Track: Heart is Breaking - Self-Taught Beats Remix
Album: Special Kind of Fool
Genre: Hip-hop
Country: UK / Nigeria
Release date: June 2010 (The remixes) Read more about this artist »
Africa Make Some Noise: The "African" music scene today
Contemporary African music, hugely influential and yet underrated, misunderstood, misrepresented, and nowhere near as popular as it could be outside of the continent (There's a lot more to it than "World music" festivals would have one believe).
As DJ Edu points out in the above podcast, even the label "African music" makes no sense in trying to sum up the music from a continent so diverse (>1,000 languages; 54 countries), populous (1 billion) and huge (China, USA, Western Europe, India and Argentina would fit into it with room to spare). Click on "Read More" Share
Even those with zero interest in football know the World Cup is taking place in Africa for the first time in history. The fact is of some importance (regardless of your opinion on what else the $3.5 bn could have been spent on). African players make up a disproportionate number of top-league stars outside Africa, and despite the lack of resources continues to be a breeding ground of future talent. Click on "Read More" Share
Is anyone ready for an openly gay atheist president?
Friday, 04 June 2010
A few days ago the release from custody of a gay couple in Malawi made the world's headlines. That they were arrested in the first place is ridiculous, of course, and the very real possibility that they could have been sentenced to 14 years of hard labour may have left many in the West shaking their heads in despair about Africa, particularly if they were also aware of how popular state-sanctioned homophobia is across the continent. Click on "Read More" Share
Here's the thing: Lagos is sub-Saharan Africa's most populous city and at over 300 square miles one of its largest. The city is large enough for anyone return with footage of whatever version of Lagos they want to show, slum Lagos, business Lagos, playground of the wealthy Lagos, quiet affluent residential Lagos, noisy chaotic Lagos, the list is long.
So just for all those who fumed at the BBC for focussing only on the slums in the recent documentary Welcome to Lagos, here are the more typical sights and sounds of Lagos, starting above with the din of traffic. Click on "Read More"
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One of the daily burdens of poverty is that you will have your human rights violated over and over again, often by the people who should be protecting those rights. Click on "Read More" for the Johannesburg video Share
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