AFRICA.VISUAL_MEDIA

screenshot of website image, “Blue Print, Rio” © The Sartorialist
Herewith, a randomly ordered year end list of stuff of note from 2008 here at casa forota.
1. MUSIC: Post everything music: BLK JKS, Esau Mwamwaya, Santogold, Vampire Weekend, Radioclit, Diplo, et al found new ways to mash up musical, cultural, epochal influences to create music influenced […]

[Read more →]

Filmmaker Leah Hamilton documents NYC photographer Lauri Lyons, the first African American female photographer to be represented by Getty Images.
I’m really interested in culture, especially African culture and how it travels throughout the world and changes and transforms and turns into other things and keeps popping up in modern culture without people even realizing it.
Lauri […]

[Read more →]

In response to a tag from afromusing.
Why do I blog about Africa? Two words. Chinese film. Wait, let me explain. I grew up a very westernized kid in Kenya. I am in the second generation of people that grew up with the world view that was distilled as follows: “Modernity (Europe + Christianity) = good. […]

[Read more →]

Street art poster, Lower East Side
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 […]

[Read more →]

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Claude Grunitsky’s has moved Trace towards upscale fashion and away from the underground “transcultural” scene that originally made the magazine so unique.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 […]

[Read more →]

COLOPHON: Brief fling with the pretty but shallow new theme is over. Have reconciled with the not so attractive but reliable Cutline theme. Note to self: need to stop being such a sucker for a pretty face.

Screenshot from “Soweto Surfing” photo essay on Jamie-James Medina’s web site
Jamie-James Medina: SOWETO SURFING
Soweto is South Africa’s largest […]

[Read more →]

“Once In A Lifetime”: The Talking Heads.
The Talking Heads added a healthy dose of West African juju rhythms and American funk to the post-punk quirk of their landmark album “Remain in Light”. I’ve grown to have a deep respect for David Bryne who has continued to bring what I call “bastard music” from all […]

[Read more →]

Vampire Weekend: Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa
A group of preppy, polo shirt wearing, Ivy League-educated kids playing West African guitar-type driven indie-pop. That is Vampire Weekend. They sound like Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel back when world music was new and different, but the “world” in the music is part of its DNA, not just something […]

[Read more →]

Picture by Hans Silvester from the book Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africa by Hans Silvester,
PHOTOGRAPHY: Omo tribal decorations.
… these looks are the sole creation of the Surma and Mursi tribes of East Africa’s Omo Valley. Inspired by the wild trees, exotic flowers and lush vegetation of the area bordering Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan, […]

[Read more →]

Detail of the July issue of Italian Vogue
I recently picked up a copy of the July Italian (”A Black Issue”) Vogue to see what the big deal was. There are few places better than the fashion rags to see the current state of fashion/editorial art, so at the newstand I occasionally reach over the Economist […]

[Read more →]