mello, who played Orpheus also passed away recently, just 41 days before Marpessa Dawn.
